Virtual Machines

Monarch can currently be tested on virtual machines using QEMU, which is the only officially supported option. Other virtualization platforms such as VirtualBox and VMware Workstation may also be used, but require additional configuration.

Virtualbox

Instructions for running the system in VirtualBox are available in a discussion on the Omarchy GitHub repository. The same procedure applies to Monarch.

VM Creation

1. Download the ISO from Monarch website here.

2. Create a new VM on virtualbox as usual

3. Select the appropriate hardware (e.g. 8192 MB RAM, 4 vCPU)

   1. Do not enable EFI

4. Create a virtual hard disk (at least 40 GB)

5. After finishing creation, go to the machine and select settings => Video

6. Select Graphics Controller: VBoxVGA, and leave 3D Acceleration unchecked

Install Monarch

1. Follow the installation steps to install Monarch upon first boot

2. Shut down VM, remove ISO and boot into Monarch

Set screen resolution

In case your scaling is broken due to the default config being set to 2x scaling instead of 1x (when your VM is not setup yet for guest resized window), you need to manually change the config for Hyprland. (This was tested on Windows 11 VirtualBox)

1. Press Win+Alt+Space to open Menu -> Setup -> Monitor

2. Comment the 2x Retina Scaling lines, uncomment the 1x Scaling lines. Save.

3. Press Win+Enter to start a Terminal

4. Install virtualbox-guest-utils-nox and enable the service: a. sudo yay -S virtualbox-guest-utils-nox b. systemctl enable vboxservice

5. Edit /boot/limine.conf a. In the line kernel_cmdline append video=1920x1080

6. Reboot the VM

7. Then set the entry in ~/.config/hypr/monitors.conf could be added such that everything runs with the correct resolution. See monitors configurations for more information.

VMWare Workstation

A similar discussion on the Omarchy GitHub repository describes how to run the system on VMware Workstation. These steps are also applicable to Monarch.

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