DaVinci-Resolve-Omarchy/README.md

DaVinci Resolve - Omarchy

Video Guide

Install DaVinci Resolve on Omarchy (Arch Linux + Hyprland) with NVIDIA GPU support.

Handles all the compatibility quirks of running Resolve on Arch Linux — library conflicts, XWayland setup, RPATH patching, and legacy library shims — so you don't have to.

Requirements

• OS: Omarchy (Arch Linux)
• GPU: NVIDIA with proprietary drivers installed and working
• Audio stack: PipeWire + Wireplumber 0.5 or newer (Omarchy default) — the audio fix uses the SPA-JSON rule format introduced in 0.5
• Kernel: Stock Arch kernel (or any with snd-aloop available — verify with modinfo snd-aloop)
• Disk space: ~10GB free in ~/Downloads for extraction (temporary)
• DaVinci Resolve ZIP: Downloaded from Blackmagic's website

Quick Start

1. Download DaVinci Resolve from blackmagicdesign.com

   • Choose "DaVinci Resolve" (free) or "DaVinci Resolve Studio" (paid)
   • Select Linux and download the ZIP file
   • Save it to ~/Downloads/

2. Run the installer:

git clone https://git.no-signal.uk/nosignal/DaVinci-Resolve-Omarchy.git
cd DaVinci-Resolve-Omarchy
chmod +x Omarchy_resolve_v2.sh
./Omarchy_resolve_v2.sh

3. Launch Resolve from your app menu or run resolve-nvidia-open

What It Does

1. Installs Dependencies

Build/extraction tools:

Package	Purpose
unzip	Extracts the Resolve ZIP archive
patchelf	Modifies library search paths (RPATH) in binaries
libarchive	Archive handling library
desktop-file-utils	App menu integration
file	Identifies ELF binaries for RPATH patching

Runtime dependencies:

Package	Purpose
libxcrypt-compat	Provides legacy libcrypt.so.1 (Arch dropped it)
ffmpeg4.4	Older FFmpeg version that Resolve links against
glu	OpenGL Utility Library for 3D rendering
fuse2	AppImage compatibility layer

Packages are installed individually so one unavailable package can't abort the rest. (gtk2 used to be on this list — Arch moved it to the AUR and Resolve 19+ no longer needs it, so it was dropped.)

2. Extracts Resolve

The download is a ZIP containing a .run file (self-extracting AppImage). The script unpacks it in stages:

ZIP → .run file → squashfs-root (actual application files)

Temporary files are cleaned up automatically when the script finishes.

3. Handles Library Conflicts (ABI-Safe)

This is the tricky part. Resolve bundles its own libraries, but some conflict with Arch's newer versions:

Library	Action	Why
libglib-2.0.so	Replace with system	Stable C ABI, safe to swap
libgio-2.0.so	Replace with system	Stable C ABI, safe to swap
libgmodule-2.0.so	Replace with system	Stable C ABI, safe to swap
libc++.so	Keep bundled	C++ ABI mismatch causes crashes
libc++abi.so	Keep bundled	C++ ABI mismatch causes crashes

4. Patches RPATH

Every ELF binary in Resolve gets its RPATH patched to point to /opt/resolve/libs/ and subdirectories. Without this, binaries would look for libraries in the original AppImage paths that no longer exist.

5. Creates XWayland Wrapper

Resolve doesn't support native Wayland. The wrapper script (resolve-nvidia-open) forces XWayland mode by setting QT_QPA_PLATFORM=xcb, and also clears stale Qt lockfiles that can prevent Resolve from starting after a crash. It additionally unsets Omarchy's global QT_STYLE_OVERRIDE=kvantum / QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME=gtk3 — Resolve's bundled Qt has neither plugin, so this just silences Qt style warnings.

6. Desktop Integration

• Installs .desktop files for the app menu
• Installs icons at proper hicolor sizes
• Installs udev rules for Blackmagic hardware (capture cards, control panels)
• Points all launchers at the XWayland wrapper

7. Audio Backend Fix (DeckLink → ALSA + snd-aloop + Wireplumber rule)

Three pieces are needed for Resolve audio to actually work — all three are applied automatically. Skipping any one of them leaves a different failure mode visible (Resolve aborts on first launch / renders hang forever / monitor audio loops onto itself).

Default audio backend. Resolve's shipped default-config.dat sets Local.Audio.Type = DeckLink, which causes Resolve to abort on first launch on systems without a Blackmagic DeckLink capture/playback card. The script patches both the system template and any existing user config to use ALSA (backing up the user config to config.dat.bak.<timestamp>).

Render-blocker hang. Resolve's audio engine opens raw ALSA hardware (hw:N) and enumerates every card under /dev/snd/control*. When all real ALSA cards are owned/contested by PipeWire's session manager, the enumeration retries forever — the render queue never spawns the encoder, the job sits at "in progress" with growing ETA, no output file appears, and nothing useful lands in ResolveDebug.txt. strace shows tens of thousands of SNDRV_CTL_IOCTL_PCM_INFO ENXIO ioctls per failed render.

The fix is to load the kernel's snd-aloop module. PipeWire ignores it (no ACP profile, not auto-acquired), so Resolve can fully own it and the render proceeds normally. The script:

• Runs modprobe snd-aloop for the current session
• Writes /etc/modules-load.d/snd-aloop.conf so it autoloads at boot
• Writes a PipeWire loopback bridge at ~/.config/pipewire/pipewire.conf.d/50-resolve-aloop-bridge.conf so monitor audio routes from the loopback's capture side to the current system default sink (without it, Resolve renders fine but you hear nothing during playback; headphone/HDMI sink switching keeps working through the bridge)
• Writes a Wireplumber rule at ~/.config/wireplumber/wireplumber.conf.d/51-resolve-aloop-no-default.conf that excludes the aloop card from default-sink selection — without this, Wireplumber would promote aloop to default whenever Resolve plays audio (because aloop is RUNNING), and the bridge would loop audio back into aloop instead of your real hardware
• Restarts user Wireplumber + PipeWire services so the configs load immediately

Set RESOLVE_NO_ALOOP=1 to skip this entirely (useful if you have a dedicated audio interface Resolve already uses cleanly).

8. Full Opacity for Grading (Omarchy 4)

Omarchy 4 applies a default translucency (0.985 focused / 0.96 unfocused) to every window via its Hyprland Lua config, and its built-in Resolve rule doesn't opt out — a translucent window is wrong for colour-critical work. When an Omarchy 4 Lua config is detected, the installer appends a resolve-full-opacity rule to ~/.config/hypr/hyprland.lua (loaded after Omarchy's defaults, so it wins) forcing Resolve back to opacity 1 1. Idempotent; skipped entirely on pre-4 installs, which never applied global translucency. To remove it, delete the resolve-full-opacity block from ~/.config/hypr/hyprland.lua.

This one has since landed upstream (basecamp/omarchy#6382), so on current Omarchy the rule is a harmless duplicate of Omarchy's own; it still matters on Omarchy 4 builds predating that PR.

9. Omarchy Bar Overlap Fix

On Omarchy 4.x, Resolve launches with its own menu bar (File / Edit / Trim / Timeline / …) hidden underneath the Omarchy status bar, so those menus can't be clicked.

The Omarchy bar is a layer-shell surface on Hyprland's top layer that reserves 26px at the top of the screen. That reserved space only constrains tiled windows — and Omarchy deliberately floats every Resolve window, because Resolve's many child windows tile badly. Floating windows are positioned by the client, and Resolve's XWayland main window places itself at 0,0 at the full monitor size, ignoring the reserved zone. The bar then draws on top of it.

Hyprland renders a fullscreen window above top-layer surfaces, so the script installs a Hyprland rule that opens Resolve's main window fullscreen — putting Resolve over the bar instead of under it. The bar isn't hidden or killed, and behaves normally again as soon as you leave fullscreen or focus another window.

The rule is scoped by window title, because every Resolve window shares the same class and only the main one may be fullscreened:

window	title	fullscreened?
splash screen	resolve	no
project chooser	Project Manager	no
modal dialogs	e.g. Preferences	no
main window	DaVinci Resolve - <project name>	yes

Two files are written (~/.config/hypr/davinci-resolve.lua and one require line appended to ~/.config/hypr/hyprland.lua), then Hyprland is reloaded. Re-running the installer won't duplicate the require, and hyprland.lua is backed up before it's touched.

10. Dialog Pointer Trap Fix

Opening Resolve's Preferences or Project Manager could trap the pointer: the dialog couldn't be dismissed, nothing else could be clicked, and quitting Resolve was the only way out.

Omarchy sets stay_focused = true on every Resolve window. That rule exists for a good reason — Resolve isn't Wayland-native, so its transient popups (Change Clip Duration, Normalize Audio Levels…) close as soon as the pointer leaves them unless focus is pinned (Hyprland #12235). Deleting it outright would bring that problem back.

The trouble is it's applied to all Resolve windows. When two are visible at once, both demand focus and neither yields, so Hyprland flips between them forever. Captured live:

ACTIVE='Create New Project'  windows=['Project Manager', 'Create New Project']
ACTIVE='Project Manager'     windows=['Project Manager', 'Create New Project']
ACTIVE='Create New Project'  windows=['Project Manager', 'Create New Project']

The script narrows the rule instead of removing it: the pin stays on the transient popups, and comes off the two windows those popups open over — the main window and the Project Manager. At most one pinned window is ever visible, so nothing can fight, and every window that relied on the pin still has it.

Set RESOLVE_NO_HYPR_RULES=1 to skip both Hyprland rules entirely.

Both of these belong upstream in Omarchy rather than in this installer — see omarchy-upstream-fixes/ for the ready-to-raise patches. Both are verified end-to-end; fix 002's caveats section lists the known limitation (its parent list is a blocklist) and an open design question for a maintainer.

Files Installed

Application

Path	Purpose
/opt/resolve/	Main application directory
/opt/resolve/bin/resolve	Resolve binary
/opt/resolve/libs/	Bundled libraries

Scripts

Path	Purpose
/usr/local/bin/resolve-nvidia-open	XWayland wrapper (main launcher)
/usr/bin/davinci-resolve	Convenience symlink to wrapper

Hyprland Rules

Path	Purpose
~/.config/hypr/davinci-resolve.lua	Opens Resolve's main window over the Omarchy bar; stops dialogs trapping the pointer
~/.config/hypr/hyprland.lua	One require("hypr.davinci-resolve") line appended, plus the resolve-full-opacity rule (§8)

Desktop Entries

Path	Purpose
/usr/share/applications/DaVinciResolve.desktop	System app menu entry
~/.local/share/applications/davinci-resolve-wrapper.desktop	User entry (takes priority)

Icons

Path	Purpose
/usr/share/icons/hicolor/128x128/apps/davinci-resolve.png	App icon

Hardware Support

Path	Purpose
/usr/lib/udev/rules.d/99-BlackmagicDevices.rules	Blackmagic capture cards
/usr/lib/udev/rules.d/99-ResolveKeyboardHID.rules	Resolve Editor Keyboard
/usr/lib/udev/rules.d/99-DavinciPanel.rules	DaVinci control panels

Configuration

Full System Upgrade

By default, the script syncs the package database without upgrading. To include a full system upgrade:

RESOLVE_FULL_UPGRADE=1 ./Omarchy_resolve_v2.sh

Skip the snd-aloop Audio Fix

If you have a dedicated audio interface (e.g. Focusrite Scarlett, MOTU, etc.) that Resolve already uses cleanly, you don't need the virtual loopback card:

RESOLVE_NO_ALOOP=1 ./Omarchy_resolve_v2.sh

This skips the modprobe snd-aloop, the /etc/modules-load.d/ entry, and the PipeWire loopback bridge. The DeckLink → ALSA config patch still runs.

Skip the Hyprland Window Rules

If you would rather the installer left your Hyprland config alone entirely:

RESOLVE_NO_HYPR_RULES=1 ./Omarchy_resolve_v2.sh

Neither ~/.config/hypr/davinci-resolve.lua nor the require line is written. The separate full-opacity rule (§8) is not covered by this switch — remove its resolve-full-opacity block from hyprland.lua if you don't want it either. The installer also skips the rules automatically (with a warning showing the equivalent windowrulev2 line) if ~/.config/hypr/hyprland.lua doesn't exist — i.e. on non-Omarchy-4.x setups that still use hyprland.conf.

Hybrid GPU Laptops (Optimus)

If you have an Intel iGPU + NVIDIA dGPU, edit the wrapper to force Resolve onto the NVIDIA GPU:

sudo nano /usr/local/bin/resolve-nvidia-open

Uncomment these lines:

export __NV_PRIME_RENDER_OFFLOAD=1
export __GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME=nvidia

Troubleshooting

Resolve won't start / crashes immediately

• Check logs: ~/.local/share/DaVinciResolve/logs/ResolveDebug.txt
• Verify NVIDIA driver is working: nvidia-smi
• Try launching from terminal to see errors: resolve-nvidia-open

"Cannot open display" error

• Make sure XWayland is enabled in Hyprland (it is by default on Omarchy)
• Check the wrapper is using xcb: grep QT_QPA_PLATFORM /usr/local/bin/resolve-nvidia-open

Resolve says "single instance already running"

Stale lockfiles from a previous crash. The wrapper clears these automatically, but if it persists:

rm -f /tmp/qtsingleapp-DaVinci*

Render queue says "in progress" forever, no output file

This is the audio render-blocker hang — Resolve's audio engine is stuck enumerating ALSA cards. Confirm snd-aloop is loaded:

lsmod | grep snd_aloop

If absent, load it and retry:

sudo modprobe snd-aloop

If you ran the installer with RESOLVE_NO_ALOOP=1 and want to opt back in, re-run the installer without that variable, or do it manually:

sudo modprobe snd-aloop
echo 'snd-aloop' | sudo tee /etc/modules-load.d/snd-aloop.conf

If lsmod shows snd_aloop is loaded but renders still hang, check the clip codec with ffprobe — ProRes RAW will hang silently on Linux without Apple's ProRes RAW SDK plugins, which is a separate issue from this audio fix.

No audio during playback / sink keeps flipping to "Loopback"

If your system default sink keeps switching to "Loopback Analog Stereo" the moment Resolve starts playing, the wireplumber exclusion rule isn't in effect. Confirm the rule file exists:

cat ~/.config/wireplumber/wireplumber.conf.d/51-resolve-aloop-no-default.conf

If absent, re-run the installer or pin your real sink manually:

pactl set-default-sink <your-real-sink-name>      # e.g. alsa_output.pci-0000_01_00.1.hdmi-stereo

If headphone/HDMI switching stops working for Resolve playback, restart the user audio stack (wireplumber first):

systemctl --user restart wireplumber pipewire pipewire-pulse

To remove the bridge + rule entirely:

rm ~/.config/pipewire/pipewire.conf.d/50-resolve-aloop-bridge.conf
rm ~/.config/wireplumber/wireplumber.conf.d/51-resolve-aloop-no-default.conf
systemctl --user restart wireplumber pipewire pipewire-pulse

Missing library errors

Re-run the installer — it will re-patch RPATH and re-check dependencies:

./Omarchy_resolve_v2.sh

GPU not detected / OpenCL errors

• Ensure NVIDIA drivers are installed: pacman -Qi nvidia-utils
• Check GPU is visible: nvidia-smi
• Verify OpenCL: pacman -S --needed opencl-nvidia

Updating Resolve

1. Download the new version ZIP from Blackmagic's website to ~/Downloads/
2. Run the installer again — it automatically picks the newest ZIP:

./Omarchy_resolve_v2.sh

The previous installation at /opt/resolve will be replaced.

Uninstalling

# Remove application
sudo rm -rf /opt/resolve

# Remove scripts
sudo rm -f /usr/local/bin/resolve-nvidia-open
sudo rm -f /usr/bin/davinci-resolve

# Remove the Hyprland window rules (bar overlap + pointer trap), then reload
rm -f ~/.config/hypr/davinci-resolve.lua
sed -i '/require("hypr.davinci-resolve")/d' ~/.config/hypr/hyprland.lua
sed -i '/Open DaVinci Resolve.s main window over the Omarchy bar/d' ~/.config/hypr/hyprland.lua
hyprctl reload

# Remove desktop entries
sudo rm -f /usr/share/applications/DaVinciResolve.desktop
sudo rm -f /usr/share/applications/DaVinciControlPanelsSetup.desktop
sudo rm -f /usr/share/applications/blackmagicraw-player.desktop
sudo rm -f /usr/share/applications/blackmagicraw-speedtest.desktop
rm -f ~/.local/share/applications/davinci-resolve-wrapper.desktop

# Remove icons
sudo rm -f /usr/share/icons/hicolor/128x128/apps/davinci-resolve.png
sudo rm -f /usr/share/icons/hicolor/128x128/apps/davinci-resolve-panels-setup.png
sudo rm -f /usr/share/icons/hicolor/256x256/apps/blackmagicraw-player.png
sudo rm -f /usr/share/icons/hicolor/256x256/apps/blackmagicraw-speedtest.png

# Remove udev rules
sudo rm -f /usr/lib/udev/rules.d/99-BlackmagicDevices.rules
sudo rm -f /usr/lib/udev/rules.d/99-ResolveKeyboardHID.rules
sudo rm -f /usr/lib/udev/rules.d/99-DavinciPanel.rules

# Remove the Omarchy 4 opacity rule: delete the "resolve-full-opacity" block
# from ~/.config/hypr/hyprland.lua, then: hyprctl reload

# Remove the snd-aloop autoload entry + PipeWire bridge + wireplumber rule
sudo rm -f /etc/modules-load.d/snd-aloop.conf
rm -f ~/.config/pipewire/pipewire.conf.d/50-resolve-aloop-bridge.conf
rm -f ~/.config/wireplumber/wireplumber.conf.d/51-resolve-aloop-no-default.conf
systemctl --user restart wireplumber pipewire pipewire-pulse

# Remove user data (WARNING: deletes all projects and settings)
rm -rf ~/.local/share/DaVinciResolve

# Update caches
sudo update-desktop-database
sudo gtk-update-icon-cache -f /usr/share/icons/hicolor

Credits

• Omarchy - The Arch Linux distribution this was built for
• Blackmagic Design - DaVinci Resolve
• Hyprland - Wayland compositor (XWayland support)

License

This project is provided as-is for the Omarchy community.