Warning

This package is conceptually obsolete as of July 1, 2026.

What to do now: pacman -S whisper-cpp ggml-vulkan

The official extra/whisper-cpp package now uses a modular ggml backend system — the same binary works with any backend installed alongside it. No separate Vulkan build is needed anymore.

This package also conflicts with ggml, ggml-vulkan, and llama-cpp. Installing it will remove those packages. If you use llama-cpp or anything else from the ggml ecosystem, do NOT install this — use the official solution above.

---

Important

What's still missing: optdepends in the official whisper-cpp package. A GitLab MR is in process — pending account approval on the Arch GitLab instance. The proposed diff is already prepared: contrib/whisper-cpp-optdepends.patch.

---

Note

"What happened" Source of truth: https://dev.to/hopsayer/whispercpp-vulkan-on-arch-a-detective-story-with-no-crime-3nl4

---

whisper-cpp-vulkan

A self-contained build of whisper.cpp with bundled Vulkan support for Arch Linux. Kept as a historical reference.

Why this exists

In July–August 2026, enabling GPU acceleration for whisper-cpp on Arch via Vulkan was a genuinely unsolvable puzzle:

• The official extra/whisper-cpp detected your GPU but didn't use it.
• Googling the problem led only to outdated information — or back to this repo and my related post. Me as a user literally became trapped within a vicious cycle of outdated sources.
• ggml-vulkan — the package that actually fixes it — existed since June 19, but nothing pointed to it: pacman didn't mention it, there was no Arch Wiki page for whisper-cpp (unlike llama-cpp, where ggml-backends are explicitly listed and mentioned to be installed), and no search results connected the two.
• So there was a several months time window during which it was hard to figure out how to make whisper-cpp just use the damn GPU.

The fix (pacman -S whisper-cpp ggml-vulkan) became discoverable only by accident: a Reddit commenter mentioned ggml (not even ggml-vulkan), which by chance led to the llama.cpp Arch Wiki page, which listed the ggml backends and implied ggml is a split package — some logic became visible.

On July 1, 2026, whisper-cpp 1.9.1-1 landed in extra with WHISPER_USE_SYSTEM_GGML=ON and replaces=(whisper-cpp-vulkan), making this package redundant. It took until September 3 to find out.

The underlying discoverability problem — that whisper-cpp doesn't list ggml-vulkan as an optdepends — remains open. A bug report / MR to the official package is planned.

Installation

Option 1: Install the prebuilt binary (fast)

Download and install the latest release:

curl -L https://github.com/hopsayer/whisper-cpp-vulkan-arch/releases/latest/download/whisper-cpp-vulkan-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst -o whisper-cpp-vulkan.pkg.tar.zst
sudo pacman -U whisper-cpp-vulkan.pkg.tar.zst

Option 2: Build from source (transparent)

git clone https://github.com/hopsayer/whisper-cpp-vulkan-arch
cd whisper-cpp-vulkan-arch
makepkg -si

Option 3: Not an Arch system

Automatic portable installation script

(no root, no package manager — installs under your user's ~/.local/{bin,lib,share} and adds ~/.local/bin to PATH if missing):

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hopsayer/whisper-cpp-vulkan-arch/main/scripts/portable-install.sh | bash

To remove everything installed this way:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hopsayer/whisper-cpp-vulkan-arch/main/scripts/portable-uninstall.sh | bash

What the portable install script does (folder layout)

~/.local/lib/whisper-cpp-vulkan/         ← all .so files
~/.local/lib/whisper-cpp-vulkan/bin/*    ← the real binaries (whisper-cli, etc.)
~/.local/bin/whisper-cli                 ← a thin wrapper script that sets LD_LIBRARY_PATH and execs the real binary above
~/.local/share/whisper-cpp-vulkan/manifest.txt  ← list of every installed file, used by the uninstall script

Manually unpack the release archive into any folder

tar -xvf whisper-cpp-vulkan-*.pkg.tar.zst

The binaries will be inside ./usr/bin/ (e.g., whisper-cli), libraries inside ./usr/lib/. Copy them wherever you like and run with LD_LIBRARY_PATH if needed, or install to /usr/local, or place as a portable install under ~/.local/bin + ~/.local/lib, etc.

Requirements

Will be installed automatically by makepkg -s (for Option 2):

• Runtime: vulkan-icd-loader (and a working Vulkan driver for your GPU).
• Build-time (if building from source): vulkan-headers, spirv-headers, cmake, ninja, git.

Important Notes

• This package conflicts with the official whisper-cpp – it will replace it upon installation.
• The included whisper-cpp-vulkan.install script automatically adds whisper-cpp to IgnorePkg in /etc/pacman.conf on install/upgrade, so a future whisper-cpp update in extra won't try to push this package out during pacman -Syu. It's removed from IgnorePkg automatically if you uninstall this package.
• Vulkan acceleration will be used automatically if a compatible GPU and drivers are present. If not, the CPU fallback will engage.

---

If you encounter any issues, please open an issue on GitHub.