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Ladybird is great, but Omarchy is a weird choice. Why can't DHH / Basecamp sponsor David's hobby distro if he wants? The browser ecosystem is dangerously centr

Ladybird is great, but Omarchy is a weird choice. Why can't DHH / Basecamp sponsor David's hobby distro if he wants? The browser ecosystem is dangerously centralized and another independent rendering engine would be welcome. In contrast, I don't see the value in yet another flavor-of-the-week Linux distro. Even sponsoring Arch directly would make more sense here.

indigodaddy 1y ago
Also isn't it just a script to install some stuff and customize
- EricRiese 1y ago
  That's what I thought but I just checked and 3.0.0 was released 5 days ago and it has an ISO.
- ericd 1y ago
  I think the last mile polish has always been a big weakness of the oss ecosystem (on average), so this kind of integration into a nice package is important work, I think. Personally, I’m really enjoying Omarchy.
- draven 1y ago
  omakub (https://omakub.org/ https://omakub.org/) is/was (for Ubuntu), this looks more like a "real" Arch derivative.
- nomdep 1y ago
  Like Dropbox was "just an sftp server"
  - arrowtrench 1y ago
    Managing servers that store terabytes of data for you isn't exactly the same as configuring and stitching Linux programs together.
    - nomdep 1y ago
      My point is that it’s not about what work is done, but about what users get from that work. Everyone could, in theory, learn how to configure Arch and Hyprland, but most of us don’t have the time or interest to do it. So Omarchy is to Arch something similar of what Ubuntu was to Debian 15 years ago.
      - moralestapia 1y ago
        It's not, though, Ubuntu worked out a lot of UI/UX that is just not there in Debian. Omarchy is mostly a custom configuration of the same OS, nothing more ... I agree that they should have sponsored Arch directly instead but nepos gonna nepo.
lavela 1y ago
Openly aligning with DHH is certainly a choice. After all being created by DHH is the only feature they list on their website. Didn't care for the DHH controversies for a long time but if you start writing white national blog posts[1] I don't know what to say anymore. [1] https://world.hey.com/dhh/as-i-remember-london-e7d38e64 https://world.hey.com/dhh/as-i-remember-london-e7d38e64
- kolektiv 1y ago
  Yup, and just to add, for those not in the UK, or particularly connected to London, etc. - this take is utter garbage. The UK certainly has a variety of challenges, but they are not what the far right (and that's what the people he's talking about absolutely are) make them out to be. London is not what it's painted to be by external rabble-rousers and populists, and this mania/delusion that's being pushed (sometimes by the very wealthy who are often much closer to the problem than immigrants are) is a significant problem. DHH is (or should be) pretty close to a toxic brand right now, and for someone who published various edicts on "don't talk about politics at work", it would be lovely if he followed his own advice a little more.
  - nomdep 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - youngtaff 1y ago
      So are you also going to list the fact that 40% of people who got arrested in 2024 anti-immigrant riots also had convictions for domestic and sexual violence Being arrested for ‘wrong think’ is often a case of being arrested for inciting violence or racial hatred There are more white grooming gangs than Pakistani ones etc… etc… DHH’s post just picked the stories that suited his bias
      - nomdep 1y ago
        What? This is not my list. I am merely listing what the post says and asking which one of those aren't true. You are taking it like a personal attack. > There are more white grooming gangs than Pakistani ones So the situation is even worse! (why do you even care about the nationality of the perverts?)
coconut08 1y ago
omarchy has brought in thousands of new linux users that previously had no interest in desktop linux. its one of the best things that has happened to desktop linux in recent memory. most everythign else in linux is incestuous self referential stuff for people who already use linux. that is why it is different.
- ForHackernews 1y ago
  I'd like to see a citation on that. I don't think I've ever encountered Omarchy outside the pages of this website. SteamOS seems far more consequential to me in terms of end-user Linux adoption. Something like https://www.anduinos.com/ https://www.anduinos.com/ is far friendlier and more approachable for folks new to Linux. Why not sponsor that? I cannot imagine who the target audience is going from MacOS straight to TUIs on Arch.
  - pmdr 1y ago
    Why not sponsor something that is already gaining traction? Lots of posts on Omakub/Omarchy on X and reddit, so they're clearly doing something right. Linux didn't need only polish and money, it needed an evangelist with a story of dumping and supposedly fighting against Apple. This might put off people that obviously never needed any help in using or customizing Linux, but not those looking to switch over.
  - dagi3d 1y ago
    I guess the only real data of non-linux users switching to omarchy as of today, are the 37signals employees (including those that will be forced to use it)
leoc 1y ago
I have to say, a single announcement that Cloudflare is sponsoring specifically these two projects does start to look a bit like an attempt to curry favour with the grassroots part of the tech right: give “their guys” some money and praise and maybe they’ll stay off Cloudflare’s back for a bit. And to be clear, that’s not to say that it’s bad to sponsor Ladybird, or maybe even Omarchy.
- nemomarx 1y ago
  Is Ladybird a tech right thing?
  - leoc 1y ago
    I wouldn't describe it as such, but that's not what matters here. Andreas Kling has been out championing the anti-anti-Charlie-Kirk cause on Twitter, so it's a safe bet that the Lundukish grassroots anti-wokes see him as one of theirs. Whether he has any juice with the right-wing VC set I don't know.
    - shadytrees 1y ago
      Kling's politics aside, he's also had a history of abandoning projects after hyping them up on social media and attracting contributors. Here is what happened to SerenityOS and jakt, for example: https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/graphs/commit-activity https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/graphs/commit-activit... https://github.com/SerenityOS/jakt/graphs/commit-activity https://github.com/SerenityOS/jakt/graphs/commit-activity If Cloudflare wants to defend the future of the web, maybe they could also throw a few dollars towards projects with better governance and aren't helmed by a BFDL with a spotty record and are written in a more future-proof language than C++ [0]. (For example, Servo.) [0]: In Kling's own words! https://web.archive.org/web/20250819053816/https://awesomekling.github.io/Memory-safety-for-SerenityOS/ https://web.archive.org/web/20250819053816/https://awesomekl...
      - leoc 1y ago
        Isn't Ladybird (now) supposed to be moving to Swift, though? (I think that investment in Servo is also likely to be an excellent idea. Sponsoring Igalia's Servo work is an obvious starting place for any European institutions which are actually serious about "tech sovereignty", just to start with.)
robinhood 1y ago
Omarchy will still have to distribute its image, so lots of bandwidth since they do not want to rely on the AUR during the install process (since AUR has been targeted by DDOSS attacks recently). Perhaps Cloudflare will provide that and not a dollar amount?

indigodaddy 1y ago

Also isn't it just a script to install some stuff and customize

EricRiese 1y ago
That's what I thought but I just checked and 3.0.0 was released 5 days ago and it has an ISO.
ericd 1y ago
I think the last mile polish has always been a big weakness of the oss ecosystem (on average), so this kind of integration into a nice package is important work, I think. Personally, I’m really enjoying Omarchy.
draven 1y ago
omakub (https://omakub.org/ https://omakub.org/) is/was (for Ubuntu), this looks more like a "real" Arch derivative.
nomdep 1y ago
Like Dropbox was "just an sftp server"
- arrowtrench 1y ago
  Managing servers that store terabytes of data for you isn't exactly the same as configuring and stitching Linux programs together.
  - nomdep 1y ago
    My point is that it’s not about what work is done, but about what users get from that work. Everyone could, in theory, learn how to configure Arch and Hyprland, but most of us don’t have the time or interest to do it. So Omarchy is to Arch something similar of what Ubuntu was to Debian 15 years ago.
    - moralestapia 1y ago
      It's not, though, Ubuntu worked out a lot of UI/UX that is just not there in Debian. Omarchy is mostly a custom configuration of the same OS, nothing more ... I agree that they should have sponsored Arch directly instead but nepos gonna nepo.

lavela 1y ago

Openly aligning with DHH is certainly a choice. After all being created by DHH is the only feature they list on their website. Didn't care for the DHH controversies for a long time but if you start writing white national blog posts[1] I don't know what to say anymore. [1] https://world.hey.com/dhh/as-i-remember-london-e7d38e64 https://world.hey.com/dhh/as-i-remember-london-e7d38e64

kolektiv 1y ago
Yup, and just to add, for those not in the UK, or particularly connected to London, etc. - this take is utter garbage. The UK certainly has a variety of challenges, but they are not what the far right (and that's what the people he's talking about absolutely are) make them out to be. London is not what it's painted to be by external rabble-rousers and populists, and this mania/delusion that's being pushed (sometimes by the very wealthy who are often much closer to the problem than immigrants are) is a significant problem. DHH is (or should be) pretty close to a toxic brand right now, and for someone who published various edicts on "don't talk about politics at work", it would be lovely if he followed his own advice a little more.
- nomdep 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - youngtaff 1y ago
    So are you also going to list the fact that 40% of people who got arrested in 2024 anti-immigrant riots also had convictions for domestic and sexual violence Being arrested for ‘wrong think’ is often a case of being arrested for inciting violence or racial hatred There are more white grooming gangs than Pakistani ones etc… etc… DHH’s post just picked the stories that suited his bias
    - nomdep 1y ago
      What? This is not my list. I am merely listing what the post says and asking which one of those aren't true. You are taking it like a personal attack. > There are more white grooming gangs than Pakistani ones So the situation is even worse! (why do you even care about the nationality of the perverts?)

coconut08 1y ago

omarchy has brought in thousands of new linux users that previously had no interest in desktop linux. its one of the best things that has happened to desktop linux in recent memory. most everythign else in linux is incestuous self referential stuff for people who already use linux. that is why it is different.

ForHackernews 1y ago
I'd like to see a citation on that. I don't think I've ever encountered Omarchy outside the pages of this website. SteamOS seems far more consequential to me in terms of end-user Linux adoption. Something like https://www.anduinos.com/ https://www.anduinos.com/ is far friendlier and more approachable for folks new to Linux. Why not sponsor that? I cannot imagine who the target audience is going from MacOS straight to TUIs on Arch.
- pmdr 1y ago
  Why not sponsor something that is already gaining traction? Lots of posts on Omakub/Omarchy on X and reddit, so they're clearly doing something right. Linux didn't need only polish and money, it needed an evangelist with a story of dumping and supposedly fighting against Apple. This might put off people that obviously never needed any help in using or customizing Linux, but not those looking to switch over.
- dagi3d 1y ago
  I guess the only real data of non-linux users switching to omarchy as of today, are the 37signals employees (including those that will be forced to use it)

leoc 1y ago

I have to say, a single announcement that Cloudflare is sponsoring specifically these two projects does start to look a bit like an attempt to curry favour with the grassroots part of the tech right: give “their guys” some money and praise and maybe they’ll stay off Cloudflare’s back for a bit. And to be clear, that’s not to say that it’s bad to sponsor Ladybird, or maybe even Omarchy.

nemomarx 1y ago
Is Ladybird a tech right thing?
- leoc 1y ago
  I wouldn't describe it as such, but that's not what matters here. Andreas Kling has been out championing the anti-anti-Charlie-Kirk cause on Twitter, so it's a safe bet that the Lundukish grassroots anti-wokes see him as one of theirs. Whether he has any juice with the right-wing VC set I don't know.
  - shadytrees 1y ago
    Kling's politics aside, he's also had a history of abandoning projects after hyping them up on social media and attracting contributors. Here is what happened to SerenityOS and jakt, for example: https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/graphs/commit-activity https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/graphs/commit-activit... https://github.com/SerenityOS/jakt/graphs/commit-activity https://github.com/SerenityOS/jakt/graphs/commit-activity If Cloudflare wants to defend the future of the web, maybe they could also throw a few dollars towards projects with better governance and aren't helmed by a BFDL with a spotty record and are written in a more future-proof language than C++ [0]. (For example, Servo.) [0]: In Kling's own words! https://web.archive.org/web/20250819053816/https://awesomekling.github.io/Memory-safety-for-SerenityOS/ https://web.archive.org/web/20250819053816/https://awesomekl...
    - leoc 1y ago
      Isn't Ladybird (now) supposed to be moving to Swift, though? (I think that investment in Servo is also likely to be an excellent idea. Sponsoring Igalia's Servo work is an obvious starting place for any European institutions which are actually serious about "tech sovereignty", just to start with.)

robinhood 1y ago

Omarchy will still have to distribute its image, so lots of bandwidth since they do not want to rely on the AUR during the install process (since AUR has been targeted by DDOSS attacks recently). Perhaps Cloudflare will provide that and not a dollar amount?