pearOS Install Guide

# Hardware Limitations

With pearOS, there are numerous hardware limitations you need to be aware of before stepping foot into an installation.

The main hardware sections to verify are:

# CPU Support

pearOS is Arch-based Linux, so CPU support is broad. The real limits come from the ISO build itself:

  • 64-bit (x86_64) only — the ISO is built exclusively for x86_64; 32-bit (i686) CPUs are NOT supported, no fallback image is produced.
  • Intel — any x86_64 Intel CPU works, from old Core 2 era through current. Microcode updates are handled by the bundled intel-ucode package.
  • AMD — any x86_64 AMD CPU works, same story. Microcode updates come from amd-ucode.
  • No distinction between desktop/laptop/HEDT CPUs — if it's x86_64, the OS boots and runs.

Features aren't gated by CPU generation — everything that's a kernel/driver-level feature (GPU accel, wireless, etc.) depends on the specific hardware component, not the CPU family. See the sections below for those.

CPU Requirements
  • 32-bit (i686) CPUs are NOT supported — the ISO has no i686 build target.
  • Any 64-bit (x86_64) Intel or AMD CPU is supported.

# GPU Support

pearOS ships the following GPU stack by default:

  • Intel & AMD — open-source mesa drivers (i915/iris, amdgpu/radeonsi), no extra setup needed.
  • NVIDIA — nvidia-utils + linux-cachyos-lts-nvidia-open (open kernel module, Turing and newer). Older (pre-Turing) cards need the legacy proprietary driver, not included by default.
  • Virtualized/VM GPUs — vulkan-virtio for virtio-gpu passthrough in VMs.

# Storage Support

pearOS runs on the Linux kernel, so storage support is native and broad.

  • SATA, NVMe, USB, eMMC — all supported out of the box via the kernel's own drivers.
  • Filesystems — ext4 by default, plus btrfs-progs, xfsprogs, f2fs-tools, dosfstools, exfatprogs, and ntfs-3g (NTFS read/write) are bundled.
  • RAID/LVM/Encryption — mdadm (software RAID), lvm2 (logical volumes), and cryptsetup (LUKS full-disk encryption) are all included.
  • NVMe tooling — nvme-cli is bundled for drive health/management.

# Wired Networking

Virtually all wired network adapters work out of the box in pearOS

# Wireless Networking

Since pearOS runs the standard Linux kernel, WiFi support is broad — Intel, Qualcomm Atheros, Broadcom, MediaTek and Realtek cards all work with their native mac80211-based kernel drivers. Bluetooth follows the same coverage as the WiFi chip on combo cards.

Firmware for most chipsets ships via linux-firmware; a handful of Broadcom/MediaTek chips may need vendor-specific firmware packages installed manually if not covered.

# Miscellaneous

  • Fingerprint sensors
    • Fingerprint login works through libfprint/fprintd, provided your sensor is supported. See the list below.
Supported Fingerprint Sensors (libfprint)
Vendor Device Name USB ID Driver
Microsoft Digital Persona U.are.U 4000/4000B/4500 045e:00bb, 045e:00bc, 045e:00bd, 045e:00ca Digital Persona
UPEK TouchChip/Eikon Touch 300 0483:2015, 0483:2017 UPEK TouchChip
UPEK TouchStrip 0483:2016 UPEK TouchStrip
ElanTech Fingerprint Sensor 04f3:0903, 04f3:0907, 04f3:0c01-0c33, 04f3:0c3d, 04f3:0c42, 04f3:0c4b, 04f3:0c4d, 04f3:0c4f, 04f3:0c58, 04f3:0c63, 04f3:0c6e ElanTech
ElanTech MOC Sensors 04f3:0c7d-0c8d, 04f3:0c98-0c9d, 04f3:0c9f, 04f3:0ca3, 04f3:0ca7-0cb6 Elan MOC
Digital Persona U.are.U 4000/4000B/4500 05ba:0007, 05ba:0008, 05ba:000a Digital Persona
Veridicom 5thSense 061a:0110 Veridicom
Synaptics Sensors 06cb:00bd-0109, 06cb:010d-010e, 06cb:0123-0124, 06cb:0126, 06cb:0129, 06cb:015f, 06cb:0168-0169, 06cb:016c, 06cb:0173-0174, 06cb:019d, 06cb:019f-01a0, 06cb:01a4 Synaptics
AuthenTec AES1610 08ff:1600 AuthenTec
AuthenTec AES1660 08ff:1660-1689, 08ff:168a-168f AuthenTec
AuthenTec AES2501 08ff:2500, 08ff:2580 AuthenTec
AuthenTec AES2550/AES2810 08ff:2550, 08ff:2810 AuthenTec
AuthenTec AES2660 08ff:2660-268f, 08ff:2691 AuthenTec
AuthenTec AES4000 08ff:5501 AuthenTec
AuthenTec AES3500 08ff:5731 AuthenTec
Realtek MOC Fingerprint Sensor 0bda:5813, 0bda:5816, 2541:fa03, 3274:9003 Realtek MOC
FPC MOC Fingerprint Sensor 10a5:9524, 10a5:9544, 10a5:9b24, 10a5:a305-a306, 10a5:c844, 10a5:d205, 10a5:d805, 10a5:da04, 10a5:ffe0 FPC MOC
SecuGen Hamster Pro 20 1162:2200 SecuGen
Validity VFS101 138a:0001 Validity
Validity VFS301 138a:0005, 138a:0008 Validity
Validity VFS5011 138a:0010, 138a:0011, 138a:0015-0018 Validity
Validity VFS0050 138a:0050 Validity
Validity VFS7552 138a:0091 Validity
UPEK TouchStrip Sensor-Only 147e:1000, 147e:1001 UPEK
UPEK TouchChip Fingerprint Coprocessor 147e:2016, 147e:2020, 147e:3001 UPEK
Egis Technology (LighTuning) 0570 1c7a:0570, 1c7a:0571 Egis Technology
Egis Technology (LighTuning) Match-on-Chip 1c7a:0582-0588, 1c7a:05a1, 1c7a:05ae, 1c7a:9201 Egis MOC
Egis Technology ES603 1c7a:0603 EgisTec
Goodix MOC Fingerprint Sensor 27c6:5840, 27c6:6014, 27c6:6090-6092, 27c6:6094, 27c6:609a, 27c6:609c, 27c6:60a2, 27c6:60a4, 27c6:60bc, 27c6:60c2, 27c6:6304, 27c6:631c, 27c6:633c, 27c6:634c, 27c6:6382, 27c6:6384, 27c6:639c, 27c6:63ac, 27c6:63bc, 27c6:63cc, 27c6:6496, 27c6:650a, 27c6:650c, 27c6:6512, 27c6:6582, 27c6:6584, 27c6:658c, 27c6:6592, 27c6:6594, 27c6:659a, 27c6:659c, 27c6:66a9, 27c6:6890, 27c6:689a, 27c6:6984, 27c6:6a94 Goodix MOC
Focaltech MOC Sensors 2808:077a, 2808:079a, 2808:1579, 2808:5158, 2808:6553, 2808:9e48, 2808:a27a, 2808:a57a, 2808:a78a, 2808:a959, 2808:a97a, 2808:a99a, 2808:d979 Focaltech MOC
NextBiometrics NB-1010-U/NB-2020-U 298d:1010, 298d:2020 NextBiometrics
MAFP MOC Fingerprint Sensor 3274:8012 MAFP MOC
ElanTech Embedded Fingerprint Sensor (SPI) ELAN7001/ELAN70A1 ElanTech Embedded

Drivers might not all be available in the stable, released version of libfprint. Full up-to-date list: fprint.freedesktop.org/supported-devices.html (opens new window)

  • IR/Facial Recognition Cameras
    • Laptops with an IR camera for facial login generally have no Linux driver for the recognition feature itself, though the camera may still work as a plain webcam.
  • Intel Smart Sound Technology
    • Handled via sof-firmware; internal mics and speakers routed through Intel SST generally work through pipewire.
  • Headphone Jack Combo
    • Some laptops with a combo headphone jack may not get audio input through them and will have to either use the built-in microphone or an external audio input device through USB.
  • Thunderbolt / USB-C
    • Thunderbolt is supported via the kernel thunderbolt driver and the bolt daemon (device authorization), with plasma-thunderbolt providing the GUI. Hotplug and sleep/wake work as expected.

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