Archive:

"Omarchy Linux"

Posted: 13 September, 2025

I’ve been using Fedora (KDE Spin, natch) since getting the Framework 13, and it’s been rock solid. I was never a fan of Umbongo’s snap bullshit, and Flatpaks do what they say on the tin, so I’ve been able to get hold of pretty much everything that I’ve ever wanted. No complaints. But I got nerd-sniped... between the eyes.

I listened to Lex Friedman’s podcast, with DHH, of Ruby On Rails fame. He’s an interesting guy; Amigan, demoscener, and very Scandinavian. I’m sure I’d enjoy chatting to him over a pint. Part of the conversation discussed his fall-out with Apple, and how he was moving over to Linux, which I didn’t think much of it at the time. We all get there eventually. But a few nights later, the algorithm threw this up: Omarchy Linux And boom. I'm hit! Right between the eyes.

I love a TUI. I know my way around nvim. And I’d always fancied trying out a tiling window manager. Oooh, and the AUR! That'd be nice... And for some reason, it also reminded me of https://crunchbang.org/, which was brilliant. (I was gutted when that died). So… yeah, guess what? I’ve been running Omarchy for the last couple of weeks.

Fortunately for me, DHH owns a Framework 13, so Omarchy installed in a few minutes with zero problems. No hardware issues, no extra steps. It was obvious from the first boot that it’s extremely opinionated, and very stylised, but so far I’ve only felt the need to change a couple of keyboard shortcuts, remove some of the default apps that I’m never going to use (get to fuck, Spotify), add some of my fav programmer fonts, and install a couple of extra themes. Other than that, it’s fit with my head, pretty much immediately.

I can see why tiling window managers might not be for everyone, but I’m starting to enjoy Hyprland. I’m still not quite used to being unable to hide apps, and I’ve got a few more keyboard short-cuts to memorise, but other than that it’s starting to sink in.

Surprisingly, for an OS that’s “built for developers”, none of the main C/C++ dev tools were installed by default, and there wasn’t an option – like there is for Javascript, Ruby and some other high-level languages – to hit a button and have it all installed from a script. Not the end of the world, when it’s all a quick pacman away, just surprising.

So yeah, initial impressions are extremely good, and I’m really looking forward to see how Omarchy gets refined over the next few years. By the look of the discord, there’s a lot of activity, so I’m excited to have hopped on early. But don't let that put you off, despite being so young, this is ready to go.

Definitely won’t be to everyone’s taste, but if you’re a nerdy coder, you’re probably gonna enjoy it.

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