Getting started

Read the actual installation guide

We are good at complaining. The Omarchy maintainers are better at installation instructions. Follow their current guide for hardware requirements, preparing installation media, and choosing the right installation option.

It is tempting to skip this step because you have installed Linux before and own a screwdriver. Neither qualification tells you which installation option is appropriate today. Read the maintained instructions with the same attention you would give a forum argument about something much less consequential. Your files deserve at least that level of interest.

The defaults are a starting point. You are not signing a tenancy agreement.

Give it a fair go

Try a supported virtual-machine option if you want a look around before changing your daily setup. Open a terminal, move between a few windows, and see whether the defaults suit you. A screenshot cannot tell you how a desktop feels.

Do a few ordinary things before judging the whole experience. Browse the web. Open the kind of project you normally work on. Find the settings you actually use. You do not need to have an opinion on every default by the end of the first hour; the desktop will not be collecting a written review at the door.

Allow yourself to change things

Omakase means somebody made the first round of decisions. It does not mean those decisions are legally binding. Keep what you like. Change what you do not. You are allowed to prefer a different editor.

There is no ceremony for departing from the defaults. Nobody arrives to remove your membership card. If a different application suits you, use it. If the supplied choice grows on you, that is also permitted. Try to resist treating either outcome as evidence that you have finally settled the correct way for everybody to use a computer.

The first evening

Give yourself one modest goal: get comfortable enough to use the machine tomorrow. You do not need a custom launcher, a new font collection, and a personal doctrine before bedtime. If something genuinely does not work, follow the official troubleshooting advice and ask a useful question with the details. A community can help with an actual problem much more easily than with “everything is wrong,” especially when everything turns out to be one setting.