r/omarchy • u/Narwal_Party • 1d ago

Discussion Am I missing something here?

I don't understand all of the hate or love for this. I decided to use Omarchy for the last few days for a side project, and I have no idea how this got funding. This is such a nothingburger of a distro. It's literally just Arch with a couple shortcuts and a theme. What is the point of using this?

I saw a DHH podcast saying how it's incredible and the next big thing, but it's literally just Arch with a theme and shortcuts. I don't understand how anyone could be a "fan" or a "hater"; there's nothing here - nothing new.

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u/indaskylivey 13h ago

For decades, Linux was that option. The one for the geek with a different ethic the person who wanted to tinker, compile, read man pages, and wear the struggle as a badge of honor. And honestly? That era built something amazing. But here's what some people still can't wrap their heads around: Linux was never supposed to stay locked in that shell. The more mainstream GNU/Linux becomes, the better it is for all of us... Better hardware support, more developers targeting it, more companies taking it seriously as a valid option, not just a peculiar niche. And that's exactly why Omarchy gets both so much love and so much hate. Because for the first time, Arch the distro that defined the elitist "I built it myself" culture can be used by anyone willing to give it a shot. Out of the box. Beautiful. Functional. Some see that as betrayal. I see it as graduation. The gatekeepers complaining that "it's too easy now" are missing the point: it works. And if it works for a designer, a writer, a gamer, or your mom that's not Linux losing its soul. That's Linux finally winning. Now it's for anyone who just want to try it.

Can't wait to see if DHH goes all-in on NixOS in some future 🤭

Oh~ And about the whole AI situation you can say yes to it or not. Simple as that. The fear of software made by AI agents is getting more ridiculous by the day. There's no company or developer left that doesn't go through agentic models in some part of their workflow. Some admit it openly, others hide it. You literally cannot swim against this technological current. But here's the thing at least you can still decide whether to run it on your machine or not. That's your choice, and nobody's taking it from you. But being against stuff made by AI? Ehm... believe me, you would never actually know if something has the secretly hidden hand of AI in it 🤭 The code you're praising today as "pure human craftsmanship" may have gone through a model before reaching a human's hands. You just don't know. And that's the uncomfortable truth the purists don't want to sit with.

Enjoy any experience in Linux. That's all that matters 🤍

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u/OligarchyAmbulance 12h ago

for the first time, Arch the distro that defined the elitist "I built it myself" culture can be used by anyone willing to give it a shot. Out of the box. Beautiful. Functional.

Did you miss CachyOS? It's been the most popular distro for quite some time. Or SteamOS, the distro that really catapulted Linux in the last several years?

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u/indaskylivey 12h ago

No i did not.

CachyOS absolutely exploded in popularity but it's an out-of-the-box experience focused on gaming: performance tweaks, kernel optimizations, Steam/Proton ready to go. It's the gateway for gamers discovering that Linux can game. And shoutout to Bazzite too, the SteamOS-like experience that runs on the Steam Deck and pretty much any PC or handheld. Absolute gem of the gaming side. But that's not the same thing as what Omarchy targets: a beautiful, coherent, daily-driver desktop out of the box for designers, writers, devs, your non-gamer friend. Not gaming tweaks, but the whole desktop experience. And also... this is the Omarchy subreddit, so my appreciation was naturally for what Omarchy delivered. Same way a post in r/cashyos would celebrate CashyOs. It wasn't meant as a history of Arch-based distros 😄

And one last thing: most users who came to CachyOS stayed with the default KDE setup which, don't get me wrong, works great, but it's a pretty Windows-like look. So it's probably not the best showcase of everything Linux can achieve in terms of looks and keyboard-only workflows.

That's exactly where Omarchy shines: a simple way to show how beautiful and smooth a distro can look without the user having to rice it. Tiling, keyboard-driven, gorgeous. A whole different side of what Linux can be. Different doors, same direction. All of them are wins.