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I wouldn't exactly call Omarchy "good taste". Not that it's terrible, but pretty much the only reason it caught attention is because of the creator.

by jorvi 6d ago

Kon5ole 6d ago
Surely you are only thinking of the visuals then? I can certainly understand that, but the visuals are not what I mean. Things like: - Sweating that the install should take a minute. - Ensuring that when you change themes, most relevant apps also change themes. - Including popular commercial apps with 0 friction. - Consistent design in menus, features and default apps. - Clear explanations of how everything works, including video demos. All of that is good taste, and would be good taste even if the visuals were "My little pony" or "Lovecraftian horror" instead of 80s retro. ;-)
- Kon5ole 6d ago
  ...Things like not effing up the formatting of a list... :D
- jorvi 6d ago
  The only "commercial app" it themes automatically is Chromium. Obsidian you have to manually theme, the rest is just DE stuff that other distros also automatically theme. There's just nothing about Omarchy that makes it special or "good taste", in the sense that something like Regolith[0] is special. Or NixOS or uBlue. I'll say again, Omarchy only got attention because of its creator, and now it is draining away funding from other Linux DE stuff. Bad taste. [0]https://regolith-desktop.com/ https://regolith-desktop.com/
  - Kon5ole 6d ago
    I messed upp the list, didn't mean to imply that it can theme any commercial app. It was a separate point - Omarchy lets you install commercial apps as easily as any other app. Including things like Spotify, Claude Code, Codex, steam and even Windows itself (as a VM). All from the same menu and mechanisms. That's just undeniably useful. Also, Omarchy does theme not only Chromium, but VS Code for example, and several other "blessed" apps. I get the impression that you haven't actually tried it? Regolith is similar to Omarchy in many ways but is an older initiative that hasn't gotten as far despite having had more time. When I look up how to install apps in Regolith it says "use debian package tools" (sad trombone). That's clearly worse than Omarchy. You can decide that Regolith isn't gaining traction because it's not made by a techbro mascot if you wish but I think the explanation is easy - Omarchy is clearly better. I'm not saying it being by DHH hurts of course, but IMO it's less about him being connected than it is about his enthusiasm and energy. If being well connected was all it takes we'd all be living in the metaverse now. :) There has to be substance. It'd be fun to see if there are other initiatives that are as polished as Omarchy - the latest Omarchy demo is here[1], if anyone has links to similar demos of other setups it'd be fun to compare. AFAIK Omarchy is the slickest one around so far but I hope open-minded devs will take inspiration and start competing instead of just dismissing. [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7fe9pa8OeE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7fe9pa8OeE
    - jorvi 6d ago
      > Omarchy lets you install commercial apps as easily as any other app. Including things like Spotify, Claude Code, Codex, steam and even Windows itself (as a VM). All from the same menu and mechanisms. That's just undeniably useful. Both Gnome and KDE have done this for years.. > Also, Omarchy does theme not only Chromium, but VS Code for example, and several other "blessed" apps. I get the impression that you haven't actually tried it? Literally their own documentation says it only themes Chromium and you have to do Obsidian manually. That also points to another of its biggest criticisms: because its vibecoded (including the documentation), it is basically a house of cards. > It'd be fun to see if there are other initiatives that are as polished as Omarchy I mean, if you just care about riced setups there's stuff like this[0]. But both in Omarchy and that setup, the beauty is only skin deep. If you dip your toe even one bit out of the tested paths, you're gonna run into regular Linux ugliness. Its not something I mind (I run NixOS on my desktop and homelab server and clients), but Omarchy shouldn't be venerated as some new era of Linux desktop. Its not. It wouldn't even be much of a problem only if Omarchy wasn't suddenly getting millions in funding. That money should go elsewhere. [0]https://youtu.be/kYZ5mkGuQEg https://youtu.be/kYZ5mkGuQEg
      - Kon5ole 5d ago
        >Both Gnome and KDE have done this for years.. No they don't, they don't even consider it their job to do it. It's the job of the distro's package manager, or a 3rd party app wrapper like Snap or Flatpak. You can of course configure a distro using KDE and Gnome so that the experience becomes as good, if you want. Which is how things have been in Linux for decades. "Walk the last mile yourself". My point here is that Omarchy shows that there is a last mile to be walked. By having commercial apps included it becomes interesting for commercial vendors to invest in. I think that (and the overall buzz) is the main reason why it's getting funding. A hundred thousand wealthy geeks installing a platform where our apps are trivial to install and we won't have to deal with MS or Apple if it takes off? Ok, have a bag of cash why not. Distros where it takes a nerd to even figure out how to install the official nvidia drivers? Nah. >Literally their own documentation says it only themes Chromium Ok so you haven't tried it. Then I understand. It's not just skin deep, but you won't know that from just looking. I'm not saying it's a "new era" of anything btw. I'm just saying there are good ideas there that could benefit any DE or distro.

I wouldn't exactly call Omarchy "good taste". Not that it's terrible, but pretty much the only reason it caught attention is because of the creator.

by jorvi 6d ago

I wouldn't exactly call Omarchy "good taste". Not that it's terrible, but pretty much the only reason it caught attention is because of the creator.

Kon5ole 6d ago

Surely you are only thinking of the visuals then? I can certainly understand that, but the visuals are not what I mean. Things like: - Sweating that the install should take a minute. - Ensuring that when you change themes, most relevant apps also change themes. - Including popular commercial apps with 0 friction. - Consistent design in menus, features and default apps. - Clear explanations of how everything works, including video demos. All of that is good taste, and would be good taste even if the visuals were "My little pony" or "Lovecraftian horror" instead of 80s retro. ;-)

Kon5ole 6d ago
...Things like not effing up the formatting of a list... :D
jorvi 6d ago
The only "commercial app" it themes automatically is Chromium. Obsidian you have to manually theme, the rest is just DE stuff that other distros also automatically theme. There's just nothing about Omarchy that makes it special or "good taste", in the sense that something like Regolith[0] is special. Or NixOS or uBlue. I'll say again, Omarchy only got attention because of its creator, and now it is draining away funding from other Linux DE stuff. Bad taste. [0]https://regolith-desktop.com/ https://regolith-desktop.com/
- Kon5ole 6d ago
  I messed upp the list, didn't mean to imply that it can theme any commercial app. It was a separate point - Omarchy lets you install commercial apps as easily as any other app. Including things like Spotify, Claude Code, Codex, steam and even Windows itself (as a VM). All from the same menu and mechanisms. That's just undeniably useful. Also, Omarchy does theme not only Chromium, but VS Code for example, and several other "blessed" apps. I get the impression that you haven't actually tried it? Regolith is similar to Omarchy in many ways but is an older initiative that hasn't gotten as far despite having had more time. When I look up how to install apps in Regolith it says "use debian package tools" (sad trombone). That's clearly worse than Omarchy. You can decide that Regolith isn't gaining traction because it's not made by a techbro mascot if you wish but I think the explanation is easy - Omarchy is clearly better. I'm not saying it being by DHH hurts of course, but IMO it's less about him being connected than it is about his enthusiasm and energy. If being well connected was all it takes we'd all be living in the metaverse now. :) There has to be substance. It'd be fun to see if there are other initiatives that are as polished as Omarchy - the latest Omarchy demo is here[1], if anyone has links to similar demos of other setups it'd be fun to compare. AFAIK Omarchy is the slickest one around so far but I hope open-minded devs will take inspiration and start competing instead of just dismissing. [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7fe9pa8OeE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7fe9pa8OeE
  - jorvi 6d ago
    > Omarchy lets you install commercial apps as easily as any other app. Including things like Spotify, Claude Code, Codex, steam and even Windows itself (as a VM). All from the same menu and mechanisms. That's just undeniably useful. Both Gnome and KDE have done this for years.. > Also, Omarchy does theme not only Chromium, but VS Code for example, and several other "blessed" apps. I get the impression that you haven't actually tried it? Literally their own documentation says it only themes Chromium and you have to do Obsidian manually. That also points to another of its biggest criticisms: because its vibecoded (including the documentation), it is basically a house of cards. > It'd be fun to see if there are other initiatives that are as polished as Omarchy I mean, if you just care about riced setups there's stuff like this[0]. But both in Omarchy and that setup, the beauty is only skin deep. If you dip your toe even one bit out of the tested paths, you're gonna run into regular Linux ugliness. Its not something I mind (I run NixOS on my desktop and homelab server and clients), but Omarchy shouldn't be venerated as some new era of Linux desktop. Its not. It wouldn't even be much of a problem only if Omarchy wasn't suddenly getting millions in funding. That money should go elsewhere. [0]https://youtu.be/kYZ5mkGuQEg https://youtu.be/kYZ5mkGuQEg
    - Kon5ole 5d ago
      >Both Gnome and KDE have done this for years.. No they don't, they don't even consider it their job to do it. It's the job of the distro's package manager, or a 3rd party app wrapper like Snap or Flatpak. You can of course configure a distro using KDE and Gnome so that the experience becomes as good, if you want. Which is how things have been in Linux for decades. "Walk the last mile yourself". My point here is that Omarchy shows that there is a last mile to be walked. By having commercial apps included it becomes interesting for commercial vendors to invest in. I think that (and the overall buzz) is the main reason why it's getting funding. A hundred thousand wealthy geeks installing a platform where our apps are trivial to install and we won't have to deal with MS or Apple if it takes off? Ok, have a bag of cash why not. Distros where it takes a nerd to even figure out how to install the official nvidia drivers? Nah. >Literally their own documentation says it only themes Chromium Ok so you haven't tried it. Then I understand. It's not just skin deep, but you won't know that from just looking. I'm not saying it's a "new era" of anything btw. I'm just saying there are good ideas there that could benefit any DE or distro.