Omarchy on the NVIDIA SHIELD TV 2017, on mainline Linux
A reproducible path from a stock SHIELD to Arch Linux and Hyprland, with every step scripted and every version pinned
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Omarchy is an Arch Linux and Hyprland setup for x86 PCs. This project runs it natively on the NVIDIA SHIELD TV 2017, a Tegra X1 box. Android stays installed, so you can go back.
The approach:
- NVIDIA's own bootloader (cboot) starts U-Boot.
- U-Boot starts a mainline Linux kernel (7.2.11) with a device tree written for this board, and our patches.
- The kernel boots Arch Linux ARM from a USB SSD. The internal eMMC is an option, in place of Android's data.
- The community
omarchy-armport installs Omarchy on top.
- Mainline Linux on a board where it had only a bare device tree. HDMI with its audio, USB, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Ethernet have drivers running, and so do the GPU, the fan and the CPU's power management.
- The GPU draws the desktop. OpenGL ES 3.2 runs through nouveau, with three kernel fixes and seven Mesa patches for Tegra.
- Stock speeds. The CPU runs up to 2.0 GHz. The memory reaches 1600 MHz from the timing tables cboot trains at every boot, though for now it's set by hand.
- Bugs found and fixed along the way, among them two in mainline's memory-clock driver and one in nouveau's cache handling. The cache fix alone raised a game's frame rate by 80%. The patches are in
patches/. - Ahead of stock Android's reported Geekbench 6 scores.
- Reproducible: 23 numbered scripts, pinned sources and checksums, and the raw output of the benchmark runs.
| Area | State | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Boot chain | Works | cboot → U-Boot → mainline Linux, with a test loop that needs no Android |
| HDMI | Works | tegra-drm from boot; 3840x2160 at 60 Hz (HDMI 2.0) on a 4K TV |
| USB | Works | The SSD links at USB 2, most likely because of its cable |
| Wi-Fi | Works | 2.4 and 5 GHz, on NetworkManager |
| Ethernet | Driver works | The link hasn't been tested yet (no switch) |
| Bluetooth | Controller works | Pairing a keyboard hasn't been tried yet |
| GPU | Works | OpenGL ES 3.2 through nouveau and our Mesa fixes. No Vulkan. |
| CPU, cooling | Works | Up to stock's 2.0 GHz, idle sleep, the fan, throttling |
| Memory clock | Works, set by hand | 1600 MHz like stock after tools/emc-rate.sh; it boots at 800 |
| Omarchy | Works | Hyprland, the login screen, the bar and the lock screen |
| Audio | Works | Over HDMI, in stereo, heard through the TV's soundbar. No surround passthrough, or volume from the remote (HDMI-CEC), yet. |
| Video playback | Works, on the CPU | Uber TV plays through Qt Multimedia, and Netflix in Chromium (Widevine L3). No hardware decoding; not measured yet. |
Measured on 2026-10-23, kernel #21, memory at 1600 MHz:
| Test | Result |
|---|---|
| Geekbench 6 | 317 single-core, 854 multi-core (result). Stock Android 11 is reported at 302 / 789. |
| SuperTuxKart 1.5 benchmark | 31.3 FPS at 1920x1080 full screen. In a 1054x1054 window, the kernel and memory work took it from 17.7 to 37.2 FPS. |
| glmark2 2023.01 | 847 at 800x600, 288 at 1920x1080 |
| Memory bandwidth | 20.6 GB/s write, 10.2 GB/s read |
| Boot to the login screen | 20.9 s |
| Power | 6.7 W idle, 12.5 W in a game |
docs/benchmarks.md gives every number with its conditions. benchmarks/ keeps the raw outputs.
Read docs/install.md first. It has what you need, the safety rules and every command. The steps come in four stages:
| Stage | Scripts | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Prepare | 00–04 |
Host tools; find and survey the SHIELD; fetch the sources; unpack NVIDIA's recovery image, the safety net |
| Boot chain | 05–10 |
Build U-Boot; check fastboot; unlock the bootloader (this erases Android's user data); test from the recovery slot |
| System | 11–18 |
Build the kernel and its payload; build the root filesystem; write the USB SSD; install; update over the network |
| Desktop | 19–22 |
Mesa for the GPU; Omarchy; NetworkManager; lock the default logins |
Warning
On the default path, only the boot and recovery partitions are written. Never flash dtb, the bootloader blob, BCT, TOS, EKS or the partition table: a bad DTB has bricked SHIELDs before. Only the SHIELD TV 2017 (darcy) is supported, and the scripts refuse other boards.
| Document | What's in it |
|---|---|
| docs/install.md | The steps, from a stock SHIELD to Omarchy |
| docs/findings.md | What we found, area by area: cause, fix, evidence |
| docs/lessons.md | Constraints, what went wrong and how it was fixed, claims we corrected |
| docs/benchmarks.md | The numbers, how they were measured, against Android |
| docs/timeline.md | The work in milestones, and the kernel builds |
| NOTES.md | The day-by-day engineering log |
| research/README.md | Reviews by other AI agents, and what we used from them |
Repository layout
| Path | What |
|---|---|
config.sh |
Every pinned version, commit and checksum |
config.local.sh |
Your own settings, such as the desktop user's name. It's shell, read after config.sh and trusted like it. Optional, and git ignores it. |
scripts/ |
The numbered steps; lib.sh holds shared helpers |
patches/u-boot/ |
U-Boot for darcy (target p2894). It also passes on cboot's device tree and its trained memory table. |
patches/linux/ |
Kernel fixes: the GPU's fuse clock, soctherm's throttle, the CPU's top rate, nouveau's progress counter and cache cleaning, tegra-drm's imported buffers, the memory-clock driver's refresh |
patches/mesa/ |
Mesa's tegra driver fixes: upstream merge request !45355 (0001) and ours (0002-0007) |
patches/omarchy-arm/ |
omarchy-arm's Tegra210 platform, and the shell's colours under Qt 6.12 |
packages/mesa-darcy/ |
The Mesa package scripts/19 builds |
kernel/ |
The kernel config fragment, our darcy device trees, the FIT description |
rootfs/ |
Files the installed system gets as they are: the thermal guard |
tools/ |
Diagnostics and benchmarks: register readers, a GPU power-up probe, a minimal GPU test, power and memory-clock tools, the benchmark scripts |
benchmarks/ |
The raw outputs of our benchmark runs, with an index |
docs/ |
The documents above |
research/ |
The briefs, the agents' reviews, and an index |
build/, vendor/ |
Build output and fetched sources (git-ignored) |
device-info/ |
Your device snapshot and SSH key (git-ignored; private) |
recovery/ |
Your unpacked recovery image (git-ignored; NVIDIA's, not redistributable) |
Contributions are welcome: code, testing on your own SHIELD TV 2017, documentation, and problem reports. The open work is in the status table above: surround sound and the TV remote over HDMI-CEC, measuring video playback, Bluetooth pairing, the memory clock at boot. Sending the fixes upstream is open too. CONTRIBUTING.md explains how to report a problem and how to make a change: safety first, reproducible steps, evidence for every number.
This is an independent community project. It isn't affiliated with or endorsed by NVIDIA, Omarchy or omarchy-arm. NVIDIA and SHIELD are trademarks of NVIDIA Corporation. Unlocking and flashing can leave a device unusable: follow the safety rules, and proceed at your own risk.
This project's own files are under the MIT license, with these exceptions:
- GPL-2.0, as their SPDX headers say: the device trees in
kernel/dts/,tools/mmio-read.c,tools/pmc-read/andtools/gpu-power-probe/. patches/: each patch carries the license of the project it applies to. That's GPL-2.0 for Linux and U-Boot, and MIT for Mesa and omarchy-arm.- NVIDIA's firmware and recovery image aren't included. The scripts take them from your own download.
- The NVIDIA darcy device tree in mainline Linux (Mark Zhang and Thierry Reding).
- archeYR's mainline port for the 2015 SHIELD, the proven U-Boot chain on a SHIELD (postmarketOS).
- The LineageOS SHIELD maintainers, for the mirrored NVIDIA sources and the model for wrapping U-Boot in a boot image.
- The
omarchy-armcontributors, and Omarchy itself.