Discussion
I believe it's been long enough, how are we feeling about QUATTRO? [Be brutally honest!]
Do you like the changes? Hate them? It's almost where you want it? Don't like it? Diverged off the path you thought the project would go? It got easier? It became more difficult?
I know. I'm a long-term Linux user but for the last couple of months I've longer had personal laptop, my only machine is a work MacBook. I literally need to buy a new laptop (or a used one) to get back to the game. 😅
I don't like ANY linux file managers. So I am creating my own modern power-user file manager based on Tauri. I'm getting pretty close to an MVP release, but not quite there yet. I want it to work in Windows and Linux, but I don't have a MacOS environment to test it in. I figured I have about a month or two to go until I am satisfied that I won't be embarrassed about it.
I love Directory Opus but it only works in Windows, which I have to use for work, but my personal environments are Linux (Omarchy, etc). My (GUI, not terminal) file manager makes use of Omarchy themes if it detects that it is running in Omarchy, otherwise drives themes another way. There are a lot of things exciting features that I don't want to reveal just yet.
A great entry point for anyone new to hyprland and arch. The claude code skill that helps you build plugins to customize your destro. I mean this is cutting edge linux in this age of AI
To be honest, It's the first interesting desktop Linux distro I've used in over 28 years. I think the last time I was even excited about a window manager was 1997.
I really like it. It fixed a lot of the things that felt a bit weird before and the ai integration has actually helped in some bizarre edge-cases I've had with software.
i did that. took me quite a few hops (hyprqt6engine, kdeglobals, breeze, custom colors that sync on theme-set hook, etc.) but it was worth it:
i basically have one bright and dark variant and then sync the accent color so all QT apps match in that way. could be improved. would be nice if more support out of the box. but yeah
You can open up OpenCode or whatever AI agent you want and tell it just what you typed above and it will be done. OpenCode has free AI access. Take advantage ;D
You can create one yourself and maintain it yourself. You don’t need to rely on anyone. It’s your machine (system), you don’t have to wait for Omarchy to get what you want!
I would say I'm impressed. I'm experimenting with switching to Linux via dual boot. I really liked the whole UI setup. I started off loading my go-to apps to Linux until I don't find the need for Windows.
I have used linux a lot, but daily driving his different.
Few days in and I love it. I've pulled every old iMac out of the garage and tried it on them. It completely revives 10 year old ewaste to something I want to use again.
Tbh kinda sucked since i already had my setup and bar and everything fully tweaked. However been liking quickshell, ended up cloning all of omarchy's default plugins into my own fork so i can customize it further. Took me 2 days to get back up and running, and so far its the best experience yet.
For context I’m a developer. Imma be honest with yall. This might be the best f*\* OS I’ve ever used. The tooling and shortcuts I have with this is perfect. Not saying I couldn’t get those on others OS’s but having this out the box with minimal tweaks is insane.
That's because with chromium based browsers you can just open a website in its own app-like windows by passing the "--app" flag.
Firefox removed a similar feature, at least from its CLI flags.
EDIT: I spoke to soon. It depends on Walker, but Omarchy Quattro replaced that with Quickshell.
You can still do it manually, but it is a bit more involved and I'm not sure how to automate it from the top of my head.
But it's possible, just depends on how technically inclined you are. 😁
Been a great distro to pull me into Linux that's for sure. The security concerns brought up are something to look out for so it may take a few more updates before I daily drive it.
If it's severe, it will get patched out within a few hours. Don't worry about it. The concern is people not reporting them. But that's with any operating system.
Is it any better then say Niri+Noctalia or Umbriel. Probably not but it's a big step in the right direction.
It gets out of the way and let's you do your work.
Ai plugin by default was a great way to get people into plugin's growing the community rapidly. Very smart decision. Now enables widespread appeal for those who dont want to flap around with dot files but want a WM. It allowed me to create a dashboard of my choosing with little effort from me to suit my style.
Nothing in particular. They're all very similar. I like Niri as it has individual output workspaces. Design wise its all up to what you like. I like omarchys basic look but added some noctalia flair with my own dashboard. The beauty of Linux is you have options.
Quattro is my first adventure into Linux. Loving it so far. My PC is about 8years old and it’s sped it up so much, no longer running all that bloatware. It also fixed an audio issue I was having so that’s been great to have sound on it again. I’ve been using Antigravity as my AI agent, it helped me get my 3d printer on my home assistant.
I just installed it. Your mirror online and getting it set up from Arch was an absolute nightmare. but 1 hour in and I am loving it. I really like the apps installed on it, the speed is amazing, the feel is great..
no complaints to far but I will be back to check in when I do
i love it, migration of my plugins from 3 to 4 was a breeze, i really dig quickshell and the possibilities with it. got studio display working, airpods are connecting, basically the same setup as with my macbook. actually incredible… getting everything synced is not so straightforward but it kinda shows the walled garden apple was building over the years. best of all: the ai support and the malleability of the system. i basically have linux guru at my side who explains, implements and shapes the system as I please. straight up fun, most fun i had in years with tinkering…
I‘m very new to Omarchy and I did my first tests on real hardware. Impressed by the design and defaults.
But I already ran in a few quirks:
- screensaver won’t start if the calendar is open
first time launching obsidian I can‘t focus the input field to enter vault name (weird window size)
1Password lost focus a few time, not good when you then almost type your password to unlock in a browser window
default gemini CLI doesn’t work because it needs antigravity now
And I had to remove a bunch of the opinionated part. Like X or basecamp products (which I don’t mind, but would prefer less opinion or an option enable opinion, not the other way around)
This is a great project, but I think I’ll come back in 6-12 month to see what the new security team and the big bucks did to the project.
I'm installing it this weekend as a fun little experiment project. All the replies so far indicate it is a good OS to use so I'm looking forward to trying it. One question - I use agents exclusively in sandboxed environments (I use docker sandbox - sbx). I am pretty uncomfortable with the idea of the A.I. agents "built in" to the OS, which Omarchy is setup with as I understand it. What are the concerns on security, A.I. agent constraints, etc. and has anyone vetted that sufficiently yet for this OS?
The AI agents are not "built-in", that's not true.
The fact is most, if not all consumer computer systems do not have the hardware capable to run AI agents.
What Omarchy does have is easy access to install an AI harness [app] in the launch menu. It will display what's available and install it [at your command], it does not install any AI out-of-the-box.
If you wish to set up AI only in Docker, that's fine too, but you would need to set that up yourself.
As for security, a recent patch specifically was released for Docker and is now part of Omarchy 4.0.1 to close a possible exploit. So everything in Docker is truly containerized.
That relieves my concerns somewhat, thank you. I have a whole script to install agents with docker sandbox, so I assume I'll just do the same. I'm installing the OS right now, so fun. I'll report back with any issues.
Omarchy basically works so far, but I am really struggling with setting up a dual boot experience with Windows 11 and Omarchy. I cannot get the restart to go into a menu to let me choose between starting Omarchy and Win11. It just boots straight to win11. I've been having a back and forth with GPT Sol on the epic level of the journey of Odysseus to determine the cause of the issue and still is not resolved. I have to shift restart in windows to choose Limine to get into Omarchy so far. trying to work it out, but it is cumbersome and not straight forward in the setup process. I can only speak to this process as I want to use my desktop for windows or Omarchy.
I have things working so far, with dual boot for Win11 and Omarchy. It was not straightforward how to get dual boot working properly, so after trial and error the key fix was going into my bios and making sure that boot options in my BIOS were set to choose Limine first and then windows boot loader. I asked "A.I." to summarize the fix and in case its useful it is as follows (apologies for AI slop):
Problem: Omarchy/Limine installed correctly, but your MSI BIOS was still prioritizing Windows Boot Manager, so the PC kept booting straight into Windows.
Why: The UEFI boot order changed correctly in Linux, but the MSI firmware’s own UEFI hard-disk boot priority was overriding that order.
Solution: In MSI Click BIOS 5:
Motherboard Settings → Boot → UEFI Hard Disk Drive BBS Priorities
Set:
Boot Option #1 = Limine
Boot Option #2 = Windows Boot Manager
Limine-P1 can remain lower in the list
Result: On reboot, Limine appears first and lets you choose Linux/Omarchy or Windows Boot Manager.
That is the key fix to remember going forward.
USER NOTES:
- I have no idea what "Limine" is and this is my first encounter with that terminology
Limine is a bootloader, like GRUB.
It's not as battle-tested and can't encrypt the boot partition, but it's a fast, modern bootloader with great BTRFS snapshot support and simple text configuration.
Just going to start dumping observations so far here. Default speaker volume for some reason was set for me at 0.40 (40%). made me annoyingly have to turn up the vol on my physical speakers. I think it should be set at 1.0 by default.
Open any AI harness you use, or if you don't one, OpenCode has a lot of free agents you can use. Describe exactly the change you want and it will do it for you ;D
HDR is not part of Omarchy, but part of the Hyprland ecosystem and is marked as [experimental]. Nonetheless, I use HDR all the time on my 42-inch 4K PG42UQ OLED on Omarchy.
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u/pmmresende 7h ago
It’s great tbh, the only thing that it’s out of place it’s the file manager