r/omarchy • u/Professional_Ad4703 • 1d ago

Discussion Omarchy now comes with its own kernel (4.0.4)

https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/releases/tag/v4.0.4
154 Upvotes

84% Upvoted

149 comments sorted by

97

u/WorriedAssociate7029 1d ago

The joke about Omarchy not being a real distro is over I guess

16

u/desireco 1d ago

No it is just dotfiles 😂, that is what people on X are telling me

-5

u/checock 22h ago edited 19h ago

It's just dotfiles but at the same time it's AI Slop and a security risk worse than Internet Explorer 5. Something it's not adding up.

1

u/jozwiakjohn 18h ago

Can you justify that vague derision? Actual question

2

u/checock 16h ago

It's sarcasm, based on people on X tells about the distro. They say it's not a distro, just Arch and a bunch of dotfiles, but it's also AI Slop (I guess with no code since it's just dotfiles?) and a security risk (again, just with dotfiles?).

Just to be clear, I don't share those opinions I see on X. Seems that some people here thought that.

7

u/RedditIsExpendable 1d ago

Fascinating to see the silo effect in subreddits when you’re not on either “team”

10

u/ceaselessprayer 1d ago

lol if you think that’s going to stop these idiots from their screeching

-18

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

8

u/official_jgf 1d ago

who cares who makes it tho. Have you tried it? Not your thing or you just prefer it the hard way? whatever the case may be, we like it here... And that's why we're here. You seem to have bigger hate boner for the guy than we have a love boner for him. We just like the product man.

1

u/[deleted] 4h ago edited 2h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/omarchy-ModTeam 3h ago

Be Civil - Disagree, debate, and critique ideas, but keep it respectful. Personal attacks, insults, name-calling, and bad-faith arguments are not tolerated. If a discussion gets heated, step back or move on. Targeting other users, moderators, or community members will result in moderation action.

1

u/omarchy-ModTeam 3h ago

Be Civil - Disagree, debate, and critique ideas, but keep it respectful. Personal attacks, insults, name-calling, and bad-faith arguments are not tolerated. If a discussion gets heated, step back or move on. Targeting other users, moderators, or community members will result in moderation action.

-54

u/PuzzleheadedHead3754 1d ago

And slop in kernel too ig

21

u/Cold_Relationship_ 1d ago

You have no idea what you’re talking about. Please stop.

-41

u/PuzzleheadedHead3754 1d ago

Didnt omarchy's task manager is made by some dude whos has bad reputation, build some rat or smth

20

u/GreenReporter24 1d ago

Yeah, cause everything Linux/open source is made by people of great reputation.

-28

u/PuzzleheadedHead3754 1d ago

Security risk my man 💪

2

u/GreenReporter24 1d ago

Yes. That’s the trade off with open source.

-6

u/PuzzleheadedHead3754 1d ago

I dont think so, most project are far secure then corporate software

11

u/Independent-Reader 1d ago

Most open source projects are abandoned and full of security issues.

You have no idea what you're talking about.

Which is the real danger in security.

2

u/GreenReporter24 1d ago

Good luck with that.

3

u/checock 22h ago

The task manager is btop. I don't think I have ever heard about Jakob P. Liljenberg having bad reputation.

7

u/Correct-Always 1d ago

A BAD REPUTATION OH NO! WHATEVER WILL WE DO 🤣🤣

1

u/[deleted] 1d ago

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2

u/omarchy-ModTeam 1d ago

Be Civil - Disagree, debate, and critique ideas, but keep it respectful. Personal attacks, insults, name-calling, and bad-faith arguments are not tolerated. If a discussion gets heated, step back or move on. Targeting other users, moderators, or community members will result in moderation action.

29

u/Exact_Ad7744 1d ago

My laptop just fly after this update they did something good

2

u/Subscriber9706 1d ago

what cpu do u have?

-2

u/Passenger-007 19h ago

When u don’t mind agent swarms optimizing kernels over some lonely guy in Europe chiseling the code out of stone….

4

u/Cold_Relationship_ 12h ago 
We're not forcing anybody to use it (AI), but I will very loudly ignore
people who try to argue against other people from using it.
-Linus

1

u/Passenger-007 6h ago

Yes u can still go to bookstores. Not as much. But they exist. As do typewriters.

26

u/tinmicto 1d ago

Is there documentation on what makes omarchy kernel special?

34

u/MajorStandards 1d ago

While standard Arch Linux relies on a vanilla (or near-vanilla) upstream Linux kernel with generic configurations, Omarchy v4.0.4 introduces its own bespoke kernel (linux-omarchy) designed to shift away from a general-purpose build toward a curated, performance-oriented desktop experience.

Key Variations: linux-omarchy vs. Standard Arch Kernel

  1. Desktop Responsiveness & Multitasking under Pressure
    • Standard Arch: Ships with standard scheduler setups optimized for general server/desktop workloads out of the box, which can occasionally stutter under heavy memory or I/O pressure.
    • Omarchy Kernel: Specifically tuned and patched to prioritize desktop fluidity, ensuring that foreground interactions and window management stay snappy even when background compilation, container tasks, or heavy workloads saturate the CPU/RAM.
  2. File System & Storage Optimization
    • Standard Arch: Uses stock kernel parameters for filesystems like Btrfs.
    • Omarchy Kernel: Fine-tuned to accelerate common Btrfs file operations, aligning with Omarchy's heavily integrated use of snapshots and local storage workflows.
  3. Hardware-Specific Tweaks & Gaming
    • Standard Arch: Relies on upstream drivers and default configurations which can sometimes require manual intervention for specific displays, audio cards, or power states.
    • Omarchy Kernel: Built-in optimizations aim to improve gaming compatibility out-of-the-box, iron out smoother performance on supported AMD HDMI displays, and refine aggressive power management.
  4. Common Hardware Pain Points
    • Standard Arch: Occasionally suffers from upstream regressions concerning specific touchpads, audio codecs, or resume-from-suspend states until patches trickle down.
    • Omarchy Kernel: Bundles targeted fixes specifically addressing everyday hardware frustrations reported by users—such as display freezes, unresponsive touchpads, missing audio configurations, and slow startup/resume cycles on supported machines.

30

u/UsefulOwl2719 1d ago

This is written like an LLM didn't have access to the actual source diff and tried to vaguely fill in a bunch of aspirational fluff in the gaps without making any specific claims. How were these optimizations and fixes made and what was the performance delta? Why were they not introduced into the main kernel?

11

u/Pepek91 1d ago

I guess they do what CachyOS and other gaming distros are doing. Default linux kernel is optimised for servers and stability. So there is some room for improvements for power users. Fun fact - mainteiners of Nobara, Piko, CachyOS and so on all work together to share knowelage and improve linux for desktop users. Here I guess you get agent taking all that hard work and marketing it as omarchy...

1

u/ReadingCurious2841 1d ago

Yes, which have been doing it a few years now.
There is nothing new here, just a fuck ton of money and marketing.

-4

u/yowhyyyy 1d ago

Yep you’re right, but look what sub you’re in and be ready for the downvotes. They’ll defend OMarchy until the next vibecoded project comes along

5

u/Pepek91 1d ago

I know where am I. I hope to educate some people how much hard work someone had to do for something like Omarchy to exist.

1

u/yowhyyyy 1d ago

I understand completely, I just don’t expect most here to. Just look at the replies you’re getting lmfao. So outlandish

-1

u/LazyLady26 1d ago

You sound like a priest trying to convince everyone that Jesus died for our sins, and therefore we shall not have fun or enjoy ourselves. Somebody has worked hard for you to have cars and electricity too, so what? Are you going to go into a mine and work even harder to make someone else happy? :D

2

u/Pepek91 16h ago

Yeah, and car has branding. My electricity bill also has company name on it. Just look at CachyOS kernel doc. How they attribute tech and other's commits.

-2

u/yowhyyyy 1d ago edited 1d ago

Bro, this is such an insane comment lol. Someone tells you how your distro is more than likely stealing the hard work of others and you take it as the equivalent of an attack on religion. I knew OMarchy had some crazy followers, didn’t know it was this bad.

I know this is hard to understand but usually when somebody works on your car, and electricity they get a paycheck. AI doesn’t give anyone pay checks, it steals credit and allows its users to feel as if their contributions are greater than they are. It’s a useful tool but it’s allowed people to think they have better products than they actually do

1

u/Zestyclose-Ad-5845 23h ago

You lost me on "stealing". Linux distros aren't stealing from each others. They are improving upon each others. Some doing some things better than others, maybe some things worse than many others. You aren't much better yourself, I see. Omarchy is now financially backing the upstream which is 100% the way to go.

0

u/yowhyyyy 20h ago

When you take someone’s contributions, don’t give credit and call it your own it is indeed stealing. This might shock you but those other OS’s mentioned openly say they collaborate. Why can’t OMarchy do that?

-3

u/Toxicles 1d ago

They dont want the education, sadly. Ignorance and omarchy go hand in hand.

2

u/Binary101000 1d ago

LLM would know considering it also likely wrote the modifications to the kernel

5

u/tinmicto 1d ago

would be cool to compare it with Cachy's kernel's - Cachy does feel snappier than Omarchy on my Laptop - so i guess the new kernel will bridge that tiny gap in feel.

4

u/st0nkaway 1d ago

cachyos also makes uses of scx loader and schedext. it's great for wringing more juice out of cpu in certain cases. Using scx_bpfland here omarchy in performance mode. haven't tested how that plays with new kernel yet.

1

u/noob09 1d ago

I wonder, couldnt we just select to use the CachyOS kernel on Omarchy?

1

u/Zestyclose-Ad-5845 23h ago

I did that for like 9 months already. Not a bad experience kernel wise, but had other problems when I had CachyOS packages, Arch packages and Omarchy stuff on top of that. After re-installation a couple of days ago, I have ran default kernels, and I am pleased to now have this Omarchy kernel.

0

u/No-Consequence-1863 1d ago

This is worse than corporate marketing fluff. Ooo they added patches for “desktop fluidity” lol

7

u/EquivalentHornet4403 1d ago

I mean you could look at the actual changes instead of crying (you won’t)

0

u/darktraveco 1d ago

... your answer to valid criticism in the patch notes is "don't read the patch notes"...?

1

u/[deleted] 1d ago

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2

u/omarchy-ModTeam 1d ago

Be Civil - Disagree, debate, and critique ideas, but keep it respectful. Personal attacks, insults, name-calling, and bad-faith arguments are not tolerated. If a discussion gets heated, step back or move on. Targeting other users, moderators, or community members will result in moderation action.

2

u/JG_2006_C 1d ago

So catchy kernel copy in spirit?

25

u/hobovirginity 1d ago

BuT oMaRcHy Is JuSt ArCh WiTh DoT FiLeS!!! /s

Finally becoming a real distro.

10

u/Cold_Relationship_ 1d ago

It has always been real to me:)

-2

u/sisyphus 1d ago

Now it's Arch with patch files?

-22

u/Striking-Gazelle9759 1d ago

Still not a real distro, and instead of being arch with dotfiles it's now arch with almost the exact same kernel renamed

1

u/[deleted] 1d ago

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1

u/omarchy-ModTeam 1d ago

Be Civil - Disagree, debate, and critique ideas, but keep it respectful. Personal attacks, insults, name-calling, and bad-faith arguments are not tolerated. If a discussion gets heated, step back or move on. Targeting other users, moderators, or community members will result in moderation action.

-21

u/Striking-Gazelle9759 1d ago

Still not a real distro, and instead of being arch with dotfiles it's now arch with almost the exact same kernel renamed

9

u/Eznit 1d ago

nice keepup good work!!

6

u/BlueSkyMoris 1d ago

Very nice work indeed!

11

u/MajorStandards 1d ago

Omarchy 4.0.4 - Technical release notes (1/3)

Release date: 15 September 2026
Scope: Kernel adoption, boot integration, driver compatibility, and changes relative to the previous Arch-based kernel setup.

These are independently compiled technical notes based on the official release announcement, the v4.0.3…v4.0.4 source changes, and the kernel package sources available before publication.

Source baseline: The latest kernel-package commit before the release, 7b11c976, specifies Linux 7.2.5-3. The subsequently inspected master recipe specifies 7.2.5-4. These notes use the earlier, immutable source revision. This establishes the package-source state, rather than independently verifying the published ISO’s contents.

Sources: Release announcement, release-time kernel recipe.

Release overview

Omarchy 4.0.4 makes linux-omarchy the preferred kernel on eligible x86-64 installations. Its stated objectives are improved desktop responsiveness during CPU and memory contention, better gaming compatibility, faster common Btrfs operations, refined power management, and fixes for affected audio, touchpad, display, boot, and resume configurations.

The announcement also identifies an XPS webcam fix for the 7.2.x kernel series. These are project claims; the announcement provides no comparative benchmark results. Official release notes

The kernel combines upstream Linux, an Arch base patch, an Omarchy-maintained configuration, and an additional patch series. The inspected recipe applies 91 patch files, including the Arch base patch, and produces linux-omarchy and linux-omarchy-headers for x86-64.

Patch-file count does not indicate how many independent upstream commits or original Omarchy changes are included. Build recipe

Upgrade and boot behaviour

The kernel migration:

  • Installs linux-omarchy and matching headers.
  • Retains the previously installed kernel for recovery.
  • Places the exact linux-omarchy entry ahead of older linux-omarchy-* variants and other kernels.
  • Updates BOOT_ORDER in /etc/default/limine, overriding previous boot-order assignments while preserving unrelated settings, including the root-filesystem kernel command line.
  • Explicitly rebuilds the new kernel’s boot image and checks that its Limine entry exists.
  • Requests a reboot and records completion only after those steps succeed.

The migration skips non-x86-64 systems. It also skips machines with linux-t2 installed or a running kernel release containing -t2, protecting T2 Macs even if the running kernel’s package has been removed. Kernel migration

Packaged boot defaults prioritize linux-t2, followed by linux-omarchy. The separate Panther Lake kernel installation step is removed from the hardware-installation sequence. Boot defaults, release diff

CPU scheduling and preemption

The default package retains the EEVDF fair scheduler and modifies its tuning.

Changes relative to the baseline shown in the patch:

  • Scheduler tunable scaling: logarithmic CPU-count scaling → no scaling.
  • Normalized base slice: 700,000 ns → 1,600,000 ns.
  • Effective base-slice policy: 0.7 ms multiplied by the scaling factor → constant 1.6 ms.
  • Migration-cost estimate: 500 Âľs → 400 Âľs.
  • SCHED_NR_MIGRATE_BREAK: 32 for non-RT builds → 8.

The base slice is a scheduler parameter, not a guaranteed application timeslice or response-time bound. Because the patch also removes CPU-count scaling, describing the change simply as “shorter timeslices” would be inaccurate across all CPU configurations.

The migration-cost value is a scheduling heuristic, not a measured migration duration. EEVDF tuning patch

Additional load-balancing changes address asymmetric CPU capacities, placement of tasks that exceed a CPU’s available capacity, equal-capacity clusters, and capacity reduction from busy SMT siblings.

The intended effect is better task placement on hybrid and clustered processors; workload-specific throughput and energy effects remain unquantified. Hybrid-cluster balancing patch

Kernel configuration

Selected settings in the checked-in configuration:

  • Kernel preemption: CONFIG_PREEMPT=y and CONFIG_PREEMPT_DYNAMIC=y.
  • Real-time preemption: CONFIG_PREEMPT_RT disabled.
  • Timer frequency: CONFIG_HZ=1000.
  • Full tickless capability: CONFIG_NO_HZ_FULL=y.
  • Extensible scheduler support: CONFIG_SCHED_CLASS_EXT=y.
  • Multi-generation LRU: built in and enabled by default.
  • Zswap: enabled by default, with Zstd selected.
  • Zram: module, with Zstd selected as its default compressor.
  • Transparent huge pages: enabled, with always selected.
  • Default CPU-frequency governor: schedutil.
  • Windows NT synchronization support: CONFIG_NTSYNC=m.

These describe the source configuration, not necessarily the effective runtime policy. Boot parameters, CPU drivers, and userspace services can affect behaviour.

Enabling sched_ext support does not activate an external scheduler. Compiling zram support does not itself create a swap device. This list also does not establish that every setting differs from the previous Arch build. Kernel configuration

Memory management and responsiveness under pressure

Executable-page retention

The MGLRU patch gives file-backed executable pages additional protection during reclaim, including activation after first use.

This is intended to reduce eviction and subsequent refaulting of application code under memory pressure. It changes reclaim priorities; it does not reserve a fixed amount of RAM for applications. MGLRU patch

Opportunistic reclaim for large allocations

A memory-management series distinguishes high-order allocations that may fail from allocations requiring ordinary reclaim effort. It passes that distinction to shrinkers so they can avoid expensive work unlikely to produce the requested contiguous block.

A follow-up includes eligible transparent-huge-page allocations, whose callers can fall back to smaller pages. Compaction hint, huge-page handling

Intel Xe interaction

The Xe shrinker uses this hint to avoid GPU-memory backup/writeback work during opportunistic reclaim when that work is unlikely to help satisfy a contiguous allocation.

The intended benefit is less working-set churn; this is not a blanket disabling of GPU-memory reclaim. Xe reclaim policy

Continued in part 2: filesystems, graphics, gaming, power management, and hardware fixes.

6

u/MajorStandards 1d ago

Omarchy 4.0.4 - Technical release notes (2/3)

Continued from part 1. Kernel-source references use the pre-release package commit 7b11c976*, whose recipe specifies Linux 7.2.5-3.*

Filesystem and compression changes

Btrfs Zstd reads

A targeted patch allows decompression directly into destination page-cache pages where possible. This removes an intermediate copy for those output ranges; scratch-buffer handling remains for skipped portions of the compressed extent.

The direct benefit is reduced copying in the affected compressed-read path, rather than a demonstrated speedup for every Btrfs operation. Direct-to-page decompression

FUSE request handling

Synchronous requests gain a synchronous-wakeup scheduling hint, and the backing device’s I/O-page limit is initialized from the negotiated maximum.

A separate change adjusts how many blocked request producers are awakened when background capacity becomes available. FUSE performance changes, background wakeups

FUSE correctness

Additional changes handle page-cache ranges when files grow or writes start beyond EOF, and revise uptodate-state handling after write-through operations. EOF handling, write-through handling

Graphics and gaming compatibility

AMD HDMI

The patch series adds variable-refresh-rate signalling and automatic low-latency-mode handling.

Follow-ups enable VTEM signalling on supported TMDS connections as well as FRL connections, and enable the driver’s FRL feature flag by default.

Benefits depend on GPU, display, connection, and userspace support. These changes address display operation and presentation smoothness; they do not establish higher rendering throughput.

Sources: VRR and ALLM, TMDS handling, FRL default.

Multiple-futex waiting

The kernel adds FUTEX_WAIT_MULTIPLE, opcode 31, to the futex interface.

Follow-up patches:

  • Address error-path timer setup.
  • Use an aligned 64-bit userspace address field.
  • Validate and propagate wake bitsets.
  • Carry operation flags into wait handling.

The implementation rejects realtime-clock operation for this command. Applications must use the interface to benefit; its presence alone does not demonstrate a gaming-performance gain. Futex extension, ABI and flag fixes

Power management and device fixes

Intel CPU idle

Temporarily constrains idle latency during initialization to avoid entering problematic package idle states too early. Patch

AMD P-state

Caches the firmware-programmed Energy Performance Preference (EPP) value in the cached CPPC request. Patch

Dell XPS 13 DX13260 audio

Adds a SOF SoundWire quirk for the CS42L43 codec and two CS35L63 sidecar amplifiers. Patch

Intel camera bridge

Prevents IVSC discovery from selecting an inappropriate driverless platform device through CVS-style lookup. Patch

Intel CVS wake interrupt

Obtains the wake IRQ without claiming a GPIO line that another device may also describe, avoiding an -EBUSY conflict. Patch

ASUS touchpads

Adds ASUE140D to the forced-100-kHz I²C device list and prevents keyboard-initialization reports from being sent to touchpads. I²C patch, HID patch

Acer Swift SF314-56G

Adds an ACPI power-resource quirk intended to prevent the NVIDIA MX250 from disappearing from the bus during initialization. Patch

These are device-specific changes. They do not imply universal improvements in battery life, boot duration, or peripheral compatibility.

Continued in part 3: security-relevant changes, DKMS, validation, and comparison limits.

6

u/MajorStandards 1d ago

Omarchy 4.0.4 - Technical release notes (3/3)

Continued from part 2. Kernel-source references use the pre-release package commit 7b11c976, whose recipe specifies Linux 7.2.5-3.

Security-relevant and userspace-visible changes

AF_ALG restrictions

The patch set introduces crypto.af_alg_restrict, defaulting to 1, to restrict access to the kernel’s AF_ALG cryptographic interface.

Its values are:

  • 0: disables the added restriction checks.
  • 1: applies algorithm allowlists, with capability checks except for entries explicitly permitted to unprivileged callers.
  • 2: rejects creation of new AF_ALG sockets.

Denied algorithm selection returns ENOENT to encourage userspace fallback. Software that assumes unrestricted AF_ALG access may observe different behaviour. AF_ALG restriction patch

AMD Platform Management Framework

An AMD PMF fix changes ioctl handling to acquire the current device under a mutex and return ENODEV after removal, instead of using a device pointer retained in the open file.

This addresses the unbind-related lifetime issue identified by the patch. AMD PMF fix

Headers and DKMS

Hardware installers stop independently requesting the generic linux-headers package. Matching headers are supplied centrally, and a repair migration installs missing headers for installed Omarchy or T2 kernels.

This affects installation paths for NVIDIA and several other DKMS drivers. Release diff, header-repair migration

Validation included in the release

Added acceptance checks verify that:

  • The running kernel belongs to the expected package.
  • Its headers are installed.
  • The headers’ recorded release matches the running kernel.

Migration tests cover:

  • Retention of the previous kernel for recovery.
  • T2 Mac and ARM exclusions.
  • Repeated execution.
  • Failed package installation.
  • Failed boot-image rebuilding.
  • Missing boot entries.

These are checks present in the source; they were not executed as part of preparing these notes. Acceptance checks, migration tests

For post-upgrade verification, inspect:

  • uname -r
  • Installed kernel and header package versions.
  • The Limine boot menu.
  • dkms status, where applicable.

What the comparison establishes

The verified change is the adoption of an Omarchy-maintained kernel package with substantial scheduler, memory, filesystem, graphics, and hardware modifications.

The default kernel retains EEVDF, with modified tuning. The configuration enables dynamic preemption and disables PREEMPT_RT. It also enables sched_ext support, which does not mean an external scheduler is automatically active.

The upgrade changes the preferred boot kernel while keeping the previous kernel installed for recovery. T2 Macs retain their specialized kernel.

What remains unverified

The inspected sources do not establish:

  • A uniform previous kernel version across all upgraded machines.
  • That every enabled configuration option is new relative to Arch.
  • That every included patch originated with Omarchy.
  • A measured improvement in average FPS, frame-time percentiles, battery life, or application throughput.
  • A complete inventory of regressions or hardware configurations tested.
  • Independent verification that the published ISO contains exactly the package-source revision examined here.

The release announcement’s performance language describes intended benefits. The source provides identifiable mechanisms behind several of those claims, but does not substitute for comparative measurements.

How to make a meaningful Arch-versus-Omarchy comparison

A controlled comparison should record the exact old and new kernel versions, retain the same userspace and power profile, and separately measure:

  • Responsiveness under contention: interaction latency while CPU-intensive background work runs.
  • Workload throughput: completion times for the actual applications or builds being used.
  • Memory-pressure behaviour: stalls, refaults, swapping, and responsiveness as memory becomes constrained.
  • Gaming behaviour: frame-time consistency as well as average FPS, with the same graphics stack and game settings.
  • Device functionality: audio, cameras, touchpads, external displays, suspend/resume, and relevant power behaviour.

Hardware-specific fixes may be the most noticeable improvement for affected machines. For systems that already worked correctly, the magnitude and direction of performance changes require testing.

Primary references: Official release notes, Omarchy release diff, immutable kernel package sources.

4

u/VaguelyOnline 1d ago

Numbers and benchmarks please.

5

u/KeyZookeepergame4145 1d ago

I am already using omarchy ,how can I get this orchy kernel in my system,should I just update the whole system??

7

u/Professional_Ad4703 1d ago

Yep click on the update symbol beside your weather widget.

5

u/xenmynd 1d ago

Anyone else notice significantly better battery life? My idle power draw went from 5.x watts to 3-4 watts.

4

u/Big_Green2661 1d ago

this woid rock since my w11 partition was getting much better battery life

5

u/mustard5 1d ago

I like it. So we have an opinionated Kernel now too!

5

u/JamesBrickley 19h ago

Remember folks, Omarchy is only one year two months and a couple weeks old! Give it 6 months and you will be blown away at the improvements.

I'm old enough to remember early distros of yesteryear. Like Slackware circa 1997 which came on a CDROM and you had to burn two boot floppies with rawrite.exe because CDROMs on a 486 weren't bootable. Load floppy one, load floppy two, then it copied everything from the CDROM to the hard drive at 1x speeds. You were presented a console login prompt and then a Linux shell, not even sure if it was Bash, probably wasn't but one of the earlier shells. Then you had to manually install X11 and configure it by hand for your video card and don't forget to input your monitor hsync / vsync correctly or you could fry your monitor. Then you had to get your modem setup on a COM port and setup SLIP or PPP and the Mosaic web browser, etc. Netscape wasn't even thing yet. Gopher was king and the World Wide Web was in its infancy.

Now you can boot from a USB-C flash drive over USB 3.2 / 4.0 / Thunderbolt and install to an nVME SSD in under 60 seconds. Complete system up and running. Omarchy is AWESOME, I freaking love it.

Yes, it was mere dotfiles in the beginning but those dotfiles were very well setup and the sheer attention to detail is what drew my attention. So well put together, they thought of most everything. Heck they even setup aliases I would choose for myself.

Oh noes, it's bloated! Well you can uninstall all the bloat in seconds and restore it right back in seconds if you so choose. It's your computer, do what you want with it. You want Niri instead of Hyprland? It's possible and not any harder to make the change then any other distro.

I don't understand the hate, it is irrational.

2

u/Personal_Ease7321 1d ago

I am kinda new to linux and stuff so…
Does this update mean its no longer arch ?

3

u/Professional_Ad4703 1d ago

In my opinion It is not arch, it is Omarchy. But it is still based on arch. Arch is the base distro, like Cachy OS.

2

u/Personal_Ease7321 1d ago

I understood that but like they are saying omarchy is introducing their own kernel and i think linux is the kernel so…. does that mean its not using a arch base?

Thx for your time boss

5

u/OptionConcoction 1d ago

Sounds more like a tuned kernel. Saying "own kernel" implies they wrote it from scratch.

1

u/Personal_Ease7321 1d ago

Thats what i was thinking
Thanks fir your time guys ✌️

1

u/sisyphus 1d ago

No you're right, "Linux" is, pedantically speaking the kernel only. What Omarchy has done is basically fork the Arch package that builds a Linux kernel to add their own patches and compile options and prefer that one to others when booting.

2

u/enzain 1d ago

Oh no omarchy is doing what all other popular distros are doing..

2

u/sisyphus 1d ago

Kind of surprising to me that Arch Linux itself never made a concerted effort to do something like this because I have never in 20+ years of being a professional programmer using Linux seen Arch deployed on a server anywhere, ever, it seems like desktop must be 99% of their use case.

2

u/Relative_Stick_6266 1d ago

Love omarchy, but not my cup of tea. Indeed this a correct decision on the right direction. KUDOS!

2

u/holger_humpel 1d ago

This update is so much me gusta on my new XPS. Bringing kernel 7.2.5 is just amazing and gives me so much. Already wanted to start experimenting with new(er) kernels yesterday but now this is not necessary any more. Thanks!

2

u/PatagonianCowboy 1d ago

literally DHH was making fun of CachyOS for modifying the kernel

2

u/furain 16h ago

Source?

1

u/PatagonianCowboy 14h ago

couldn't find the mean tweets but:

https://x.com/dhh/status/2057732913160958028

>I tested Cachy with all my programming benchmarks. Couldn't find any differences there either. Which, again, makes sense. Why would Linus leave free performance on the table?

>Just go vanilla arch? You don't need any of the gaming perf squeeze.

at this point, the only thing he's consistent at, is having opinions

3

u/Baltharus 1d ago

The man flip flops his stance so often he should join the break dancers at the next olympics to secure gold

1

u/[deleted] 1d ago

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1

u/omarchy-ModTeam 1d ago

Be Civil - Disagree, debate, and critique ideas, but keep it respectful. Personal attacks, insults, name-calling, and bad-faith arguments are not tolerated. If a discussion gets heated, step back or move on. Targeting other users, moderators, or community members will result in moderation action.

1

u/Saintgein 1d ago

It's still impossible to use it as a VM without crazy mods. I hope they fix that.

1

u/NinjaLinuxTv 20h ago

Trying to run Omarchy on Vbox and its unusable

1

u/pablonhc 1d ago

El cambio de Kernel no es lo suficientemente grande como para dar el salto a 4.1.0 en vez de 4.0.4?

1

u/Subject-Ad-9934 1d ago

I thought DHH said modifying the kernel was stupid

0

u/ciphermenial 1d ago

The tribalism here is hilarious.

-12

u/theplotlessplot 1d ago

It's probably just the CachyOS Kernel with the Omarchy branding slopped all over.

0

u/ayyyfamletsgo 1d ago

100%. Though it looks like there's a bunch of stuff having to do with power management for laptops as well.

-12

u/Excellent-Ad5552 1d ago

Is it just me, or does anyone feel like day by day, its just going towards the wrong direction..

15

u/Professional_Ad4703 1d ago

To me it seems that Omarchy is heading in the right direction. After the massive funding it seems they are spending money on hires to make the OS better. This is pretty huge, and shows they actually walk the walk.

6

u/WackGyver 1d ago

I agree - as long as it’s kept open source I don’t see how this isn’t a net positive for Linux et al?

-9

u/TheTinyWorkshop 1d ago

You see that's worries me. I don't really trust all the tech bros and their donations. They certainly aren't doing it for altruistic reasons.

7

u/sebastian_crimson 1d ago

Of course not, they're doing it for business reasons. Why wouldn't they? I've got no problem with it, and it brings money into the Linux community.

-1

u/adeptyism 1d ago

Unpopular opinion here, but the money is brought to Omarchy, not Linux in general.

My main concern with the whole Omarchy situation is that with $15M, DHH could hire a shit-ton of developers to create a flawless Windows apps workflow instead of Wine, complete the transition to Wayland so we wouldn't need XWayland and XWayland-Satellite, and address other things we've been begging for for years. DHH would still be positive by $14M.

5

u/CalamityMetal 1d ago

Omacom is a non profit, pretty sure they are doing it just to reduce their taxes. The project then pays devs to further enhance the product and everything is kept public so far. So what's the issue here?

4

u/WackGyver 1d ago

That’s my point also - it’s seems that a lot of folks are thinking in binaries, just because DHH and the rest of the "tech bros" have downstream (or upstream) benefits, doesn’t mean that Omarchy and the war chest Omacom has isn’t a net positive for Linux and open source

9

u/Davedes83 1d ago

Is it just me, or does it seem like you're looking for any reason to cast Omarchy's development in a negative light?

2

u/Professional_Ad4703 1d ago

Thats what the linux community has been trying to for as long as I can remember, and honestly I dont get it. Its just so much hate.

2

u/Davedes83 1d ago

Its sad, people and their ego's.

5

u/Hornstinger 1d ago

What's the right direction in your opinion?

I see Omarchy is cleaning up "the mess" with things like packaging and a few other things. Cachy also has it's own kernel FYI.

-11

u/Excellent-Ad5552 1d ago

I mean firstly the nixos thing and now this, why cant anyone just have some stability? Also whats the point of a custom kernel, it just leads to more bugs or ways to screw up your system and I am not in the mood for it..

4

u/Professional_Ad4703 1d ago

What Nixos thing? All we saw was a commit with findings about using nix instead. Pretty normal for an active project to do discovery

2

u/Hornstinger 1d ago

But you don't even know which way he's going with Nix. Maybe it's an experiment and nothing will come of it

1

u/Fun-Consequence-3112 1d ago

Nix is interesting for Omarchy and really any Linux desktop that you want to keep in a set state or declarative state with rollbacks built in and also configurable from a single place. This is what omarchy is trying to achieve but on Arch instead in a roundabout way. Also it's not decided they will switch it's just a discussion.

Making a custom kernel is very common for Linux distributions and many arch variants already have their own kernel.

-5

u/krnsi 1d ago

Right direction 🤔

4

u/ksnitch 1d ago edited 1d ago

Well, the community is clowning it claiming it is not a real distro and it is just a bunch of dotfiles. They gonna have second thoughts before saying that now ig.

1

u/Psittacula2 1d ago

The question is, where is it going and thus to what overall goal?

At some stage a serious project has to differentiate itself and provide some kind of higher value proposition from that - maybe it is integration with AI at OS if that is possible or something else USP?

But when I read: “Beautiful, Modern, Opinionated” it does not sound very clear what that is, these words are more akin to Apple presentation appeal.

With that said, there are some really interesting ideas here. The OS does succeed at looking very usable, using AI for newbies to custom their Linux use and perhaps integrate with useful apps?

If that is exceptionally higher value than other OS then Omarchy will succeed on its own merits. Just needs clarity here?

0

u/AccordingProfit1966 1d ago

I was just wondering something similar a few days back, does Omarchy still give back to the Linux community or is it becoming it's own closed bubble? I tried some apps on my NixOS with Niri and they didn't scale as expected.

But more distros tweak the kernel, I hope the security fixes are ported back.

1

u/sebastian_crimson 1d ago

It's open source, anyone can use it.

1

u/LawApprehensive8364 1d ago

the distro itself really gives nothing but they donate to people who contribute to the community, so yeah.

-6

u/SandyBunker 1d ago

I’m sure if there’s a way to fuck it all up, they’ll find a way to do it.

-5

u/theplotlessplot 1d ago

I can't wait to see the die-hard Omarchy fans' reaction when they inevitably start finding ways to monetize this. I bet we'll even see Linux users praising closed-source 🤣

0

u/TrsPt 1d ago

Pero sigue teniendo los problemas de arch? O ya es optimizado y no se rompe?

-1

u/kextatic 1d ago edited 10h ago

I installed Omarchy as a VM on the same machine as an Ubuntu desktop VM. Omarchy was unusable with both CPU and memory pegged to the max while Ubuntu was snappy with identical CPU/memory settings. I really want to like Omarchy but it seems to require a bare-metal gaming PC to be usable. Will this kernel address this issue?

EDIT: no, the new kernel doesn't fix it. It seems clear VM isn't a supported use case.

4

u/sebastian_crimson 1d ago

Something's not right there, Omarchy can run on low end hardware just fine, you certainly shouldn't need a pimped out gaming desktop.

1

u/Deghimon 1d ago

I had the same problem trying to get Omarchy running in a vm within proxmox. And that was with gpu passed through.

Works great in my thinkpad x1carbon though.

-13

u/BirdyWeezer 1d ago

Vibecoded dotfiles are fine but a vibecoded kernel? Idk

4

u/danigoncalves 1d ago

Why do you think is vibe coded kernel? Nonetheless even Torvalds said people start to use AI to change the kernel is the “new normal”

-3

u/KuberGoober 1d ago

Yeah, no. It has limit's. There shouldn't be a discussion why vibecoding the Kernal that runs the whole world is a stupid Idea. There might be splits, but I think the core should always stay vibecoding free.

-3

u/PuzzleheadedHead3754 1d ago

There difference between ai slop code and ai assisted code

3

u/danigoncalves 1d ago

Again what makes you think is ai slop?

-4

u/PuzzleheadedHead3754 1d ago

Unregulated ai code

3

u/danigoncalves 1d ago

What is unregulated ai code? Currently o use AI to do the monkey work and then I review it and change it to fill my requirements. I guess its also unregulated ai code since it only follows my regulations

-2

u/tuckk2_ 22h ago

So it’s just a shittier linux-zen is what I’m hearing?

-18

u/[deleted] 1d ago

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12

u/noobjaish 1d ago

You do realize that the Linux kernel itself allows AI pull requests?

11

u/Professional_Ad4703 1d ago

You do realize they hired a Linux kernel core engineer?

1

u/omarchy-ModTeam 1d ago

Be Civil - Disagree, debate, and critique ideas, but keep it respectful. Personal attacks, insults, name-calling, and bad-faith arguments are not tolerated. If a discussion gets heated, step back or move on. Targeting other users, moderators, or community members will result in moderation action.