> 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.
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.
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.
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
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.
> 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.
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.
Vibecoded Linuxslop with a Dropbox sponsored product placement. Buy now, only 10 million dollars!
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.
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.
This would have been really interesting about 20 years ago.
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
whats wrong with Lütke or Dorsey?
Imagine what Debian could accomplish with that kind of money...
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/
DHH is like Elon - at some point the personal brand tarnishes the project.