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I had a chance to try Omarchy past few days and it's just very different vs macOS. I honestly never had a problem with the windowing system ever since I built m

by Axsuul 23d ago

I had a chance to try Omarchy past few days and it's just very different vs macOS. I honestly never had a problem with the windowing system ever since I built my own customization scripts (i.e. Hammerspoon). I can see the appeal for someone who wants ultimate customization though but macOS still wins overwhelmingly when it comes to polish, ecosystem, user experience, and apps (nothing comes close).

cosmic_cheese 23d ago
It’s not just Omarchy, there’s really not much out there in the desktop Linux sphere for those who are mostly happy with how macOS works out of the box. Everything is either in a similar vein to the Omarchy setup (hyper-minimal tiling WM), Windows-like (KDE, Cinnamon, most other DEs), or a chimera with a grab bag of design bits from every desktop and mobile platform (GNOME, Pantheon, COSMIC). It’s a bit depressing because it means that if I ever feel forced to switch my daily driver, it won’t come without a dump truck load of friction, frustration, and lost productivity, which I’ve validated by using the various Linux desktops on secondary machines.
- xiphias2 23d ago
  There were 1000 plugins created for Omarchy 4 in 2 days. That's why I don't feel it being hyper minimal anymore. It's still not well integrated of course as those plugins are from different people, but I at least don't feel powerless as I know I can make any change easily.
- prmoustache 23d ago
  It is just regular resistance to change. Loss of productivity is exagerated, it indeed exists in which ever direction but it is only temporary.
  - cosmic_cheese 23d ago
    Perhaps, but one of desktop Linux's defining philosophies is the machine working for and adapting to the user rather than the reverse, so it's a letdown that this only really applies if you're coming from Windows or have been a Linux user all along.
    - prmoustache 22d ago
      Choices are always opinionated by the dev but you can always fork and change to obtain what you need. MacOS doesn't let you do that and isn't easier to switch to.
      - cosmic_cheese 22d ago
        With the caveat that one has the time and energy to fork and modify in the first place, and then additionally has time and energy to maintain the changes that upstream won’t take…
        prmoustache 22d ago
        Nothing new under the sun. You can't expect any system, even the most configurable ones, to be ready out of the box to everyone's particular nitpicking without a minimum of effort.
- kombine 23d ago
  KDE Plasma is as good as it gets if you'd like to transition from MacOS: https://pointieststick.com/2025/10/04/a-mac-like-experience-on-linux/ https://pointieststick.com/2025/10/04/a-mac-like-experience-...
  - cosmic_cheese 23d ago
    I run KDE on a secondary machine and it's the best it's ever been, but for me it's best for single-purpose machines where desktop differences basically don't matter. It's about on par with one of the better Windows releases (XP or 7 maybe) in terms of how frustrating I'd find it to do work under.
xiphias2 23d ago
It's interesting because I just haven't felt the polish. For example when using PyTorch I wanted to try to speed up my NN kernel by 2x by just using half precision and haven't noticed any speedup at all. Also I was missing the easy to use GNU tools that had to be mixed with Apple's tools. I loved using Arc browser as well, and I'm missing it, but I guess I will do without it somehow (Chrome's vertical tabs are just not the same). My main program missing from going back to Linux was ChatGPT Desktop, but now it's there. I just checked out Hammerspoon, I'm happy for you that you wrote it, and looks great, but it has the same problem that I had: for security reasons Apple stopped allowing the window APIs to get all important information on other workspaces. You can only do it with Accessibility API. I was trying to fight with it but have up.
- cosmic_cheese 23d ago
  If the browser being Chromium-based isn’t a hard requirement, it may be worth checking out the Firefox-based Zen Browser[0]. Its UI is very similar to that of Arc, to the point that I’d call it Arc’s spiritual successor. [0]: https://zen-browser.app/ https://zen-browser.app/
- anon7000 22d ago
  Well, Arc is basically dead on Mac now anyways :(

by Axsuul 23d ago

cosmic_cheese 23d ago

It’s not just Omarchy, there’s really not much out there in the desktop Linux sphere for those who are mostly happy with how macOS works out of the box. Everything is either in a similar vein to the Omarchy setup (hyper-minimal tiling WM), Windows-like (KDE, Cinnamon, most other DEs), or a chimera with a grab bag of design bits from every desktop and mobile platform (GNOME, Pantheon, COSMIC). It’s a bit depressing because it means that if I ever feel forced to switch my daily driver, it won’t come without a dump truck load of friction, frustration, and lost productivity, which I’ve validated by using the various Linux desktops on secondary machines.

xiphias2 23d ago
There were 1000 plugins created for Omarchy 4 in 2 days. That's why I don't feel it being hyper minimal anymore. It's still not well integrated of course as those plugins are from different people, but I at least don't feel powerless as I know I can make any change easily.
prmoustache 23d ago
It is just regular resistance to change. Loss of productivity is exagerated, it indeed exists in which ever direction but it is only temporary.
- cosmic_cheese 23d ago
  Perhaps, but one of desktop Linux's defining philosophies is the machine working for and adapting to the user rather than the reverse, so it's a letdown that this only really applies if you're coming from Windows or have been a Linux user all along.
  - prmoustache 22d ago
    Choices are always opinionated by the dev but you can always fork and change to obtain what you need. MacOS doesn't let you do that and isn't easier to switch to.
    - cosmic_cheese 22d ago
      With the caveat that one has the time and energy to fork and modify in the first place, and then additionally has time and energy to maintain the changes that upstream won’t take…
      - prmoustache 22d ago
        Nothing new under the sun. You can't expect any system, even the most configurable ones, to be ready out of the box to everyone's particular nitpicking without a minimum of effort.
kombine 23d ago
KDE Plasma is as good as it gets if you'd like to transition from MacOS: https://pointieststick.com/2025/10/04/a-mac-like-experience-on-linux/ https://pointieststick.com/2025/10/04/a-mac-like-experience-...
- cosmic_cheese 23d ago
  I run KDE on a secondary machine and it's the best it's ever been, but for me it's best for single-purpose machines where desktop differences basically don't matter. It's about on par with one of the better Windows releases (XP or 7 maybe) in terms of how frustrating I'd find it to do work under.

xiphias2 23d ago

It's interesting because I just haven't felt the polish. For example when using PyTorch I wanted to try to speed up my NN kernel by 2x by just using half precision and haven't noticed any speedup at all. Also I was missing the easy to use GNU tools that had to be mixed with Apple's tools. I loved using Arc browser as well, and I'm missing it, but I guess I will do without it somehow (Chrome's vertical tabs are just not the same). My main program missing from going back to Linux was ChatGPT Desktop, but now it's there. I just checked out Hammerspoon, I'm happy for you that you wrote it, and looks great, but it has the same problem that I had: for security reasons Apple stopped allowing the window APIs to get all important information on other workspaces. You can only do it with Accessibility API. I was trying to fight with it but have up.

cosmic_cheese 23d ago
If the browser being Chromium-based isn’t a hard requirement, it may be worth checking out the Firefox-based Zen Browser[0]. Its UI is very similar to that of Arc, to the point that I’d call it Arc’s spiritual successor. [0]: https://zen-browser.app/ https://zen-browser.app/
anon7000 22d ago
Well, Arc is basically dead on Mac now anyways :(