Omarchy Is Not A Distro
Source: Hacker News
omarchy is not a distro
omarchy is DHH’s latest infatuation - omarchy describes itself like so:
Omarchy is a beautiful, modern & opinionated Linux distribution by DHH.
as a longtime frequenter of r/unixporn, it was immediately apparent to me that omarchy is not a linux distribution in any traditional sense — in fact, the entire “omarchy distribution” amounts to little more than Arch linux + DHH’s personal dotfiles.
the whole thing should probably just be a few gists.
ultimately i think that any interest Linux desktops is a good thing, but i take serious issue with omarchy’s posturing — why is omarchy such a huge focus of DHH’s?
and why does it have a conference, sponsors, and merchandise?
especially when longstanding distros like Debian have struggled with funding and sponsorship for decades?
i think there are 3 things going on here:
- the advent of LLMs has made unix ricing orders of magnitude easier & more broadly interesting
- apple’s hardware lead & overall design philosophy is falling apart
- DHH realized this, and is cashing in on a wave of new, inexperienced users looking for a cool looking Linux distribution
a hyper-configured Linux install is, necessarily, hyper-personal. if you install omarchy, you are not installing a Linux distribution - you are installing Arch Linux plus a huge glut of DHH’s personal preferences.
example time
omarchy includes a window manager called hyprland — here are a few preconfigured keybinds that come from omarchy:
SUPER + SHIFT + ALT + A: opens “https://grok.com” SUPER + SHIFT + C: opens “https://app.hey.com/calendar/weeks/” SUPER + SHIFT + E: opens “https://app.hey.com” SUPER + SHIFT + ALT + X: opens “https://x.com/compose/post”
default keybinds to open… grok? the X post dialogue? hey.com? reeeeeally?
and somehow, the pre-installed applications list is even worse. your default omarchy install will include a bunch of proprietary software, including:
- 1password
- claude-code
- spotify
- typora
and dozens of preloaded scripts to install such refuse as:
- brave browser
- dropbox
- nordvpn (lol)
…
what are we doing?? these are not the kinds of packages that any sane distro would “ship” to its users. and i am using the term “ship” generously here, because omarchy doesn’t “ship” any packages - it relies entirely on Arch and the AUR.
and one last thing that’s personally offensive to me: a 37-line default ghostty config
shipping a default config for a terminal that’s designed to be usable without any configuration…
- my eyes roll out of my head *
…
if you’re new to Linux, skip omarchy and install a real distribution - not some guy’s personal dotfiles.
if i wanted shitware, i’d just install Windows.