Omarchy Is Out

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Omarchy, Hyprland, and Linux Adoption

  • Several commenters say Omarchy/Omakub and Hyprland pushed them to daily‑drive Linux or revisit it after years on Windows/macOS.
  • Omarchy is praised less for novelty and more for providing a well‑curated, power‑user setup that removes the initial configuration burden and showcases “what Linux can do.”
  • Some like Omarchy’s defaults but end up back on Plasma, GNOME, or “vanilla” Hyprland once they realize they can reproduce most benefits there.

Tiling vs Floating, Workflows, and New Paradigms

  • Strong split between users who love overlapping/floating windows and those who favor tiling or fullscreen + fast switching.
  • Many note tiling’s advantages when most work is in terminals/IDEs; others say GUI‑heavy or multi‑task workflows work better with floating windows and multiple monitors.
  • “Scrolling” window managers (Niri, scroll, PaperWM‑style approaches) attract interest as a middle ground: spatial navigation with few visible splits and easy cycling.

Wayland, Hyprland, and Technical Friction

  • Mixed views on Wayland: some report earlier pain (screen sharing, global hotkeys, redshift) and call it “death by a thousand cuts”; others claim most of these issues are now fixed in modern compositors.
  • A recurring complaint is the lack of robust, standardized global hotkeys and accessibility/automation APIs, especially for OBS recording shortcuts and Discord push‑to‑talk.
  • There’s technical discussion about advanced window manipulation (cropped viewports, nested compositors) and whether it’s easier on X11 or requires compositor‑level support on Wayland.

Community, Reputation, and Drama

  • Hyprland is seen as both exciting and controversial: highly popular and influential, especially among younger users, but with strained relations with parts of the traditional Linux dev community.
  • Some dismiss criticism as overblown “drama”; others say the project has “burnt bridges” but also attracted many new contributors.

Alternatives, Ecosystem, and Philosophy

  • Comparisons are made to Bluefin, immutable Fedora images, NixOS, and other Arch/Hyprland spins; many argue these projects solve different layers (OS imaging vs desktop ergonomics) and can be combined.
  • Some see Omarchy as part of a broader “re‑enchantment” with Linux, evoking nostalgia for earlier desktop‑Linux experimentation.
  • Concerns are raised about branding choices (custom boot splash), website UX (forced image downloads), and whether highly opinionated setups can ever be “Year of Linux on the Desktop” material for non‑tinkerers.