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.