Arch Linux User Repository

Any update per @mrdhakal 's comment @kevindiaz314 ? Bit confusing between the two packages

@kevindiaz314, could you clarify or correct this comment?

claude-desktop-bin is maintained by patrickjaja, while claude-desktop was submitted and is maintained by you. You also previously identified yourself here as the maintainer of claude-desktop-official-bin.

Patrick has stated that claude-desktop-bin remains maintained and intentionally applies additional patches and features. Therefore, this does not appear to be a consolidation under the same maintainer or an agreed migration of this package.

If you meant that you were consolidating claude-desktop-official-bin into claude-desktop, the current wording was posted on the wrong package and misleadingly presents claude-desktop as the successor to claude-desktop-bin.

This package is deprecated — I'm consolidating under the canonical name claude-desktop (same maintainer, same approach: the official .deb repackaged verbatim).

Please migrate:

paru -S aur/claude-desktop

(the aur/ prefix matters on CachyOS, whose distro repo ships its own older claude-desktop).

What you gain: current version (1.18286.0 vs 1.17377.0) and Cowork working out of the box (this package never shipped the path fixes it needs on Arch).

A deletion request for this package has been filed; see you over at claude-desktop.

Thank you for maintaining this! I just got it running with the help of a local Warp Terminal agent! I asked it to create a summary of what it did. Your mileage may vary...

Getting Cowork working on Arch Linux

After installing, the Cowork tab shows a popup saying "Virtualization isn't fully set up — Cowork runs in a secure local virtual machine. Cowork requires QEMU. Install it with 'sudo apt install qemu-system-x86 ovmf virtiofsd', then restart Claude." The Arch equivalents are qemu-system-x86, edk2-ovmf, and virtiofsd, but that's not enough — the app hardcodes Debian paths that don't exist on Arch.

Full fix:

1. Install the required packages

   sudo pacman -S qemu-system-x86 edk2-ovmf virtiofsd socat

2. Load the vhost_vsock kernel module

   sudo modprobe vhost_vsock echo vhost_vsock | sudo tee /etc/modules-load.d/vhost_vsock.conf

3. Symlink virtiofsd to the path the app expects

   sudo ln -s /usr/lib/virtiofsd /usr/bin/virtiofsd

4. Create OVMF symlinks at the Debian paths the app hardcodes

   sudo mkdir -p /usr/share/OVMF sudo ln -s /usr/share/edk2-ovmf/x64/OVMF_CODE.4m.fd /usr/share/OVMF/OVMF_CODE_4M.fd sudo ln -s /usr/share/edk2-ovmf/x64/OVMF_VARS.4m.fd /usr/share/OVMF/OVMF_VARS_4M.fd

Restart Claude Desktop. On first launch Cowork will download the VM disk image (~1.2 GB) in the background, then it's fully functional.

Confirmed working on Arch Linux x86_64 as of 2026-07-04.

@kevindiaz314 claude-desktop package is now unmaintained, could you adopt it and provide official package there?

is Supports 3-Party API endpoint ?

Maintainer of claude-desktop-official-bin here. For transparency: these aren't identical today. This package installs Anthropic's official .deb verbatim (bundled Electron, checksums pulled from the official apt repo), while claude-desktop-bin currently repackages a modified unofficial binary. That said, if claude-desktop-bin is migrating to the official .deb, I agree two identical packages make no sense, and I'll happily defer to the maintainers/TUs on the merge. Glad to help or co-maintain.

Note: there are now similar packages on AUR (claude-desktop-official, claude-desktop-official-bin).

What's the difference?

All of them use the same official Claude Desktop .deb from Anthropic (downloads.claude.ai).

• The official-* packages install it as-is, with no patches on top (as far as I can see in their PKGBUILDs). If you want a plain, untouched official version, that is probably what you want.

• This package (claude-desktop-bin) adds extra features on top: Computer Use on Linux, custom themes, multiple profiles, Quick Entry. These patches can solve issues, but they can also cause them. They are applied automatically on every new Anthropic release, and everything is open source: https://github.com/patrickjaja/claude-desktop-bin

Pick what you prefer.

Breaking update - short summary.

We've switched from patching the upstream Windows build to repackaging+patching the official Claude Desktop Linux beta (.deb -> https://code.claude.com/docs/en/desktop-linux).

This is a breaking change for claude-cowork-service (https://aur.archlinux.org/pkgbase/claude-cowork-service): it's now deprecated and fully removed -

Anthropic ships Cowork's sandbox directly in the official build, and that's the new default.

Feel free to uninstall claude-cowork-service, but do check the README for the QEMU https://github.com/patrickjaja/claude-desktop-bin#arch-linux--manjaro-aur

tl;dr

• yay -S claude-desktop-bin

• sudo pacman -S --needed qemu-system-x86 edk2-ovmf virtiofsd

then join the kvm group (once, needs re-login):

• sudo usermod -aG kvm "$USER"

We'll keep maintaining the project to stay rolling and compatible. With Anthropic now officially supporting Debian-based distros, our Linux future looks promising.

@airdi @0xSharp You can compare the pkgbuilds yourselves.. This uses the official bin from Claude, whereas claude-desktop-bin uses an unofficial binary, modified to add features not supported by Anthropic, and repackaged for distribution (looks trustworthy but the name is misleading!).