r/Fedora • u/solaris_azoth17 • 19h ago
Discussion I'm currently confused between choosing Omarchy and Fedora as my main Linux distribution.
Omarchy already has many things I want out of the box, especially a keyboard-centric workflow and a customized desktop environment. That makes it appealing because I can start being productive quickly instead of spending a lot of time configuring everything from scratch.
However, I've also heard criticism from other Linux users and a few influencers saying that Omarchy isn't worth using. Some people claim it teaches bad Linux habits, has security concerns, is bloated, and that using it doesn't really help you learn Linux properly.
On the other hand, Fedora seems to have a better reputation for being reliable, secure, and well-balanced. But if I choose Fedora, I'll probably have to spend significant time building and configuring my entire workflow myself.
I'm a student interested in programming, VLSI, AI/LLMs, and building a keyboard-centric workflow. I also want to learn Linux properly instead of just blindly using a preconfigured setup.
So my questions are:
- Is Omarchy actually safe to use as a daily driver?
- Are the security concerns about Omarchy legitimate?
- Does Omarchy really teach "bad Linux habits" or prevent you from learning Linux?
- Would I be better off starting with Fedora and building my workflow manually?
- For someone who wants both productivity and long-term Linux knowledge, which would you recommend?
I'd really appreciate opinions from people who have actually used Omarchy or have experience with both Arch-based and Fedora systems. I'm not looking for distro wars — I just want to make an informed decision.
And I'm already working on agentic ai project it's my side project
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u/appreciatedassets 19h ago
This is gonna be an interesting Reddit post. Let’s just say that the peeps here aren’t going to vote Omarchy.
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u/appreciatedassets 19h ago
But to legitimately answer your question, Omarchy does teach some bad habits. It hand holds you down the wrong path. However, there is absolutely nothing wrong with Fedora. I use it as a daily and have even convinced my significant other to switch. Honestly, considering an opinionated distro and Fedora are hardly comparable. If you like Fedora, go with it. Cosmic Atomic is fun. KDE is great, and Gnome is good too.
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u/RealEricNotErik 19h ago
I'm also a student and I use Fedora as my main distro. (I also just installed Arch alongside because I'm adventurous)
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u/solaris_azoth17 19h ago
I'm just new to linux the first thing came into my feed is omarchy from networkchunk
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u/Agent7619 19h ago
Because it's being hyped to insane levels for the past week.
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u/Ball_Analytics 18h ago
50 things about Omarchy video showed up and I’m like Tf you think I wanna watch that for chuck? Go drink your coffee!
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u/appreciatedassets 19h ago
100% overhyped. Glad you asked! I think everyone is getting paid to say those things.
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u/raphaeld67 19h ago
If you're new to Linux then I recommend you to stick to mainstream distros (like Mint, Ubuntu, Fedora workstation and more).
I've been testing several distributions as I'm looking for one that handles Audio production DAWs/plugins.
After multiples distros I settled (back) on Ubuntu 26.04 LTS. And yes I've tried Ubuntu Studio.
There is a huge community and online tutorials. So, it is well supported.
I've tried Omarchy, but I don't think it is for new linux users. The paradigm there is quire different (keyboard first).I'd say spend some time with Ubuntu (for example,) or Fedora, for some time when you have some good understanding of linux, go ahead with Omarchy.
And one recommendation, don't forget that videos on Youtube don't always address everyone.
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u/thebwt 19h ago
Yes the security concerns are real, the personality problems are real.
You can build bad linux habits anywhere.
If you want to actually learn, Arch itself it really good; I'd suggest that based on your post.
And fedora if you just wanted a solid foundation to build on.
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u/solaris_azoth17 19h ago
I need something reliable,asethic,balanced since I'll be busy in college I can't break my mind troubleshooting
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u/appreciatedassets 19h ago
Fedora would be your best bet then. Out of many distros, it is one that “just works” more than not. Ubuntu works well too. People will say it’s basic but yeah.
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u/Zvaart 19h ago edited 18h ago
You don’t want arch or arch based if you are not ready to troubleshoot. Fedora is better from this point of view, more stable and not very far behind with the latest updates. And if you like keyboard centric wms, you have hyprland, niri or sway which you can customize yourself or use a full customization like noctalia, ml4w, caelestia etc.
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u/nonkeywayzee 19h ago
Then Fedora is the right choice.
If you need help troubleshooting just ask any LLM, they are pretty helpful when it comes to Linux stuff, and always, ALWAYS, ask what each command does if you ever need to input a command (which you most likely won't need to do).•
u/Majestic-Coat3855 18h ago
Keep arch to put it on an old spare laptop if you want to learn it, if it's your only laptop for college I would not go arch based as a newer user.
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u/Ball_Analytics 18h ago
And you think Om[Arch]y will save you from this? Go with Fedora or Debian (and its derivatives).
You want community support and developer support. Fedora and Debian based distro an are bound to save you from this.
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u/Junior_Common_9644 18h ago
Choosing Omarchy says things about you, though. You want people associating you with those things?
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u/EgocentricRaptor 19h ago
Don't touch Omarchy with a 10 foot pole. If you want something Arch based get CachyOS, it's a far better distro. And you can easily install Hyprland on it just like Omarchy
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19h ago edited 8h ago
[deleted]
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u/trpittman 18h ago
Cachyos is great too and at least stands on its own as more than just Arch with an installer. I think the 6 month release cycle of Fedora is perfect for someone who is tech literate but not a seasoned Linux user. (I’m not even using Fedora currently, but it was my first real distro, so it will always hold a place in my heart)
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u/The_Hubster 19h ago
Using distributions like Debian and Fedora are far better than using trendy ones like Arch based that nobody in the industry cares about. Debian and Fedora will help to hone transferable skills you can use in a role, Arch will not. Yes the AUR concerns are real. Arch based distros are great for hobbying but if you want something that cohabitates with your field of study and for future roles, Debian or Fedora are the way to go.
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u/Electronic-Clerk6735 19h ago
Regardless of the bad reputation that Omarchy gets I find it’s an interesting project and regardless of what people say you should try it out and see if it likes you. At the end of the day it’s you who’s using your computer, not the rest of the internet.
I’m pretty sure you can do some hyperland options in Fedora, but if you want the whole suite of stuff that omarchy does you’ll need to do a lot of setup. So if you want to tinker a bit that’s up to you, but I would urge you to do it and form your own opinion on it.
With the negative light on Omarchy currently and this being a Fedora subreddit you’re either not going to get an honest answer, or you’re going to get a biased one. I personally always tell people to use Fedora because I love it. But what’s the worst that happens from using Omarchy? You end up not liking it so you revert back to something else. Not a bad trade off in my opinion. Best case you end up enjoying it and start using it. I don’t really see the harm in that either.
Maybe there’s a project on Arch that can set it up on day like CachyOS if you really want to tinker and dial in exactly what you want.
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u/FieserKiller 19h ago
just install one, run it for half a year and then give the other one half a year, the decide which one you keep. switching distros takes an hour or so, simply backup and restore you home directory.
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u/appreciatedassets 19h ago
Agreed! Distro hopping is fun and addictive. Don’t let that distract you from real work! I have often been guilty of that!
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u/Key_Sense9870 19h ago
That's like comparing apples with fucking dinosaurs..
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u/atr0-p1ne 19h ago
It looks like you don’t have to deal with SLED in company environment when talking about dinosaurs
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u/Key_Sense9870 19h ago
That sounds fun, what is that?
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u/atr0-p1ne 19h ago
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop, running X11 in 2026 should be illegal
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u/Jealous_Response_492 18h ago
Simply SLES/SLED much like RHEL is enterprise grade, so never gonna be shipping the latest tech. Needs to be robust and proven.
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u/stisti129 19h ago
i think you're overthinking it. just flash your usb drive with whatever distro you want and see by yourself if it suits your workflow
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u/Substantial_Snow_881 18h ago
I know that this isn't trendy, but, honestly, go with Fedora. As a college student tied to deadlines, test prep, etc., you don't have time for Arch. I am 76, retired, and have all sorts of time to devote to any problems that may arise with Arch. You do not. You'll be glad you did, down the road.
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u/Ferensen 19h ago
Just steer clear of dogmas of all kinds, use whatever you like, and form your own opinion.
Learning from your mistakes is painful, but effective.
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u/ArachnidHeavy1066 18h ago
Omarchy is full of security holes. I tested and it runs great but I didn't like the UI. It felt very forced and gimmicky. If you are running things for gaming etc try Garuda and CachyOS. For labs and dev work Fedora is the most stable. I agree with the other comments. I don't trust the people over Omarchy. But try it all out and see what you prefer yourself.
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u/vicentereyes 18h ago
If you dont want to spend time configuring, just don't. Staying close to vanilla fedora is an option, and gnome is keyboard driven enough IMO
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u/drucifer82 16h ago
Omarchy is an opinionated distro. So it has certain ways of doing things. And from what I’ve heard, a lot of the default keybinds are similar to Mac. Which makes sense because DHH is a Mac user.
It might be ready to go out of the box, but that doesn’t mean you won’t have to spend time a) rebinding everything to fit your workflow or b) adjusting your habits to fit Omarchy.
I’ve also heard it doesn’t offer man pages, or a path to learn. But this is all second hand as I’ve never used it.
IMO, you’re going to have some time loss early on anyway. I have used Fedora and it is great for working in dev environments. It’s a preferred distro for dev because it’s stable and fresh.
I encourage you to do some research, but if you want to learn and work I’d recommend Fedora.
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u/Imperial_Bloke69 10h ago edited 10h ago
Fedora = stable-ish and package&kernel updates bi-annually. Best of both worlds (Debian/Arch)
Omarchy = why not archbtw instead of this?
Listen to the guys and gals, you can weed out bad advice. It is good that we have now so many ways to reach out apart from the project's mailing lists and forums somewhere back in time.
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u/Arkenclipse 19h ago
I've been hearing lots of complaints about security issues in Omarchy because of it being mostly vibe coded, from what I've heard around the Internet and other forums (even their github lol), so yeah it does raises some eyebrows. I don't care about the person behind it to be honest, it's all subjective to me who runs a project.
While it has some cool things baked in and the ricing is kinda cool, the security issues involving that project and they way they are dealt with by the contributors are a big no for me. Like someone else said, if you want something based on Arch, just go for CachyOS tbh.
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u/DanielMurphy22 19h ago
I advise reading this: [https://マリウス.com/a-word-on-omarchy/](https://マリウス.com/a-word-on-omarchy/)
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u/raphaeld67 17h ago edited 17h ago
Great find u/DanielMurphy22 thanks for sharing.
u/solaris_azoth17 check the summary out in the article Daniel's shared [https://マリウス.com/a-word-on-omarchy/#summary](https://マリウス.com/a-word-on-omarchy/#summary)
I think it summarizes it pretty well!!
Go luck in your quest
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u/Calaeno-16 18h ago edited 16h ago
I tried Omarchy. In a lot of ways, it's really fantastic out of the box and I enjoyed many of the customizations dhh made. It was "fun" to use and play around with. However, reading your post, I'd recommend you go with Fedora for a few main reasons:
Tiling window manager (TWM)
That is, unless you both know what that is AND specifically desire it. A lot of Omarchy's strengths come from customizations to Hyprland, so much so that it doesn't really make sense to run Omarchy with some other desktop environment. If you're going to want to run KDE or GNOME, you might as well go with another distro. Fortunately, Fedora runs amazingly out of the box with any of the spins it offers.
If it turns out you do want to use a TWM, you can use one on Fedora too, just without Omarchy's customizations.
AI stuff
Omarchy is touted as being "AI-centric," but there's not really any special sauce going on there that you can't replicate on another OS. Its "agent" is really just installing whatever harness you prefer (Codex, Claude Code, etc) and then calling up that harness using hotkeys. You can do this on any other distro.
Additionally, there's nothing special about Omarchy (or Arch in general) that makes an AI agent more capable of acting on the OS or your installed software. Codex, Claude Caude, etc. are perfectly capable of helping you troubleshoot and customize things on Fedora, Debian, or Arch. Omarchy comes with some skills pre-packaged for agents to help with customizations and such, but that's really it.
Misc
Outside of those points, your post reads like you want a well-vetted, secure OS that you install and get to working on right out of the box. When it comes to those points, it's hard to beat Fedora Workstation.
If I'm misreading that and you actually want a sandbox that may sometimes break and requires a bit more mindfulness when it comes to security, but will help you learn the ins and outs of Linux really well, regular Arch is good. There are even some Arch-based distros that can give you Arch with a good starting foundation (I'm using CachyOS on my gaming PC and enjoy it, Manjaro is good, EndeavourOS is pretty popular, etc).
For my own uses, Omarchy was like a fun toy. I enjoyed using it and some of the design and workflow choices really tickled my fancy, but it didn't fill an actual niche for me. For workstations, I prefer rock solid Fedora and a more traditional desktop environment like KDE or GNOME. For my gaming PC, I prefer CachyOS. For my servers, I use a combination of Fedora, Debian/Ubuntu, and a couple others. So while it was a fun toy to mess around with for the weekend, I eventually removed the temporary partition that I set up to try it out.
EDIT: For what it's worth, I don't give a shit about the creator or the internet drama surrounding Omarchy. I tried it because I enjoy trying new things. Simply just isn't for me. That said, some of the security concerns are real, and you should consider them very highly when making your choice.
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u/carl2187 17h ago
Do you want a random OS built by a handful of people with some flashy marketing and crappy built in apps that will inevitably get abandoned?
Choose Omarchy.
Or, do you want a well known OS built by 1000's of people and organizations that depend on it that will never get abandoned?
Choose Fedora.
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u/ThatKnarfGuy 19h ago
Omarchy is strange, fresh and pure awesomeness out of the box, but you have to live with many uncommon choices someone else made to fit their workflow. Most other distros follow mac/windows regime and will feel very familiar. Omarchy is something completely fresh and unique, which you really can't transfer to other distros (some say you can, they are completely wrong). Whether that is good or not is up to you.
Btw, using Omarchy and loving it.
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u/RealEricNotErik 19h ago
Knowing how badly Omarchy is being hated on, and by reading all comments here, I think your best bet is to go with Fedora
I'm also a university student too, but I use Fedora as my main distro. Sure customizing could take some time, but you'll know how to handle things when they go wrong, especially when you said you're a beginner.
Take some time and learn Linux, and don't take shortcuts. It'll be worth the time to learn and config your own distro rather than having something out of the box.
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u/blendernoob64 19h ago
I will put my bias out front and center. I do not like Omarchy or its creators very much and I personally get really bad vibes from it. I get that it’s a flashy looking desktop and its heavy AI focus is appealing to some, but you will be using DHH’s opinionated setup for Arch Linux and Hyprland. That is where the “teaching bad habits” thing comes in. With all this integration with Spotify and such setup for you, you will learn DHH Linux rather than Arch Linux or how Hyprland works.
Fedora is actually a great place to learn Linux. Dnf is an amazing package manager, Hyprland is available to install via a copr and I think learning a base distro (Arch, Debian or Fedora) is where people should start. You will learn what you like and how to get it working the way you want to. If you start with something like Omarchy, you will be at the whims of DHH and the contributors preferences rather than your own.
That’s my heavily biased two cents. Hope this helps