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Quick answers to the things people ask first. Each one links to the page that covers it in full — start here, then follow the link when you want the detail.
Yes, Ryoku is an Omarchy alternative built on the same foundation: an opinionated, keyboard-driven, pre-riced Arch Linux and Hyprland desktop that works on day one, and it grew from that lineage. What differs is what Ryoku ships on top — its own Quickshell UI, the Ryoku Settings (Hub) control center, a plugin and Extras catalogue, and a reproducible single-source system driven by the ryoku CLI (update, rollback, doctor). If you like the Omarchy idea, Ryoku is a close, actively developed alternative. See Omarchy heritage.
Run ryoku update. One command takes a snapshot, brings the system current from the signed [ryoku] repo, re-lays the base config with ryoku materialize, and reloads the shell. There is a single channel (main) — no channel switching and no git-pull update. You can also start a run from Ryoku Settings > Updates or the update island in the pill. See CLI for the command reference and Updates for the full model.
On a btrfs root every ryoku update is wrapped in a snapper pre/post snapshot pair. Run ryoku rollback to list snapshots and pick one, or ryoku rollback <id> to go straight to it. The same snapshots are selectable from the Limine boot menu, so even a system that will not boot back into Hyprland can be recovered from the bootloader. The full rollback and recovery path is in Updates.
Ryoku’s base config is laid down under ~/.config by ryoku materialize, which runs on every update. Your own changes go in the dedicated override files that updates never touch: ~/.config/hypr/user.lua, ~/.config/kitty/user.conf, ~/.config/fish/user.fish, and ~/.config/hypr/monitors_user.lua. Editing shipped files in place works too, but the override files are the update-safe way to customize. See Customize.
Pick a theme in Ryoku Settings > Appearance — Ryoku ships fifteen. For wallpapers, press Mod + W to cycle a random one, Mod + C for the quick picker, or Mod + Shift + W to open Ryowalls and browse wallhaven. By default the color palette follows the wallpaper (via wallust); some themes lock to a fixed palette instead. See Theming.
Open Ryoku Settings > Store and install an Extras bundle — the Gaming bundle brings Wine/Proton, launchers, overlays, and a Wayland-friendly Discord. From a terminal it is ryoku-extras-install install bundle gaming. You can still use pacman, the AUR, and Flatpak directly for anything not in a bundle. See Extras.
Desktop widgets are shell plugins. Install one from Ryoku Settings > Store, then enable and place it from the Installed tab. A desktop widget lives on the wallpaper — left-drag to move it, right-click to lock or hide it, and drag its corner to resize — while a frame popout melts out of a screen edge on hover. See Plugins.
Yes. Ryoku is the desktop, not the kernel. The CachyOS kernel is an opt-in Extras bundle; installing it leaves the stock Arch kernel in place as a fallback, so you can always boot back or remove the bundle. See Kernels.
Open Ryoku Settings > Input. It sets keyboard layout, key repeat, and pointer/touchpad behavior, and applies the change live. The chosen layout is also carried into a fresh session. See Hardware and Settings.
Set resolution, scale, and rotation in Ryoku Settings > Displays. Laptop (eDP) panels expose only their native resolution, so use the scale options to get a smaller desktop. For graphics, Displays > GPU pins the render device; it is read at login, so log out and back in to apply it. See Hardware and Troubleshoot.
Run ryoku reload to restart the shell, then check ~/.local/state/ryoku-shell.log. The usual causes are an update that left the shell out of sync (run ryoku update again, or ryoku rollback), a Lua error in a hand-edited user.lua or monitors_user.lua, or a corrupt generated monitors.lua/gpu.lua that ryoku doctor repairs. The full checklist is in Troubleshoot.
Yes. The shell installer scans your machine, shows you the toggles it will apply, backs up every config it touches (with a restore.sh), adds the [ryoku] repo, installs the Ryoku packages, and materializes the config. It is fully reversible with ryoku-shell-install --uninstall. See Convert.
Yes, on a single disk or a dedicated one. Ryoku reuses your existing EFI partition and installs into unallocated free space — it never resizes Windows, so you shrink the Windows partition first (Windows Disk Management) to make room, then pick Install alongside Windows in the installer. If the Disk layout step will not let you press Tab, there is no free space or no EFI partition yet. Full steps: Dual-boot with Windows.
No. Rashin is optional and off by default; when you do enable it, the daemon binds 127.0.0.1 only and nothing leaves the machine. The knowledge vault is plain markdown on your disk, and you bring your own model provider through Hermes. See Rashin and Security.
Import the release key, confirm its fingerprint, then gpg --verify the ISO against its .sig and sha256sum -c its .sha256. Every ISO and every [ryoku] package is signed by Ryoku Releases <[email protected]>. The exact commands and the fingerprint to check against are in Security.

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Still stuck?

Troubleshoot

Logs, ryoku doctor, recovery, and how to file a useful bug.

CLI

The full ryoku command reference behind every answer above.
Last modified on July 5, 2026