Fixing Cursor IDE UI Freezing on Linux

- 2 mins read

Problem

I’ve been using Cursor IDE for a while now and overall it’s been a fantastic experience. However, I started running into some really annoying UI freezing issues on my Arch Linux setup. The editor would randomly become unresponsive for several seconds, making it nearly impossible to maintain a good coding flow. The mouse cursor would turn into a spinning wheel, and sometimes the entire interface would lock up completely.

Through experience I know that that usually means the ui rendering is happening on the CPU. So let’s move it to the GPU!

Solution

The fix turns out to be surprisingly simple - you need to launch Cursor with specific GPU-related flags that force it to use proper GPU acceleration:

~/bin/cursor.AppImage --ignore-gpu-blacklist --enable-gpu-rasterization --enable-native-gpu-memory-buffers

Let me break down what each flag does:

  • --ignore-gpu-blacklist: Forces Cursor to use GPU acceleration even if your GPU is on some internal blacklist
  • --enable-gpu-rasterization: Enables GPU-accelerated rasterization for better rendering performance
  • --enable-native-gpu-memory-buffers: Uses native GPU memory buffers for improved memory management

Making it Permanent on Arch Linux

Rather than typing these flags every time you launch Cursor, you’ll want to modify the application file so they’re applied automatically. The approach depends on how you installed Cursor.

If you’re using Cursor as an AppImage (as I did), you’ll likely want to create or modify a user-specific desktop file:

nvim ~/.local/share/applications/cursor.desktop

Your desktop file should look something like this:

[Desktop Entry]
Comment=
Exec=/path/to/your/cursor.AppImage --ignore-gpu-blacklist --enable-gpu-rasterization --enable-native-gpu-memory-buffers
Icon=/home/dru/bin/cursor-app-icon.webp
Name=Cursor
NoDisplay=false
Path=
StartupNotify=true
Terminal=false
TerminalOptions=
Type=Application
X-KDE-SubstituteUID=false
X-KDE-Username=

The key part is the Exec= line. Make sure it has the following:

  • The correct path to match where your AppImage is located
  • The GPU flags we use used before

Note: you can also adjust the Icon= path if you have a custom icon. I just downloaded mine from their website.

Save the file and the changes should take effect immediately - you can test by launching Cursor from your application launcher.

Results

After applying these flags, the UI freezing issues completely disappeared. Cursor now runs smoothly with no random lockups or unresponsive periods. The interface feels much more responsive overall, and I can finally maintain a productive coding workflow without interruptions.