10 Best Arch Linux Image Viewers

An image viewer is a software program using which you can view, edit, and manage images on your Arch system. The image viewers serve different purposes. You can browse through the image gallery or find your favorite photo. Some image viewers also allow you to browse the online image gallery. Quite a few image viewers are available that let you edit your images to create slideshows, crop, resize, and enhance images for a better viewing experience.

If you have installed a desktop environment with Arch, then most probably you will get the default image viewer also. If you’re fed up with the default image viewer and want to try some new image viewer, then this article will briefly give you some of the best image viewer available on Arch Linux.

Best Arch Linux Image Viewers

If your default image viewer is working fine, you don’t need to change it. But if there’s a requirement for some advanced features, you can explore other options. There are many image viewers for Arch Linux, from simple to advanced. Let’s cover some of the best available image viewers for your Arch machine.

Note: These image viewers are not ranked as best to worst. This list contains image viewers that are the most popular ones among Arch Linux users based on online sources.

1. Sxiv

Sxiv is a simple image viewer for Arch Linux. It is written in C language. Sxiv comes with two modes: Image mode and thumbnail mode. In image mode, it shows the current image only. On the other side, in thumbnail mode, it displays a grid of previews of all images in a directory.

Some of its unique features are:

It supports external key events, which allow you to customize keyboard and mouse shortcuts.
You can set custom shortcuts for various actions, such as copying, rotating, and setting the wallpaper of an image.
You can define your key-handler script in ~/.config/sxiv/exec/key-handler.
Sxiv can reload and update the current image if there is a certain change in it.
Support for loading GIF file frames. It can also open GIF animations.
It can embed into other X windows with the -e option, which is useful for applications like tabbed.
It is lightweight and scriptable, with minimal dependencies.

To install Sxiv image viewer in Arch Linux, you can use the Pacman package manager tool:

sudo pacman -S sxiv

Once Sxiv is installed, you can either run it directly from the terminal by specifying the image location, or you can use the GUI method.

To open an image directory from the terminal using the Sxiv image viewer, run the command with the following syntax:

sxiv ~/Downloads/test_image.jpg

Similarly, for the GUI method, right-click over the image icon and select the Open With option. From the opened window, select the Sxiv image viewer and Click Open. You will see a new window with the Sxiv image viewer.

2. Mirage

Mirage is another fast and simple GTK+ image viewer. It depends only on PyGTK. Mirage can open different image formats like PNG, JPG, GIF, XPM, and others. It provides basic image manipulation features. You can rotate, zoom, and crop an image of your choice.

Some of its unique features are:

Preload and cycle through different images.
Use thumbnails to jump to any image you want.
Slideshows and Full-screen views.
Support image editing like rotating, zooming, flipping, and changing the saturation.
Save, delete, rename, or perform custom actions on your images.
It can be accessed from the console.
Support interface customization.
Multiple language support.

Mirage is not available in the default Pacman repository for Arch Linux. However, we can get it using its AUR package. To get the AUR package, you can either use any AUR helper or directly clone the Mirage git directory and compile its package.

If you are new to Arch Linux, you may find it easier to use an AUR helper. This will automatically download the AUR package and compile it for you. Some popular AUR helpers include yay, aurman, and Pamac.

To install Mirage image viewer using the AUR helper (Yay), run the given command:

sudo yay -S mirage

This will install the latest version of Mirage available in the AUR repository.

Once installed, you can use this command to open an image file using Mirage:

mirage ~/Downloads/test_image.jpg

You can also directly open an image from the file manager using the Open With option.

In case you don’t have any AUR helper installed. You can still get the Mirage image viewer by directly cloning it from the git. For that first, install the necessary tools like base-devel and git. After that, you can clone the Mirage from git. Next, run the makepkg command by navigating to the directory where the package file is cloned. This command will compile the AUR package.

To install the Mirage image viewer AUR package in Arch Linux, you can use the following steps:

git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/mirage.git

cd mirage

makepkg -si

3. Geeqie

Geeqie is an open-source image viewer for Linux systems. It offers many features that improve the speed of image previewing and organizing. It was forked from GQview in 007.

Geeqie has some unique features that you might like:

It supports previewing raw images and managing colors easily.
It supports the comparison of up to four images side by side.
It supports direct file and directory management.
It can customize files to work with other software.
You can add tags, and comments, and edit EXIF data.
Geeqie supports EXIF, IPTC, and XMP metadata formats.
You can manage your collections and print them too.

To install Geeqie on Arch Linux, use the Pacman package manager. To get Geeqie, run this command:

sudo pacman -S geeqie

To open an image using Geeqie you can run this command:

geeqie ~/Downloads/test_image.jpg

Similarly, you can also try the GUI method.

To get the AUR package of Geeqie using AUR helper, run the given command:

yay -S geeqie

If you don’t have an AUR helper, you can also clone the Geeqie from git:

git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/geeqie-git.git

cd geeqie-git

makepkg -si

4. XnViewMP

XnViewMP is a free cross-platform media browser and viewer. It is a powerful software for organizing, converting, editing, and resizing images. It supports animated and multipage formats. Among all these features it also includes the support for a batch conversion module, a media library, and a watermark tool. XnViewMP is the enhanced and multi-platform version of XnView.

XnViewMP offers the following unique features:

Histogram as a separate panel.
Metadata summary info panel.
It includes an EXIF editor tool.
It supports more than 500 image formats.
Plugins/Add-ons dialog.
Exports images in over 70 formats.

Like the Mirage image viewer, XnViewMP is also not available in the default Arch repository. But you can get it using its AUR package. For that, as mentioned earlier, you can either try the Yay AUR helper or directly clone the repository from Git.

To install XnViewMP using AUR helper run:

yay -S xnviewmp

Once installed, open a test image file using this command:

xnviewmp ~/Downloads/test_image.jpg

Else try out the GUI way using the Open With option.

You can also clone the git repository of the XnViewMP image viewer:

git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/xnviewmp.git

cd xnviewmp

makepkg -si

5. Viewnior

Viewnior is an elegant and minimalist image viewer for Linux systems. It supports various features such as full screen, slideshow, rotate, flip, crop, and other image operations. It also has a configurable mouse action and a simple interface.

Some unique features of Viewnior are:

The Viewnior image viewer uses a custom-modified GtkImageView library. This library provides fast and smooth image viewing.
It can browse only selected images. This way you can filter out unwanted files.
It can automatically detect the desktop environment and set the image as wallpaper accordingly.
It can display EXIF and IPTC metadata. Both contain the camera settings, locations, and date information.

You can get the Viewnior on your Arch system using the Pacman:

sudo pacman -S viewnior

After installation, open an image to test Viewnior working:

viewnior ~/Downloads/test_image.jpg

Alternatively, you can open an image with Viewnior, directly from the file manager.

Viewnior is also available in the AUR repository, to download and install it you can use the Yay AUR helper:

yay -S viewnior-git

Alternatively, you can also directly download and build the AUR package using the git clone command:

git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/viewnior-git.git

cd viewnior-git

makepkg -si

6. Nomacs

Nomacs is an open-source image viewer with multiple image format support. It also supports RAW and PSD images. It provides essential features for image adjustment like color, brightness, resize, and crop options.

Nomacs offers the following features:

It gives you extra details about images. These details include thumbnails, metadata, and histograms.
You can also open zip or MS Office files that contain images.
It can synchronize multiple instances of the viewer and overlay them with changing opacity.
It can perform basic image editing functions such as crop, resize, color adjustments, and pseudo color.

Installation command for the Nomacs image viewer with the help of AUR helper is given below:

yay -S nomacs

Now access any image from the terminal using the Nomacs image viewer:

nomacs ~/Downloads/test_image.jpg

Alternatively, try the Nomacs image viewer from the file manager.

You can also get the AUR package of Nomacs by directly coning its directory through the terminal and compiling it later with the help of the makepkg command:

git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/nomacs.git

cd nomacs

makepkg -si

7. Fotoxx

Fotoxx is an image viewer for Linux systems that supports image editing and image collection management. It provides some advanced features like red-eye removal, HDR, panorama stitching, and batch processing. Along with these you also get some preliminary basic features like rotating, cropping, and zooming images.

Fotoxx offers the following unique features:

It supports browsing images in an explorer-like way. It provides thumbnails and automatic detection of new photos on your PC.
Select any part of an image by matching colors, following edges, or drawing freehand.
You can add useful information to your images, such as tags, geotags, dates, and ratings.
Process multiple images at once, for example, rename, resize, copy, move, change format, or edit information.
Make albums and slideshows without making copies of your images.
Stitch photos together to create 360-degree panoramas.
You can edit images you can add effects, trim, rotate, and remove red eyes, and dust spots from images.

To install Fotoxx on Arch Linux, you can use the Yay AUR helper:

yay -S fotoxx

Once installed, open an image using the Fotoxx on your Arch system:

fotoxx ~/Downloads/test_image.jpg

Or try the Fotoxx image viewer from the file manager.

You can also manually download and compile the AUR package of Fotoxx using the below commands:

git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/fotoxx.git

cd fotoxx

makepkg -si

8. Pqiv

Pqiv is an image viewer tool based on GTK 3. It comes with minimal UI and is highly customizable. It can be fully controlled by scripts. It has support for different file formats including PDF, Postscript, and video files.

Some of Pqiv’s unique features are:

Pqiv supports animations and slideshows.
It has a montage mode that allows you to open multiple images at once.
Pqiv also has a negate (color inversion) mode (–negate).
Pqiv has a sxiv-like marks system.
It has a toggle background pattern mode (–background-pattern).

To install Pqiv on Arch Linux, you can use the Pacman package manager tool:

sudo pacman -S pqiv

After installation, run the given command to open an image:

pqiv ~/Downloads/test_image.jpg

You can also test it using the file manager.

9. Shotwell

Shotwell is an image viewer with photo management tools. Shotwell is the default image viewer for several GNOME-based Linux distributions. It provides basic image-viewing tools like rotating, zooming, and cropping.

Shotwell has the following features:

Shotwell can directly import your photos from the camera.
It can group the photos by date and supports tagging.
Shotwell has image editing features like crop, eliminate red eye, and adjust color levels.
It also has an auto-enhance option.
Shotwell can upload images to Flickr and Piwigo.
Using Shotwell you can set desktop wallpaper.

To install Shotwell on Arch Linux, you can use the Pacman package manager tool:

sudo pacman -S shotwell

Once done with installation, open a test image using this command:

shotwell ~/Downloads/test_image.jpg

Or try opening an image using the Shotwell through file manager.

10. Eye of GNOME

Eye of GNOME (EOG) is an image viewer for the GNOME desktop environment. It can display pictures in various formats. It supports PNG, JPEG, and TIFF files. It also has some editing and printing features. EOG also supports plugins to add extra functionality.

Some unique features of EOG are:

EOG can show all the pictures in a folder as a slideshow or in gallery mode.
It can convert pictures from one format to another.
EOG can rename multiple images at once.
The eye of GNOME can display detailed information about a picture. This information includes the camera settings, histogram, geolocation, and date.
It can set the current picture as the desktop background or send it by email.
EOG also has a Python console that can be used to run scripts and add custom functions.

To install EOG on Arch Linux, run this command:

sudo pacman -S eog

After installation, test it by opening an image:

eog ~/Downloads/test_image.jpg

You can open an image using EOG directly through the file manager.

Eye of GNOME is also available as an AUR package, to get it run this command in the console:

yay -S eog-git

Alternatively, you can download and compile its package manually using these commands:

git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/eog-git.git

cd eog-git

makepkg -si

Conclusion

A graphical image viewer is a program that displays images in a graphical user interface (GUI). It provides a more interactive and visually appealing way to view images. In this article, we covered 10 different image viewers that you can install on your Arch Linux machine. Each of these image viewers provides basic to advanced-level image optimization and managing tools. All these image viewers can be controlled both from the terminal or using the file manager. If you want a simplistic image viewer you can go with EOG and if you need a bit more advanced image viewer with lots of editing tools then you can continue with Nomacs.

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