> audacious mission to make Linux on the desktop happen
On the one hand, I'm supportive of people trying to make Linux on the desktop happen. On the other hand, a distribution aimed squarely and solely at developers doesn't seem like it's faithfully achieving that goal whatsoever, given that developers are the one group of people today that don't generally have a problem running Linux on the desktop. I would be far more excited to see this kind of money being poured into building a desktop for everyone else.
Historically I'd agree, but I push back on this for two reasons:
1. AI Agents (which are at the center of Omarchy) arguably make just about anyone a "developer" in the conventional sense, and potentially more willing to use a dev-forward desktop
2. Converting the types of devs who've been stuck on MacOS for years because they're neurotic about UI/UX "polish" could be a great way to smooth out Linux's many rough edges
IMO the biggest hurdle with building "a Linux desktop for everyone else" is QA. Discovering and fixing the random little bugs that only surface from millions of slightly different hardware/software configurations is a massive undertaking that I'm not sure can be easily brute-forced.
Alternatively, I see a lot of value in building an exciting desktop that attracts a critical mass of folks who are comfortable diagnosing bugs, submitting clear diagnostic reports, or even fixing said bugs themselves, and willing to do that work (or delegate it to an AI agent) for free.
Even if Omarchy doesn't end up being the desktop "everyone else" actually uses, it could be a great first step towards building out the kind of community linux would need to ensure such a desktop meets the requisite user-friendliness standards.
> given that developers are the one group of people today that don't generally have a problem running Linux on the desktop.
I am a developer; and I do have a problem: I don't have a choice of good laptops that are guaranteed to work with linux, and preferably come with linux preinstalled. I can go buy a macbook, or a windows laptop; but I can't walk into a store and buy a linux laptop.
System76 is guaranteed to work, right? Also preinstalled if you like. Then there's also Tuxedo (which I understand are only rebranded chinese OEMs but still...)
I don't know any store that actually has system76 laptops, and even we take "online" as a store (I don't) - the laptops are unfortunately not competitive at all.
The sibling comment that suggests framework is much stronger in this respect, and it's a name brand which might actually get the buyers at large stores to take some notice.
Well, DHH managed to attract Dell, which are kinda sorta promising through a single representative that their new XPS laptops are fully tested with Omarchy:
So that's encouraging. But still, I don't see any acknowledgement on the Dell site (apart from a single blog post) about their stance on supporting and testing linux on their laptops.
Dell have pre-installed & fully supported Ubuntu on a bunch of their Precision, XPS, and, more recently, Pro laptops for over a decade now.
Those supported models are always a good choice for running other Linux distros, too (I've run a vanilla Debian on 3 different models during that time without having the do anything special).
As I understand it, Omarchy isn't really doing any low-level development work - it's just an opinionated set of defaults & various non-free add-ons on top of Arch. Any laptop supported by Arch will work.
I don't think that's true. I only finally switched to desktop linux when coding agents could fix the endless small problems I came across.
For example, there is a bug in the logitech mouse driver (combined with a specific AMD USB chipset) that occasionally does not restart properly after suspend. Coding agent fixed it (two lines of code) with a kernel module that automatically rebuilds after kernel upgrades.
Another example was I was getting hard crashes, because by default swap on fedora was in memory (IIRC, or it could have been me doing it wrong), so when there was a lot of memory pressure on my system from running larger LLMs it'd OOM and go down. This would have been painful to debug normally, but in <2mins a coding agent can read the kernel logs and fix it.
I also had it set GNOME up the way I like it, which would have taken hours manually, because I don't know what I'm searching for extension wise.
There's many other examples of just slightly broken stuff that coding agents can fix that was a total pain before and I just didn't have the patience to fix them manually.
Hm… Are meaningful numbers of non-developers aware of, let alone using coding agents yet, which could alleviate their pain points in using an “unknown” OS?
I had to swap my Wi-Fi card and/or stop using the HDMI module in order to get my Framework 13 to stop locking up. I had to install an "obscure" app called `unpalm` to get my cursor to stop jumping random locations while typing. The fan randomly spins up to full speed which is ridiculously loud.
This is on a laptop whose manufacturer claims I am running a an officially supported OS.
I'll be a lot more likely to convince my family to switch to Linux if I could trust it for myself.
> I had to swap my Wi-Fi card and/or stop using the HDMI module in order to get my Framework 13 to stop locking up.
This is really weird. Did you try to run the latest kernel?
I have nothing but praise for what Framework did with 13 Pro at least, it was the only Linux laptop that I ever had that everything really just works(TM). Even my ThinkPad that had really good support for Linux still had some weirdness that I need to patch manually (the microphone indicator led stays on even if the microphone was turned off).
it's easier to start with devs, if they can get it polished enough to become mainstream for developers, it will be much easier to polish it further so it becomes mainstream for more casual users.
Developers en masse do not run Linux as a desktop, about 80% of developers run Windows or MacOS. Your average software developer isn't going to figure out what linux distro to use on desktop, then install and configure everything, its a decision making nightmare for most. I'm not stating that as some sort of derogatory comment, its just not going to happen, most users don't want to spend the time.
Somewhere in the demo of it (its a long demo but there's a lot to unpack), DHH creates a theme from an image, it picks thematic colors from the image and changes the entire UI theme. It looks beautiful, which is not something I could have said in the last 20 years of looking at Linux UIs. They mostly all have just copied Windows or Mac UI elements and call it a day.
I'd like to see where this goes, having a large foundation funding efforts could really make this a viable alternative to a large chunk of personal computer users. My understanding is the funding is mostly going to fund open source contributors to go "full time" and/or get paid for their contributions.
These "it's just a shell script" comments show the exact problem with Linux attitudes. Some people seriously think it's some secret club where you're supposed to pain stakingly install Gentoo, configure a tiling window manager and figure out every glitch and nuance by yourself. And if you don't, you haven't earned it.
Well, is it any wonder that distributions like CachyOS or Omarchy, that appeal to normal people over gatekeeping forum trolls, are popping off? A year ago I hadn't heard of either, but apparently they are quite popular with the kids these days.
> Some people seriously think it's some secret club where you're supposed to pain stakingly install Gentoo, configure a tiling window manager and figure out every glitch and nuance by yourself
Linux mint, Fedora, Ubuntu, and many others are very straightforward in their installation process. And a lot of tools has been added to decrease the reliance on cli tools. It’s not the 90s anymore.
Yet we have a new generation of Linux users that don't care for any of those. Why is that? Maybe Linux Mint, Fedora and Ubuntu are missing something?
For what it's worth, one of the most popular mass market "GNU" Linux devices today is the Steam Deck. Defaulting to old school distros like Ubuntu is a very 2010 mindset.
Ubuntu evolved a lot, it’s not an old school distribution in any way. Otherwise you would need to also remove arch, which steamOS and DHH‘s distros are relying upon
> For what it's worth, one of the most popular mass market "GNU" Linux devices today is the Steam Deck
Then you might as well say that the most popular mass market FreeBSD device is the PlayStation. Factually true, but unrelated to the conversation.
> Yet we have a new generation of Linux users that don't care for any of those. Why is that? Maybe Linux Mint, Fedora and Ubuntu are missing something?
I don’t think they are as there’s nothing in Ormachy that isn’t readily available in normal distribution other than the “haxor” feeling. I use OpenBSD without any DE because I know all the CLI commands to make things happens, but I would be equally productive with using something like Elementary OS.
For reference: Arch Linux's monthly expenses are about $2,000, most of which goes toward servers. In other words, for a project of Arch's scale, $10 million would be enough to keep it running for 500 years.
You realize that's not about server costs but paying people that already do open source work (Like the window manager) to get paid for their work, which is what everyone in the OS community always wants?
The foundation is not even one week old, and the first project just got selected as they were already closely working with the Omarchy project on some things.
What makes you come to the conclusion that "more important" dependencies wouldn't receive funding in the future?
I am all in seeing more people run Linux and I think this might help the whole ecosystem and other distros long term.
That being said I’m a bit concerned about videos like this https://xcancel.com/thestanduppod/status/2091511392717213707 (really hope this is AI generated) and that so many people are okay to give money to David’s project despite his commentary on various societal topics.
I like many of David’s technical ideas, especially back when I did Ruby, but I’m sad he’s decided to spend time and energy on certain topics. Tech needs more kindness, not less.
I am not saying this is the case here. I don't know DHH much, and I don't really care for the whole situation. But using and fronting 'openness' (especially around the 'no-politics', which is political, thing) is a typical way to create non-mixed, non-open community.
The idea is you claim to be open to everyone. This includes people who are judged to be undesirable elsewhere. In fact, you make sure those people want to join by specifically targeting and vilifying specific organization (in this case, you could say Nix or whoever he is talking about). So, by design, you don't create a mixed community, but one with the specific population that feels rejected by whatever or whoever you are targeting/opposing. Because of this concentration of a specific population, member of the organization you are targeting will not be welcomed (which mean it is not truly open). They are on paper, but nobody wants to be part of a community made in majority by people who dislike you.
Now, all this can be used actually for good, for example to create community for the oppressed marginalized or whatever. But it can also very easily be turned into a fascist utopia. It alls come to how you set the rules and how you enforce them within the community, and also simply the people that you are trying to group up. Trying to create a community for disabled people to push for more accessibility within free-software is laudable. Trying to group up people who thinks X or Y are 'clown' usually only lead to the creation of negativity-focused/ego-driven communities.
EDIT: Also, and this is more my (very subjective) opinion, but people who are fronting 'no-politics', 'openness' with no clear claim that whoever they are pointing to are not open, and typically talk about free-speech (not the case here), are typically PoS with big egos who got rejected from the main communities for being PoS and now want to create their own PoS community. See also twitter
EDIT2: Actually, an easy example of this is with reddit. There is often subreddit that I created in reaction of moderation and people being ban from main subreddit X or Y. If you go and look at those communities, they are usually not of very high quality, even more trigger happy on the ban hammer, and have a single focus on what got them ban from the main subreddit in the first place. A very easy example is r/europe vs r/europe_sub. The latter being extremely, if not entirely focused on immigration and being borderline or openly racist.
> I'm going to pass on this one. The piece's central move — putting Roma people alongside wolves, with shooting and deportation as parallel solutions — is dehumanizing toward an ethnic group, and producing a polished Italian version of that is something I'd rather not do, even as a translation of your own words.
An actual LLM response David posted talking about the brand of "openness" he wants to see in the world. That he posted to the hey.com blog, thinking it makes the LLM look bad. Nearly unbelievable but there it sits, so it stands!!!
Fascists and racists and anti-woke MAGAt dipshits and JK Rowling loons are who David feels are being excluded, are who need to be included, so they can rail against others with abandon.
Omacom is a fascist right wing organization designed to be a funding target for a right wing insurgency in Linux, some shitty dotfiles that somehow are going to be funded to the point where they form a beacon to stand and work against the free open peaceful citizens of Linux, to drive strife and bedlam and suffering forward, like fascist right wing projects everywhere lust for. Insighting tensions and terrormongering the world.
It's not even hidden. Thanks OP. It's on clear display.
The wolves know how to use the weapons of words against the free and open and inclusive people. They always have. Their quest for din and bedlam on earth has no real respect for anything but their own right to shout and hurl their rage as they see fit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
None of the existing ones really made Linux on Desktop "happen", so their numerous and lengthy existence is kind of a counterpoint. The existing ones didn't work, other approaches may need to be tried — at least I commend that some enthusiasts continue trying.
Really depends your expectations. Linus on desktop is already successful from my point of view. There is no Linux company that needs to care about marketshare. Nowadays installing Linux and getting a working desktop environment with all the bells and whistles is pretty much a solved problem. It has even become a pretty good gaming platform. I would even say, better than macOS in that regards. There are still a lots of enthusiasts working on improving things, in fact using a Linux distribution has never been as popular as it is now, and we have way more resources to learn to get started. We are very far from the experience from 2010 (that was actually already quite good, but not mainstream ready)
I had been tossing around the idea of getting a second laptop for a while to run Linux on modern hardware instead of the old stuff I’ve always used, which compromised the experience. After watching the video on the latest Omarchy release yesterday, I finally did it.
The laptop came with Windows 11, which I needed for one specific task I’ve been putting off for months. I failed to complete it for reasons unknown, but it did give me enough time in Windows that I was worried about the hardware. The trackpad was horrible. Coming from 20+ years on the Mac, I was used to all non-Apple trackpads being pretty bad, but it I was debating returning the laptop. It would take me 5 attempts just to launch an exe. Taps wouldn’t register, timing was off and it would edit the file name when I tried to double click, it was a mess.
Once in Omarchy, this issue went away. The trackbad works fine, scrolling is smooth, even more smooth than my MBP. The json config to enable things like natural scrolling (which I’m used to from the Mac) is something I don’t think the average user would do. Disabling tap to click had me asking AI, and then I still had to realize for format it gave me was wrong, so that isn’t too user friendly.
I was a bit worried about trying it with how much vibe coding DHH does, but so far it’s been one of the best Linux experiences I had, and made the laptop dramatically better. I still haven’t really figured out the integrated AI stuff, but spent most of the day without even installing it. I don’t have any experience outside of GirHub Copilot in VS Code at work. I tried installing LM Studio and using OpenCode to connect to a model running there. I’m not really sure what the workflow is supposed to be. I just don’t want to need a $40 Claude subscription to try this idea of an agentic OS. I don’t know that I even like that idea, but figured if I was going to stop being a hater and actually try it, this would be the scenario that would make sense… on a laptop with none of my actual data or accounts.
This is insane. I mean good for them, but what is going on? Random inference and neocloud startups valued at billions, a couple of shell scripts and lipstick on Archlinux $10M. Now try to get some money to build a proper widget framework with offscreen drawing, that is not as hard to use as the current stack, that allows people to create multimedia applications quickly similar to what the Mac frameworks did for Pixelmator etc, and you'll grind your teeth out.
Meanwhile this particular thing now that the shell frameworks are converging into QuickShell and others are barely worth mentioning.
I'm not even going to criticize DHH for getting that money, good for him. My critique is solely directed at the rest of the VC ecosystem. Meanwhile China has a highly competitive ecosystem for hard tech graduates.
Not if you see the ridiculous codes of conduct projects like Gnome and Nix have - many were begging for an alternative path and DHH brought it. Congrats to him for delivering on it!
Only because the definition of fascism changed completely, and got devalued into just "maintaining a border is fascism". So actual fascists are now ignored because who can tell who really is or isn't one?
It's a linux distribution focused on a specific type of user (a software developer) that drops the Linux-typical approach to UX of "doesn't matter, all linux users and devs are hackers that will configure and install everything they need".
That's...just not true? Most of us like MacOS because we don't want to.
It comes with sensible configuration, an AI-centric approach (documentation for the LLM to customize the system is included in the OS) instead of AI-negationism, and bundles all sensible software a development machine should have.
It always felt like all Linux distributions were mostly focused on the conventions and politics instead of the final assembled product itself. So you get a great OS, but with everything left to the user when it comes to UX.
I think DHH will succeed here because he's the right person for it: opinionated, well networked, has a following, capable.
I don't personally love him but he brings what most distro maintainers don't: product vision and a taste on how a development machine should work.
> It comes with sensible configuration, an AI-centric approach (documentation for the LLM to customize the system is included in the OS) instead of AI-negationism, and bundles all sensible software a development machine should have.
I don't use omarchy, just debian, ubuntu, arch, depending on the need and they basically all come with "documentation for the LLM to customize the system is included in the OS". There is the wiki, the man pages, the documented `.conf` files, ...
> It always felt like all Linux distributions were mostly focused on the conventions and politics instead of the final assembled product itself. So you get a great OS, but with everything left to the user when it comes to UX.
There was always distro that aim to be focus for user X or Y (see for example gaming focus distros), and most of them do indeed provide a better UX for X or Y. But “generic” distro don't have the luxury of targeting a specific use-case. They are the base with allow the customization in the first place.
I am sure Omarchy has a nice UX for a dev coming from another OS or from a default Ubuntu install, but customizing your Linux distro to fit your specific needs as always be the next step for whoever care enough. A lot of people don't care enough and will be fine with a default ubuntu, fedora, omarchy, ... But somehow, I feel that if you care enough to install omarchy, you will care enough to go and dig deeper, questioning a 10M funding. But whatever, it's basically rich people making a rich people gift to their rich friend.
Still it's really weird imho - there are many projects that are the foundation of many important things are struggling finantially (maybe even Arch itself, which its apparently the base of this thing) yet these people have this absurd amount of money to spend on linux ai slop. Sounds like another example of "money is in the wrong hands" but well. Hoping the projects this thing depends on can get some benefits from this and that this won't be a similar case like the linux foundation.
The term tech bro is a pejorative for men who work in tech who are obnoxious, often sexist, have an inflated ego, and are generally pretty toxic for everybody around. And are now very aligned with American nationalism and reactionary ideas. It’s not really something you should be proud of.
That’s really a lot of money to raise for a Linux distribution. And with investors^Wpatrons such as Lütke and Dorsey, and DHH at the head it’s for sure something I wouldn‘t touch with a 10km long pole
Thats kinda neat idea : who suggested an electoral system of "weighted voting proportional to the amount of income tax you pay,"
But i would go not for absolute amount of tax paid, but for relative tax paid with some floors and ceilings. pay effective rate of 30% (or less) income, get one vote. Pay 50% or less, get two, pay above 50% get three.
FWIW that’s what people were saying for years, when Ubuntu was still very close to Debian. Over the years they took their own paths but for a while Ubuntu felt like a Debian with a simpler installer and some different defaults
> audacious mission to make Linux on the desktop happen
On the one hand, I'm supportive of people trying to make Linux on the desktop happen. On the other hand, a distribution aimed squarely and solely at developers doesn't seem like it's faithfully achieving that goal whatsoever, given that developers are the one group of people today that don't generally have a problem running Linux on the desktop. I would be far more excited to see this kind of money being poured into building a desktop for everyone else.
Historically I'd agree, but I push back on this for two reasons:
1. AI Agents (which are at the center of Omarchy) arguably make just about anyone a "developer" in the conventional sense, and potentially more willing to use a dev-forward desktop 2. Converting the types of devs who've been stuck on MacOS for years because they're neurotic about UI/UX "polish" could be a great way to smooth out Linux's many rough edges
IMO the biggest hurdle with building "a Linux desktop for everyone else" is QA. Discovering and fixing the random little bugs that only surface from millions of slightly different hardware/software configurations is a massive undertaking that I'm not sure can be easily brute-forced.
Alternatively, I see a lot of value in building an exciting desktop that attracts a critical mass of folks who are comfortable diagnosing bugs, submitting clear diagnostic reports, or even fixing said bugs themselves, and willing to do that work (or delegate it to an AI agent) for free.
Even if Omarchy doesn't end up being the desktop "everyone else" actually uses, it could be a great first step towards building out the kind of community linux would need to ensure such a desktop meets the requisite user-friendliness standards.
> given that developers are the one group of people today that don't generally have a problem running Linux on the desktop.
I am a developer; and I do have a problem: I don't have a choice of good laptops that are guaranteed to work with linux, and preferably come with linux preinstalled. I can go buy a macbook, or a windows laptop; but I can't walk into a store and buy a linux laptop.
System76 is guaranteed to work, right? Also preinstalled if you like. Then there's also Tuxedo (which I understand are only rebranded chinese OEMs but still...)
I don't know any store that actually has system76 laptops, and even we take "online" as a store (I don't) - the laptops are unfortunately not competitive at all.
The sibling comment that suggests framework is much stronger in this respect, and it's a name brand which might actually get the buyers at large stores to take some notice.
Here's hoping.
Well, DHH managed to attract Dell, which are kinda sorta promising through a single representative that their new XPS laptops are fully tested with Omarchy:
https://www.youtube.com/live/Bic2KjFFj6w?si=g0wyGBQi63NmhWr5...
So that's encouraging. But still, I don't see any acknowledgement on the Dell site (apart from a single blog post) about their stance on supporting and testing linux on their laptops.
Dell have pre-installed & fully supported Ubuntu on a bunch of their Precision, XPS, and, more recently, Pro laptops for over a decade now.
Those supported models are always a good choice for running other Linux distros, too (I've run a vanilla Debian on 3 different models during that time without having the do anything special).
As I understand it, Omarchy isn't really doing any low-level development work - it's just an opinionated set of defaults & various non-free add-ons on top of Arch. Any laptop supported by Arch will work.
> Then there's also Tuxedo (which I understand are only rebranded chinese OEMs but still...)
My understanding is that System76 is also a rebranded Chinese/Taiwanese OEM.
Framework?
I don't think that's true. I only finally switched to desktop linux when coding agents could fix the endless small problems I came across.
For example, there is a bug in the logitech mouse driver (combined with a specific AMD USB chipset) that occasionally does not restart properly after suspend. Coding agent fixed it (two lines of code) with a kernel module that automatically rebuilds after kernel upgrades.
Another example was I was getting hard crashes, because by default swap on fedora was in memory (IIRC, or it could have been me doing it wrong), so when there was a lot of memory pressure on my system from running larger LLMs it'd OOM and go down. This would have been painful to debug normally, but in <2mins a coding agent can read the kernel logs and fix it.
I also had it set GNOME up the way I like it, which would have taken hours manually, because I don't know what I'm searching for extension wise.
There's many other examples of just slightly broken stuff that coding agents can fix that was a total pain before and I just didn't have the patience to fix them manually.
Hm… Are meaningful numbers of non-developers aware of, let alone using coding agents yet, which could alleviate their pain points in using an “unknown” OS?
They shouldn't need to know. There could be a panel that allows you to ask for help and the "built in" agent fixes it for you in a friendly UI.
Omarchy is integrating agents much more closely with the UI.
I had to swap my Wi-Fi card and/or stop using the HDMI module in order to get my Framework 13 to stop locking up. I had to install an "obscure" app called `unpalm` to get my cursor to stop jumping random locations while typing. The fan randomly spins up to full speed which is ridiculously loud.
This is on a laptop whose manufacturer claims I am running a an officially supported OS.
I'll be a lot more likely to convince my family to switch to Linux if I could trust it for myself.
> I had to swap my Wi-Fi card and/or stop using the HDMI module in order to get my Framework 13 to stop locking up.
This is really weird. Did you try to run the latest kernel?
I have nothing but praise for what Framework did with 13 Pro at least, it was the only Linux laptop that I ever had that everything really just works(TM). Even my ThinkPad that had really good support for Linux still had some weirdness that I need to patch manually (the microphone indicator led stays on even if the microphone was turned off).
there are plenty of devs that are on macOS because they prefer a 'just works' + good GUI combination
it's good for linux if there is more activity on that front
there is a reason why ubuntu and fedora became so popular
it's easier to start with devs, if they can get it polished enough to become mainstream for developers, it will be much easier to polish it further so it becomes mainstream for more casual users.
Developers en masse do not run Linux as a desktop, about 80% of developers run Windows or MacOS. Your average software developer isn't going to figure out what linux distro to use on desktop, then install and configure everything, its a decision making nightmare for most. I'm not stating that as some sort of derogatory comment, its just not going to happen, most users don't want to spend the time.
Somewhere in the demo of it (its a long demo but there's a lot to unpack), DHH creates a theme from an image, it picks thematic colors from the image and changes the entire UI theme. It looks beautiful, which is not something I could have said in the last 20 years of looking at Linux UIs. They mostly all have just copied Windows or Mac UI elements and call it a day.
I'd like to see where this goes, having a large foundation funding efforts could really make this a viable alternative to a large chunk of personal computer users. My understanding is the funding is mostly going to fund open source contributors to go "full time" and/or get paid for their contributions.
These "it's just a shell script" comments show the exact problem with Linux attitudes. Some people seriously think it's some secret club where you're supposed to pain stakingly install Gentoo, configure a tiling window manager and figure out every glitch and nuance by yourself. And if you don't, you haven't earned it.
Well, is it any wonder that distributions like CachyOS or Omarchy, that appeal to normal people over gatekeeping forum trolls, are popping off? A year ago I hadn't heard of either, but apparently they are quite popular with the kids these days.
> Some people seriously think it's some secret club where you're supposed to pain stakingly install Gentoo, configure a tiling window manager and figure out every glitch and nuance by yourself
Linux mint, Fedora, Ubuntu, and many others are very straightforward in their installation process. And a lot of tools has been added to decrease the reliance on cli tools. It’s not the 90s anymore.
Yet we have a new generation of Linux users that don't care for any of those. Why is that? Maybe Linux Mint, Fedora and Ubuntu are missing something?
For what it's worth, one of the most popular mass market "GNU" Linux devices today is the Steam Deck. Defaulting to old school distros like Ubuntu is a very 2010 mindset.
Ubuntu evolved a lot, it’s not an old school distribution in any way. Otherwise you would need to also remove arch, which steamOS and DHH‘s distros are relying upon
> For what it's worth, one of the most popular mass market "GNU" Linux devices today is the Steam Deck
Then you might as well say that the most popular mass market FreeBSD device is the PlayStation. Factually true, but unrelated to the conversation.
> Yet we have a new generation of Linux users that don't care for any of those. Why is that? Maybe Linux Mint, Fedora and Ubuntu are missing something?
I don’t think they are as there’s nothing in Ormachy that isn’t readily available in normal distribution other than the “haxor” feeling. I use OpenBSD without any DE because I know all the CLI commands to make things happens, but I would be equally productive with using something like Elementary OS.
> developers are the one group of people today that don't generally have a problem running Linux on the desktop.
And yet majority of developers use either corporate mandated Windows or Macs.
Both are perfectly fine OS for the corporate world
For reference: Arch Linux's monthly expenses are about $2,000, most of which goes toward servers. In other words, for a project of Arch's scale, $10 million would be enough to keep it running for 500 years.
Or KDE for over 10 years: https://ev.kde.org/reports/ev-2025
You realize that's not about server costs but paying people that already do open source work (Like the window manager) to get paid for their work, which is what everyone in the OS community always wants?
If people pay for real open-source work, for example, KDE and GNOME, rather than some dotfiles, that's better.
This money is funding Hyprland and QuickShell.
Both are cool projects, but their scope is totally different to that of GNOME or KDE.
So a fancy window manager and a desktop environment (toolkit) in its infancy?
The foundation is not even one week old, and the first project just got selected as they were already closely working with the Omarchy project on some things.
What makes you come to the conclusion that "more important" dependencies wouldn't receive funding in the future?
Yes, because when you build a product on top of something, you support your dependencies. Crazy idea, I know.
I’ll bet some of this money will benefit Arch.
I guess this is what happens when people separate the art from the artist, they get millions in funding.
For the uninformed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45454026
I am all in seeing more people run Linux and I think this might help the whole ecosystem and other distros long term.
That being said I’m a bit concerned about videos like this https://xcancel.com/thestanduppod/status/2091511392717213707 (really hope this is AI generated) and that so many people are okay to give money to David’s project despite his commentary on various societal topics.
I like many of David’s technical ideas, especially back when I did Ruby, but I’m sad he’s decided to spend time and energy on certain topics. Tech needs more kindness, not less.
I'm sorry, maybe I'm out of the loop.
David said he wants an open group no one cares about politics or whatever you support, you are welcome to join.
Seems pretty inclusive?
You can say politics don't matter, but if elsewhere you lay out your controversial opinions, people will self-select whether you like it or not.
And since this is such a predictable thing, it's very likely done intentionally.
I am not saying this is the case here. I don't know DHH much, and I don't really care for the whole situation. But using and fronting 'openness' (especially around the 'no-politics', which is political, thing) is a typical way to create non-mixed, non-open community.
The idea is you claim to be open to everyone. This includes people who are judged to be undesirable elsewhere. In fact, you make sure those people want to join by specifically targeting and vilifying specific organization (in this case, you could say Nix or whoever he is talking about). So, by design, you don't create a mixed community, but one with the specific population that feels rejected by whatever or whoever you are targeting/opposing. Because of this concentration of a specific population, member of the organization you are targeting will not be welcomed (which mean it is not truly open). They are on paper, but nobody wants to be part of a community made in majority by people who dislike you. Now, all this can be used actually for good, for example to create community for the oppressed marginalized or whatever. But it can also very easily be turned into a fascist utopia. It alls come to how you set the rules and how you enforce them within the community, and also simply the people that you are trying to group up. Trying to create a community for disabled people to push for more accessibility within free-software is laudable. Trying to group up people who thinks X or Y are 'clown' usually only lead to the creation of negativity-focused/ego-driven communities.
EDIT: Also, and this is more my (very subjective) opinion, but people who are fronting 'no-politics', 'openness' with no clear claim that whoever they are pointing to are not open, and typically talk about free-speech (not the case here), are typically PoS with big egos who got rejected from the main communities for being PoS and now want to create their own PoS community. See also twitter
EDIT2: Actually, an easy example of this is with reddit. There is often subreddit that I created in reaction of moderation and people being ban from main subreddit X or Y. If you go and look at those communities, they are usually not of very high quality, even more trigger happy on the ban hammer, and have a single focus on what got them ban from the main subreddit in the first place. A very easy example is r/europe vs r/europe_sub. The latter being extremely, if not entirely focused on immigration and being borderline or openly racist.
I agree it sounds inclusive but I find it to be in tension with some of his previous writings:
- https://world.hey.com/dhh/as-i-remember-london-e7d38e64
- https://world.hey.com/dhh/wolves-sheep-and-gypsies-ba44af6a
> I'm going to pass on this one. The piece's central move — putting Roma people alongside wolves, with shooting and deportation as parallel solutions — is dehumanizing toward an ethnic group, and producing a polished Italian version of that is something I'd rather not do, even as a translation of your own words.
An actual LLM response David posted talking about the brand of "openness" he wants to see in the world. That he posted to the hey.com blog, thinking it makes the LLM look bad. Nearly unbelievable but there it sits, so it stands!!!
Fascists and racists and anti-woke MAGAt dipshits and JK Rowling loons are who David feels are being excluded, are who need to be included, so they can rail against others with abandon.
Omacom is a fascist right wing organization designed to be a funding target for a right wing insurgency in Linux, some shitty dotfiles that somehow are going to be funded to the point where they form a beacon to stand and work against the free open peaceful citizens of Linux, to drive strife and bedlam and suffering forward, like fascist right wing projects everywhere lust for. Insighting tensions and terrormongering the world.
It's not even hidden. Thanks OP. It's on clear display.
The wolves know how to use the weapons of words against the free and open and inclusive people. They always have. Their quest for din and bedlam on earth has no real respect for anything but their own right to shout and hurl their rage as they see fit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
That video is so unhinged
But nix is full of crazy clowns.
> audacious mission to make Linux on the desktop happen
and a arch linux reskin with a tiling window manager + his companies apps pre-installed is the way to do that?
What alternative plan are you implementing?
There are so many modern Linux distributions available, that’s such a weird thing to say
None of the existing ones really made Linux on Desktop "happen", so their numerous and lengthy existence is kind of a counterpoint. The existing ones didn't work, other approaches may need to be tried — at least I commend that some enthusiasts continue trying.
Really depends your expectations. Linus on desktop is already successful from my point of view. There is no Linux company that needs to care about marketshare. Nowadays installing Linux and getting a working desktop environment with all the bells and whistles is pretty much a solved problem. It has even become a pretty good gaming platform. I would even say, better than macOS in that regards. There are still a lots of enthusiasts working on improving things, in fact using a Linux distribution has never been as popular as it is now, and we have way more resources to learn to get started. We are very far from the experience from 2010 (that was actually already quite good, but not mainstream ready)
Which one?
Opinions are apparently valuable.
Bit weird, but I support anything that lessens Microsoft domination. Especially with Apple losing their way.
> Opinions are apparently valuable.
I'd think so, given the same opinions when applied to a programming framework have generated hundreds of billions of enterprise value in the past.
A lot of companies are built on the principle of having an opinionated way of doing things.
The main reason Omarchy exists is Apple
Best of luck to this project. They seem to be targeting developers who are frustrated with Apple and Microsoft which is probably a large market.
And the opinionated aspect is also a positive since there's often decision paralysis for many people new to Linux.
Vibecoded Linuxslop with a Dropbox sponsored product placement. Buy now, only 10 million dollars!
but it's free, what is your point? open source devs should not be paid for their efforts or what?
It’s a bunch of LLM developed scripts for Linux. Free is too expensive.
This is a mad response. a) scripts are so painful to write that LLMs do well here and b) users will decide if it's too expensive or not.
Well, don't use it
How will it stay free once these investors that facilitated this 10M funding start asking for their return on investment?
It's not investors, these are donations.
Excluding extreme minor exceptions to the rule, do you think on average charities and foundations have investors?
I had been tossing around the idea of getting a second laptop for a while to run Linux on modern hardware instead of the old stuff I’ve always used, which compromised the experience. After watching the video on the latest Omarchy release yesterday, I finally did it.
The laptop came with Windows 11, which I needed for one specific task I’ve been putting off for months. I failed to complete it for reasons unknown, but it did give me enough time in Windows that I was worried about the hardware. The trackpad was horrible. Coming from 20+ years on the Mac, I was used to all non-Apple trackpads being pretty bad, but it I was debating returning the laptop. It would take me 5 attempts just to launch an exe. Taps wouldn’t register, timing was off and it would edit the file name when I tried to double click, it was a mess.
Once in Omarchy, this issue went away. The trackbad works fine, scrolling is smooth, even more smooth than my MBP. The json config to enable things like natural scrolling (which I’m used to from the Mac) is something I don’t think the average user would do. Disabling tap to click had me asking AI, and then I still had to realize for format it gave me was wrong, so that isn’t too user friendly.
I was a bit worried about trying it with how much vibe coding DHH does, but so far it’s been one of the best Linux experiences I had, and made the laptop dramatically better. I still haven’t really figured out the integrated AI stuff, but spent most of the day without even installing it. I don’t have any experience outside of GirHub Copilot in VS Code at work. I tried installing LM Studio and using OpenCode to connect to a model running there. I’m not really sure what the workflow is supposed to be. I just don’t want to need a $40 Claude subscription to try this idea of an agentic OS. I don’t know that I even like that idea, but figured if I was going to stop being a hater and actually try it, this would be the scenario that would make sense… on a laptop with none of my actual data or accounts.
This is insane. I mean good for them, but what is going on? Random inference and neocloud startups valued at billions, a couple of shell scripts and lipstick on Archlinux $10M. Now try to get some money to build a proper widget framework with offscreen drawing, that is not as hard to use as the current stack, that allows people to create multimedia applications quickly similar to what the Mac frameworks did for Pixelmator etc, and you'll grind your teeth out.
Meanwhile this particular thing now that the shell frameworks are converging into QuickShell and others are barely worth mentioning.
I'm not even going to criticize DHH for getting that money, good for him. My critique is solely directed at the rest of the VC ecosystem. Meanwhile China has a highly competitive ecosystem for hard tech graduates.
> I'm not even going to criticize DHH for getting that money, good for him
He's not getting that money, he literally donated 10% of that money himself
[dead]
QuickShell is quite buggy. Just like Qt.
Maybe that's what the funding is meant to help fix?
Imagine what Debian could accomplish with that kind of money...
DHH is like Elon - at some point the personal brand tarnishes the project.
For you.
Not if you see the ridiculous codes of conduct projects like Gnome and Nix have - many were begging for an alternative path and DHH brought it. Congrats to him for delivering on it!
There has always existed alternatives to Gnome and Nix.
The entire thing is a who's who of fashtech (and those self-identifying with it) and it's gross. Skinheads unite, I guess.
Only because the definition of fascism changed completely, and got devalued into just "maintaining a border is fascism". So actual fascists are now ignored because who can tell who really is or isn't one?
You’ve lost the plot if you seriously think that’s the case
I'm quite positive to be honest.
It's a linux distribution focused on a specific type of user (a software developer) that drops the Linux-typical approach to UX of "doesn't matter, all linux users and devs are hackers that will configure and install everything they need".
That's...just not true? Most of us like MacOS because we don't want to.
It comes with sensible configuration, an AI-centric approach (documentation for the LLM to customize the system is included in the OS) instead of AI-negationism, and bundles all sensible software a development machine should have.
It always felt like all Linux distributions were mostly focused on the conventions and politics instead of the final assembled product itself. So you get a great OS, but with everything left to the user when it comes to UX.
I think DHH will succeed here because he's the right person for it: opinionated, well networked, has a following, capable.
I don't personally love him but he brings what most distro maintainers don't: product vision and a taste on how a development machine should work.
> It comes with sensible configuration, an AI-centric approach (documentation for the LLM to customize the system is included in the OS) instead of AI-negationism, and bundles all sensible software a development machine should have.
I don't use omarchy, just debian, ubuntu, arch, depending on the need and they basically all come with "documentation for the LLM to customize the system is included in the OS". There is the wiki, the man pages, the documented `.conf` files, ...
> It always felt like all Linux distributions were mostly focused on the conventions and politics instead of the final assembled product itself. So you get a great OS, but with everything left to the user when it comes to UX.
There was always distro that aim to be focus for user X or Y (see for example gaming focus distros), and most of them do indeed provide a better UX for X or Y. But “generic” distro don't have the luxury of targeting a specific use-case. They are the base with allow the customization in the first place.
I am sure Omarchy has a nice UX for a dev coming from another OS or from a default Ubuntu install, but customizing your Linux distro to fit your specific needs as always be the next step for whoever care enough. A lot of people don't care enough and will be fine with a default ubuntu, fedora, omarchy, ... But somehow, I feel that if you care enough to install omarchy, you will care enough to go and dig deeper, questioning a 10M funding. But whatever, it's basically rich people making a rich people gift to their rich friend.
I don't get why they choose a tiling window manager.
Because that's what the maintainer likes. And that's the point: it's fine to have a product with a vision and an opinion.
$10M for a Linux rice… seriously?
It's what happens when tech bros run a Linux distro https://omarchy.org/news/2026/09/the-omarchy-core-team/
Still it's really weird imho - there are many projects that are the foundation of many important things are struggling finantially (maybe even Arch itself, which its apparently the base of this thing) yet these people have this absurd amount of money to spend on linux ai slop. Sounds like another example of "money is in the wrong hands" but well. Hoping the projects this thing depends on can get some benefits from this and that this won't be a similar case like the linux foundation.
The money is for hyprland, quickshell, their security team (they have their own package repo, AUR is off by default) and such.
Linux (and all OSes) and computers in general are what you get when tech bros are let loose on the world.
The term tech bro is a pejorative for men who work in tech who are obnoxious, often sexist, have an inflated ego, and are generally pretty toxic for everybody around. And are now very aligned with American nationalism and reactionary ideas. It’s not really something you should be proud of.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tech_bro
Never heard of omarchy.
> Beautiful, Modern & Opinionated Linux by DHH
That’s really a lot of money to raise for a Linux distribution. And with investors^Wpatrons such as Lütke and Dorsey, and DHH at the head it’s for sure something I wouldn‘t touch with a 10km long pole
Do you think that all the donors in this non profit foundation are going to get a massive return upwards from their initial donation?
whats wrong with Lütke or Dorsey?
That was the recent criticism: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/shopify-ceo-endorses-idea-to-...
Thats kinda neat idea : who suggested an electoral system of "weighted voting proportional to the amount of income tax you pay,"
But i would go not for absolute amount of tax paid, but for relative tax paid with some floors and ceilings. pay effective rate of 30% (or less) income, get one vote. Pay 50% or less, get two, pay above 50% get three.
Pay less than 10% - no vote for you !!!
It’s the most obvious anti democratic idea…
Barely even a "distro"; it's built atop Arch.
Exactly - Ubuntu's barely a distro because it's built atop Debian. Brilliant logic.
FWIW that’s what people were saying for years, when Ubuntu was still very close to Debian. Over the years they took their own paths but for a while Ubuntu felt like a Debian with a simpler installer and some different defaults
This would have been really interesting about 20 years ago.