The goal of this CLI is to lower the barrier for Linux users to use their eGPU on the Linux Desktop. With the egpu-switcher config command the user can choose their external GPU. On every bootup the service will check if the eGPU is connected and if so, make X.Org prefer it.

• Running X.Org
• Thunderbolt connection to eGPU is authorized
• Necessary graphics drivers for eGPU are installed

The PPA is no longer maintained for now (see #90)

paru -S egpu-switcher

Download binary from latest release

Copy binary to /opt, apply proper permissions, and link it in /usr/bin

sudo cp <downloaded-binary> /opt/egpu-switcher sudo chmod 755 /opt/egpu-switcher sudo ln -s /opt/egpu-switcher /usr/bin/egpu-switcher sudo egpu-switcher enable

sudo egpu-switcher disable --hard sudo rm /usr/bin/egpu-switcher sudo rm /opt/egpu-switcher

Install the go toolchain

git clone git@github.com:hertg/egpu-switcher.git cd egpu-switcher make build -s sudo make install -s sudo egpu-switcher enable

sudo egpu-switcher disable --hard sudo make uninstall -s

Usage: egpu-switcher [command] Available Commands: config Choose your external GPU disable Disable egpu-switcher from running at startup enable Enable egpu-switcher to run at startup help Help about any command switch Check if eGPU is present and configure X.org accordingly version Print version information Flags: -h, --help help for egpu-switcher -v, --verbose verbose output Use "egpu-switcher [command] --help" for more information about a command. 

The config file is created automatically and can be found at /etc/egpu-switcher/config.yaml. Below you can see an example of a configuration file, annotated with additional information.

egpu: # the 'driver' and 'id' configs are generated by 'egpu-switcher config'. # you probably shouldn't change this manually unless you understand why. driver: amdgpu id: 1153611719250962689 # OPTIONAL: do not load 'modesetting' in the egpu config nomodesetting: false # OPTIONAL: how many times 'egpu-switcher switch auto' should retry finding the egpu. # this can be helpful if the egpu takes some time to connect on your machine, # the following values are the default. detection: retries: 6 interval: 500 # milliseconds # OPTIONAL: if you want to execute a script after switching to egpu/internal. # the values must be absolute paths to a shell script, this script will # then be run with '/bin/sh $script'. #  # it is required that the script is owned by root (uid 0)  # and has a permission of -rwx------ (0700). hooks: internal: /home/michael/tmp/internal.sh egpu: /home/michael/tmp/egpu.sh

Since version 0.20.0, a custom x11 config template can be configured by creating a file at /usr/share/egpu-switcher/x11-template.conf. The default template is shown below, you can use it as a starting point.

# autogenerated by egpu-switcher {{if .Modesetting}} Section "Module" Load "modesetting" EndSection {{end}} Section "Device" Identifier "{{.Id}}" Driver "{{.Driver}}" BusID "{{.Bus}}" Option "AllowEmptyInitialConfiguration" Option "AllowExternalGpus" "True" EndSection 

If you run into problems, please have a look at TROUBLESHOOT.md before reporting any issues.