smol-machines--smolvm/docs/install-arch.md

Installing smolvm on Arch Linux

smolvm ships an official pacman repository maintained by the smol-machines team. It serves prebuilt packages for x86_64 and aarch64, updated automatically with every release.

The smolvm, smolvm-bin and smolvm-git packages on the AUR are third-party and not maintained by us. As of 1.4.7 they link against the stock Arch libkrun, which lacks six symbols smolvm needs — disk overlays, snapshots and egress policy do not work with those packages. The official package bundles the smol-machines libkrun fork and is fully functional.

Setup

Add the repository to /etc/pacman.conf:

[smol-machines]
SigLevel = Optional TrustAll
Server = https://smol-machines.github.io/smolvm/pacman/$arch

Then install:

sudo pacman -Sy smolvm

Upgrades arrive with your normal pacman -Syu.

Notes

• The repository is served from GitHub Pages (the pacman-repo branch); packages are built by CI from the release artifacts and published on every release (.github/workflows/pacman-repo.yml). It is a rolling repo — the latest release only (older versions remain on the GitHub Releases page).
• Package signing (GPG) is planned; until then integrity is provided by sha256-pinned sources built in CI and served over HTTPS.
• The package bundles the smol-machines libkrun/libkrunfw fork under /usr/lib/smolvm/lib — it does not conflict with the system libkrun package, which other software may continue to use.