Omarchy made me change my mind about how I use Linux
Over the weekend I tried out Omarchy. Overall it's a really slick Hyprland configuration with some really cool features. But I quickly found myself becoming annoyed at some of the configuration. I felt like I was fighting against the way it was built to simplify it.
I've been playing around with using Linux as my daily driver for my laptop for a couple years now. At first I found it was easier to use distros like Pop!_OS and various Hyprland pre-configs to get up and running. But I would always bump up against trying to remove or change something I didn't like about the setup. This often led to frustration trying to use something someone else has built. Over testing Omarchy I came to the conclusion that it was time to try configuring something myself. Not because Omarchy is bad—I think it's actually a great way to get new users into using Linux and having a working experience out of the box. But as I've learned more I have started to have opinions about how I want things to work. The best way to have control over that and understand what to do to change and fix things is to build it myself. So I went ahead and installed Arch with the default Sway config. Now I've slowly over a few days been building out a system that's "mine". I picked Sway over Hyprland just because I typically am using older laptops so I appreciate the lighter weight option.
So far I'm really happy with this decision. I have way more control over my system and because I built it out myself I understand what to do to change what I want and customize without fighting against other's preferences.
I think systems like Pop!_OS and Omarchy are great for getting people up and running without having to tinker too much. But this time it was the push I needed to get my own thing going.