Omarchy

Omarchy is an opinionated Linux distribution built on Arch, created by DHH (of Basecamp/37signals fame). It ships a preconfigured Hyprland-based desktop, curated app selection, and a set of conventions meant to get a developer from bare metal to a working, good-looking desktop without hand-assembling a window manager config from scratch. It's aimed at developers who want a fast, keyboard-driven Linux setup and are willing to accept the maintainers' opinions on tools, theming, and workflow rather than build everything themselves.

The project is documented through an extensive manual covering everything from initial setup to theming, hardware config, and troubleshooting, rather than a typical short README. This suggests it's meant to be lived in day-to-day, not just installed and forgotten.

Key features

• Opinionated defaults: a curated selection of terminal, editor, shell tools, TUIs, and GUIs so you don't have to research and configure each piece individually.
• Hyprland desktop: a tiling Wayland compositor setup with a top bar, hotkeys, and navigation conventions baked in.
• Theming system: built-in and extra themes, plus documentation for building your own theme.
• Unified clipboard and history: system-wide clipboard management across apps.
• Omarchy CLI: a command-line tool for managing the distro itself (updates, toggles, snapshots).
• System snapshots: rollback-friendly setup for recovering from bad configuration changes.
• Hardware and peripheral support: documented handling for monitors, keyboards, mice, trackpads, and hardware authentication.
• Screenshots, recording, and dictation tools: built-in utilities for capturing and extracting text from the screen.
• Mac and Windows onboarding docs: dedicated guides for users switching from macOS or Windows, plus dual-boot and unattended install support.
• Development tooling: preconfigured Neovim, terminal, shell functions/plugins, and AI tooling references baked into the environment.

Ideal use cases

Omarchy fits developers who want a ready-made Linux desktop for daily development work and are comfortable with Arch as a base and Hyprland as a window manager. It works well for people setting up a new machine (bare metal or VM) who'd rather adopt a curated toolchain than spend days configuring dotfiles, a WM, and app choices from zero. It's also a reasonable option for people migrating from macOS or Windows who want a documented path with familiar conventions, since the manual includes dedicated onboarding docs for both.

It's not a good fit if you want a minimal, general-purpose Linux install where you control every package choice, or if you're not comfortable with a tiling window manager and keyboard-driven navigation. It also assumes tolerance for someone else's opinions on themes, apps, and workflow; if you want to build your desktop environment from a blank Arch install, this isn't for you. Production servers or headless systems aren't the target either, since the whole point is a desktop experience.

Installation

The README points to omarchy.org and the in-repo manual for setup instructions, starting with Getting Started. The general flow, per the manual structure, is:

1. Review the Welcome and Getting Started docs for installation on your hardware or VM.
2. If migrating from macOS or Windows, read the Coming From Mac or Windows guide first.
3. After install, walk through Navigation, The top bar, and Hotkeys to learn the desktop conventions.
4. Use the Omarchy CLI for ongoing management, including Updates and System snapshots.

For dual-boot setups, see Dual Boot Install; for scripted deployments, see Unattended Installs. Troubleshooting steps and FAQ live in the Troubleshooting and FAQ manual pages.