does reinstalling breeze with pacman e.g. pacman -S breeze work?

btw you’re using archlinux right?

i’m dumb, I didn’t see that you were looking for the sddm theme

Can I offer a ChatGPT response? I don’t really understand this stuff but here you go:

1. Install the plasma-workspace and breeze packages explicitly

Run the following commands to ensure both the plasma-workspace and breeze packages are installed:

bash

sudo pacman -S plasma-workspace breeze

This will reinstall the breeze theme files if they are missing. If breeze was not listed as a dependency of plasma-workspace, this might restore the theme.

2. Manually install the sddm-breeze theme

The sddm-breeze theme is often part of the breeze package, but if it’s still missing, you can reinstall it specifically:

bash

sudo pacman -S sddm-breeze

If you’re using a distribution like Arch Linux that separates components, this package might not be installed by default.

3. Verify the theme path

After installation, confirm that the theme files exist in /usr/share/sddm/themes/breeze.

Use:

bash

ls /usr/share/sddm/themes/breeze

If the directory exists and contains files, proceed to the next step. If not, something is wrong with the installation.

4. Set the Breeze theme in the SDDM configuration

Once you have the breeze theme installed, set it as the SDDM theme. Edit the SDDM configuration file:

bash

sudo nano /etc/sddm.conf.d/kde_settings.conf

Ensure the following line is present under the [Theme] section:

ini

[Theme]

Current=breeze

Save the file and restart SDDM:

bash

sudo systemctl restart sddm

5. Rebuild SDDM Cache

Sometimes, SDDM might not pick up the theme due to cache issues. Clear and rebuild it:

bash

sudo rm -rf /var/lib/sddm/.cache

Restart SDDM after clearing the cache.

6. Manually Download and Install the Breeze Theme

If all else fails, manually download the Breeze theme files. The source code for Breeze themes is often available on KDE’s GitLab. Clone or download the repository and place it in /usr/share/sddm/themes:

bash

git clone https://invent.kde.org/plasma/breeze-sddm-theme.git

sudo mv breeze-sddm-theme /usr/share/sddm/themes/breeze

Then, restart SDDM as before.

$ pacman -Ql sddm

Shows me themes are on /usr/share/sddm/themes/

$ pacman -Qo /usr/share/sddm/themes/breeze/

Gives me the package that owns the dir: plasma-desktop

So, to fix it, install plasma-desktop.

-Qo option works even if the file is deleted.