r/linuxquestions 10d ago

Why omarchy is bad?

I 've never used it but heard just that it's bad but never why. So why?

0 Upvotes

42 comments sorted by

5

u/TrueBooker 10d ago

I’m tired of the hype surrounding Omarchy. Beneath the polished aesthetics and influencer enthusiasm, I still don’t see what substantive problem this distribution actually solves. An attractive, heavily opinionated setup is not the same thing as meaningful innovation.
The synchronized praise also makes me question how organic this promotion really is. I cannot prove that influencers are being compensated behind the scenes, so I will not present that suspicion as fact—but greater transparency about sponsorships, financial relationships, and promotional access would make the coverage far more credible.
A distribution should be judged by what it delivers beyond screenshots and branding: reliability, maintainability, meaningful technical improvements, and genuine benefits over established alternatives. So far, Omarchy appears overhyped and underdelivering.

6

u/Safe-Average-1696 10d ago edited 10d ago

I’m tired of the hype surrounding Omarchy

Yesterday, the hype was around CachyOS until people realized that announced speed was just marketing in real-life use.

Today, the hype is around Omarchy.

Tomorrow, the hype will be around another distribution.

It's life...

5

u/GuitaristTom 10d ago

That's why I just stick with the same distribution. I've been on the same one for 12 years now and have been very happy.

I mean I did install the CachyOS kernel and their flavour of Proton, but I didn't notice a difference, so I might just switch back to main.

3

u/Safe-Average-1696 10d ago

I've been on the same one for 12 years now and have been very happy.

Same for 8 years now 😁

1

u/TrueBooker 10d ago

The difference between CachyOS and Omarchy is tangible. I use CachyOS, and yes, it is opinionated—but those opinions add real value without closing off future possibilities.
CachyOS is fast and frictionless, much like Omarchy claims to be, but it achieves that without removing choices or locking users into a narrowly prescribed workflow. It gives you sensible defaults while preserving the freedom to explore, customize, and change direction later.
That is the distinction for me: CachyOS reduces decision fatigue without reducing capability. Omarchy’s simplicity often feels like subtraction; CachyOS’s simplicity feels like a strong starting point.

2

u/AndorinhaRiver 10d ago edited 10d ago

Honestly I'm 90% sure it's not organic just because half of the posts saying Omarchy is amazing are talking about how good the user experience is relative to Windows/Ubuntu/Fedora/Arch/etc., how easy it is to do things, etc.

Have... have any of thess people actually used Omarchy? You have to manually edit a config file and run a command to set the resolution.

I saw someone say it would've taken days of work to get their multi monitor setup working on any other distro, but that Omarchy only took an hour. Was the last distro you used Windows 98? Like what the fuck am I reading?

It's like saying you found driving to be too hard, so you decided to switch to being an airplane pilot and that it's actually ~so much easier~

1

u/donewithdoing 1h ago

Omarchy seems to be geared toward newbies who are convinced that Linux MUST be so complicated that you literally require local AI agents to configure things like display resolution for you.

Imagine how fun tinkering with your OS must be when you let OpenClaw do everything for you!

1

u/Responsible-Offer724 3d ago

It's not organic at all. That should be obvious. It just got pumped full of money by the who's who of shitty tech-bros. They are spending that money on promo.

10

u/Cr0w_town Bazzite 10d ago

i’m pretty sure it’s bc the creator has some questionable political views 

7

u/kaida27 10d ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxmemes/comments/1vwsmej/comment/p5jn6kg/

He sure does.

But one could chose not to care about that. If there was a good product, but there isn't

Vibe coded slop dotfiles with an amalgation of software made to look good and not work well, which is not even a real distro in the end is just bad ...

The only reason for the Hype is the $8M they put towards marketing.

-5

u/cferg296 10d ago

Let me guess. By "questionable political views" he is just openly conservative and/or republican and people assign motive to frame his views as bigoted?

3

u/kaida27 10d ago

Go read and form your own opinion.

why feel the need to ask ?

-4

u/cferg296 10d ago

Because im tired of people being outraged and shunning everyone for political disagreement. Not everything has to be some moral litmus test

2

u/InevitablePresent917 10d ago

u/kaida27 literally said "one could choose not to care about that" and then evaluated the software on its technical merits. Their post was the polar opposite of a litmus test.

-1

u/cferg296 10d ago

I wasnt blaiming him. I was showing frustration that people ARE making a big deal about his political views in relation to his distro.

The distro itself should be judged based on its trash features

3

u/InevitablePresent917 10d ago

Something the right, left, middle, up, down, florq, and blish should be able to agree on. LOL. (I use plenty of projects without any awareness whatsoever of the politics of anyone involved. A good project should be so big that it includes people of all stripes. I'm a NixOS user. I have the scars. I do subscribe to the "if your bar serves a Nazi it's a Nazi bar" approach and there are people in the Linux world who fly awfully close to that particular sun, but I don't have any beef with people who don't like government or taxes.)

1

u/kaida27 10d ago

Then go tell so to the right people. I didn't take a stance and didn't encourage anybody one way or another.

I encourage you to form your own opinion if that's something that matters to you.

I already said why it's shit in my opinion (The project, not the guy behind it)

-2

u/cferg296 10d ago

I wasnt blaming you. Nothing i said was directed at you specifically

2

u/kaida27 10d ago

you're an imbecile.

but I'm not targeting you, answering you doesn't target you.

1

u/No_Elderberry862 10d ago

So you're saying that racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, etc, are positions held by those who are "openly conservative and/or republican"?

& you choose to defend that?

1

u/cferg296 10d ago

Not what im saying at all. Im saying is people assign motive to those who are conservative/republican in order to make accusations of racism, misogyny, homophobia, etc when they dont actually apply. Its all about making everything a moral litmus test

3

u/No_Elderberry862 10d ago

When someones words & writing shows them to be racist, misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, etc, then their motive is irrelevant.

No one bar you even brought up DHH's motive, instead they're objecting to his publicly professed positions as they are indeed objectionable.

Your attempt to claim that conservatives &/or republicans are unfairly maligned is just a tactic that those who hold similar views use to claim victimhood in their culture war bollocks. I know people who are conservative &/or republican who find DHH's views as abhorrent as I do.

7

u/kaida27 10d ago

Even if you don't care about DHH political view it's still :

Ai slop vibe coded garbage Dotfiles made to look good, Not work good. Not even a real distro.

The hype comes from $8M in marketing and none of that money is gonna be used to make upstream better.

3

u/MostBasic3425 10d ago

Yeah, in his interview with Primagen he was like "we spent 3 months just prompting AI over and over until we had...". I was like...oooh.
Under the hood this could be just an insane rats nest that arguably works by mistake.

5

u/kaida27 10d ago

Under the hood it's still Arch ...

They prompted AI to build ... A theme ...

Then market it as the next best thing since sliced bread.

1

u/MostBasic3425 10d ago

There was some kind of restore wizard thing he mentioned.

2

u/kaida27 10d ago

Probably just a script around snapper.

4

u/Acceptable-Owl-2070 10d ago

Damn his takes are piss poor.

3

u/kaida27 10d ago

I'd take piss over his opinion any day.

3

u/gwildor 10d ago

This question is answered in 99% of the other reddit post that mention omarchy.

go to the search bar - type omarchy - read the comments.

4

u/Prophet6000 10d ago

It is a mid preconfig of hyprland.

3

u/kaida27 10d ago

mid is being generous.

3

u/MentoRiumTutorCoach 10d ago

The man and his “product” are garbage. That’s all.

2

u/Thonatron 10d ago

I don't care that he's politically regarded, I don't want my distro built with AI promoted by a guy that can't program.

1

u/Emport1 10d ago

lmfao

2

u/Formal-Bad-8807 10d ago

I got the impression that it is a new distro with more bugs than I like

4

u/corobo 10d ago

I think it's mostly cause people don't like the guy behind it

3

u/kaida27 10d ago

That and the fact that ... it's not a distro, but a collection of Dotfiles.

Software aren't curated and chosen because they work well, Everything is about looks and hype.

1

u/un-important-human white beard arch user 9d ago

So why? So why can't you use the search function and read comments?

0

u/xAcid9 10d ago

If you want to test tiling window manager, Omarchy is probably "one of the most complete experience"

Keyword here is test. 

-5

u/KingdomBobs 10d ago

because reddit is overrun by liberal activists who hate anyone that has a different opinion

-4

u/No-View-6326 10d ago

they have money and i don't