Encouragement

[Handberg]

I’m in the process of migrating to Linux after many years as a Windows user, and over the past month I’ve done a fair bit of distro hopping—Mint, CachyOS, Ubuntu, and Omarchy.

I genuinely think you’ve built something special with Omarchy. The setup is excellent, the styling is outstanding, and it offers a distinctly different—yet still mature and polished—user experience that I haven’t found elsewhere.

That said, as I’ve worked through the default apps and packages, it’s clear the distro isn’t really aimed at someone like me. It feels designed primarily for software developers rather than a happy amateur. And as you mention on the forum, it’s “omakase”—your omakase. I understand that, and there are no hard feelings. I was warned—this isn’t a critique; on the contrary, I’m sharing this because I want to encourage you.

If anything, it made me think Omarchy could be more. It could be a great fit for a broader audience — people who want something different from their PC experience, and who are interested in letting go of the mouse. The user-friendly approach, control, and interface styling resonate well beyond the developer crowd.

In any case, thank you for sharing Omarchy. If you ever decide to offer a “happy amateur”, bare-bones version at some point, I’d be very interested—because I really enjoyed my time with your take on Linux.

Best regards,
J.

[EERomeo]

Hey, if I may add to what you just said...

I landed on Omarchy distro hopping for like 3 months because nothing felt "just right". For me DHH's "gift" to the community fit like a glove! Also you learn a lot of new things from it!

About the included apps, I look at it like a proposal from a better informed individual. If I know I would never use a specific app I just remove it, if I don't know, I at least give it a try. You even have a "debloat" script on this last version. And even without the script, it will take like 5 minutes to go through and remove what you don't need.

One of the best things of Omarchy is that you can install it and have it ready to go without needing an internet connection.

[xicubed]

@Handberg we are all software developers now. I'm doing a puzzle challenge and Claude has written over 250 10-40kB python programs - I'm a developer but i never learned Python. :D. But, what are you missing from a hobbiest user perspective that it doesn't provide out of the box? I miss Textmate from mac but thats just cuz I'm used to a quick intuitive editor with easy multiline select/edit. But I'm getting better at NVIM. And the cut paste is a little annoying in Claude I bet we can fix it. I've needed to install a couple apps out of yum or something that pacman didn't have. But I haven't really not been able to find what I wanted yet.