Switch to Zen kernel on Arch Linux

Current setup:

  • Arch Linux
  • Nvidia proprietary driver
  • Syslinux bootloader

Switch to Zen kernel

Install Zen kernel

pacman -S linux-zen linux-zen-headers nvidia-dkms

Edit bootloader (I use syslinux btw)

/boot/efi/EFI/syslinux/syslinux.cfg
LABEL arch_zen
    MENU LABEL Arch Linux ZEN
-   LINUX ../vmlinuz-linux
+   LINUX ../vmlinuz-linux-zen
    # https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/NVIDIA#DRM_kernel_mode_setting    
    APPEND ... nvidia_drm.modeset=1 nvidia_drm.fbdev=1
-   INITRD ../initramfs-linux.img
+   INITRD ../initramfs-linux-zen.img

From arch docs: To avoid the possibility of forgetting to update initramfs after an NVIDIA driver upgrade, you may want to use a pacman hook:

Edit pacman hook

/etc/pacman.d/hooks/nvidia.hook
[Trigger]
- Target=nvidia
+ Target=nvidia-dkms
- Target=linux
+ Target=linux-zen

Note that the nvidia package is replaced with nvidia-dkms package.

Ensure nvidia modules are loaded early

/etc/mkinitcpio.conf
# https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/NVIDIA#Early_loading
MODULES=(... nvidia nvidia_modeset nvidia_uvm nvidia_drm)

Rebuild initramfs

mkinitcpio -p linux-zen

Uninstall the old kernel

pacman -R linux linux-headers

Note: pacman create a etc/mkinitcpio.d/linux.preset.pacsave file

EFI Update

In both cases you may want to update your EFI files. See Automatically update EFI files after kernel update.