I Was thinking about switching to full-time Linux for years, maybe decades. I’ve had Linux installed on side-computer (Ubuntu and Mint on my home server), but not on my main laptop. I made the switch on 23 March. I decided to install Omarchy, because it looked cool and it was a new and refreshing user experience. I thought I´d give it a try.
But I don´t love the fascist captain and I don´t love the bloat. Now I also hear that it is being build and maintained by AI.
But also, I love the way Omarchy works. I love the keyboard oriented aproach. I love the super-button. I love the menus. I love the nvim setup. I love the desktop layout. I love that it just works out-of-the-box and that it is (or appears) stable. I love that installing anything is so easy.
I appreciate Omarchy for being such a good gateway drug into the Linux world for people like me and I think it deserves some credit for that. But I also have ethical complaints that ruin the fun.
So what I’m really looking for is, how can I take all these features I like so much, and apply them on a proper distro?
The obvious solution seems Arch, but I want my computer to work without having to spend weeks learning how all the mechanics and fine configuration details work. I don´t even now what the configuration details are that make the things I like. Maybe that’s not an issue with Arch, but I don´t know much about Arch tbh. I haven´t had the time to learn about it.
Or maybe I’m just asking too much as an old man (though dhh is a decade my senior) and I should just go back to Mint…
Omarchy is just an opinion, this opinion are the configuration files and the packages installed by default. You can get a better setup for yourself by using plain Arch, installing Hyprland and configuring dotfiles on your own. I suggest using the
archinstallscript if you do not want to do the manual Arch install. In that installation you can just select theHyprlanddesktop option and it will do everything for you. Then you can transfer the needed configuration files from your Omarchy setup. There will not be any more need for configurations if you do not want it.There are loads of people who share their dotfiles tips and tricks online, I share my dotfiles in Codeberg, have a window managers community, and a work in progress website with window manager tips.
love the keyboard oriented aproach. I love the super-button. I love the menus. I love the nvim setup. I love the desktop layout.
You love hyprland. Use it then.
Well, you could configure your desktop this way on basically any linux distro!
Theres nothing special about Arch that makes this easier, just the vague feeling of superiority that comes with having made it on a distro that prides itself on not being user friendly(and the fact that obscure packages are usually in the AUR).
I had a pretty radical wayfire + sawfish + crystal dock setup on opensuse tumbleweed for a while. Opensuse has OBS, which is basically like AUR but more user friendly and with a bit more security. But I didnt need it, since they had everything I wanted in the main repo.
Just go with CachyOS. it will allow you to install hyprland during the install process and provide you with Cachy’s dotfiles of it and everything you need right off the bat which you can then further configure yourself or just clone the omarchy dotfiles if you so wished.
EndeavourOS is fine but I always had issues installing it via ventoy (i.e. it doesn’t.) so I can’t recommend it. With endeavour you’d have to manually install hyprland, manually configure it from the get go, manually install kitty, etc etc etc. Cachy will just save you a bit of time and give you a solid base to start from for everything. Plus the CachyOS kernel is pretty good which is an added bonus. I use it on my NixOS system.
I’m confused, Omarchy is MIT licensed. It means you can use it and keep all the rights. You are under no obligation to financially or politically support the people who contribute code and they do not get a say with how you use the software.
EDIT: Also literally posting this to a Lemmy instance…
If you like Arch and want fresh packages (e.g. new window managers) but you don’t want to fiddle too much with it, you can go for EndeavousOS which is super easy to install. Then add Hyprland (which is used by Omarchy) or Mango (better choice IMO) or Niri (for a new experience) on top of it. Check out !unixporn@lemmy.world and look at their configs/dotfiles. Copy the ones you like.
Ah, “steal the dotfiles”. Ir’s so simple, I should’ve thought of that myself.
I read that article and agreed with everything, when Omarchy started getting popular I read what packages had installed by default and could not believe that has so many packages installed through bash scripts or that mise thing. Not to mention that it had so many configurations just as they come from their original program, no git prompt no fzf integrations, etc. I think they did not even set up apparmor nor ufw, so the only thing of value I could see were the cool themes.
Also they had some pretty bad keybinds for navigating, like F11 for fullscreen, and some for quickly accessing twitter and chatbots on the browser.
EndeavourOS is basically Arch with some config and a GUI installer. I’d suggest you start there as a base
Isn’t omarchy just a preconfigured Arch + Hyprland + Dmenu?
I never went that route have always been using Arch with gnome until I like you liked what I saw with Hyprland (it was before Omarchy blew up) and just configured it myself over time and pushed my configuration public once it was stable enough: https://git.jeena.net/jeena/hypr-dotfiles
It’s just dot files (configuration files) anyway.
In the beginning I sometimes had to log in to gnome because some things didn’t work but over time it happened less and less.
yes Omarchy is essentially opinionated dotfiles for Arch.
Yes, and it’s configured for webdev and being a social media junky. Just use Arch and Hyprland with practical settings.
I decided not to try omarchy when I saw it came with grok preinstalled.
Then I learned who DHH was. Now I’m definitely not bothering.
I didn’t mention that because I try to keep politics out of the technical side of programming but that insufferable fuckwad brought it upon himself.
Go with CachyOS and hyprland.
You could always fork them. That’s one of the wonderful things about Linux and FOSS. Straight copy the code to a new project. That may be beyond your current skill set but it’s always an option.
I mean you only have three paths really. Distro-hop until you find something else. Start with a pre-built like mint or fedora and make it what you want or build from scratch.
I distro hopped for a long time, then ended up going through the basic arch install one weekend and omg it’s easy now with their archinstall script, I’ve gotten lazy and just use Fedora.
Tldr: I suggest investing the time to do the arch install on your side machine just as a learning experience, particularly by hand and without the script. It will be invaluable to you not just as a Linux user but as a computer user. Even if you end up on another OS you’ll be more capable and comfortable with the terminal. I really can’t emphasize how useful that will be and what doors it may unlock for you.
Small example is all the poorly written yet functional bash scripts I write for myself. How I used wget -r to scrape my university’s website and made a database of old solutions to homework and exams for myself.
@Imperious_melange @abbadon420 Also consider LFS https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/
You should try nixos next, then you can find another set of configs you like and plug them in, but this time you can customize them.
