Omacom Foundation funding hits $10M | Hacker News Reader

Omacom Foundation funding hits $10M

omarchy.org

64 pointstosh114 comments

> 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.

I had to swap my Wi-Fi card and/or stop using the HDMI module in order to get my Framework 13 to stop locking up. I had to install an "obscure" app called `unpalm` to get my cursor to stop jumping random locations while typing. The fan randomly spins up to full speed which is ridiculously loud.

This is on a laptop whose manufacturer claims I am running a an officially supported OS.

I'll be a lot more likely to convince my family to switch to Linux if I could trust it for myself.

there are plenty of devs that are on macOS because they prefer a 'just works' + good GUI combination

it's good for linux if there is more activity on that front

there is a reason why ubuntu and fedora became so popular

I don't think that's true. I only finally switched to desktop linux when coding agents could fix the endless small problems I came across.

For example, there is a bug in the logitech mouse driver (combined with a specific AMD USB chipset) that occasionally does not restart properly after suspend. Coding agent fixed it (two lines of code) with a kernel module that automatically rebuilds after kernel upgrades.

Another example was I was getting hard crashes, because by default swap on fedora was in memory (IIRC, or it could have been me doing it wrong), so when there was a lot of memory pressure on my system from running larger LLMs it'd OOM and go down. This would have been painful to debug normally, but in <2mins a coding agent can read the kernel logs and fix it.

I also had it set GNOME up the way I like it, which would have taken hours manually, because I don't know what I'm searching for extension wise.

There's many other examples of just slightly broken stuff that coding agents can fix that was a total pain before and I just didn't have the patience to fix them manually.

> given that developers are the one group of people today that don't generally have a problem running Linux on the desktop.

I am a developer; and I do have a problem: I don't have a choice of good laptops that are guaranteed to work with linux, and preferably come with linux preinstalled. I can go buy a macbook, or a windows laptop; but I can't walk into a store and buy a linux laptop.

Framework?

System76 is guaranteed to work, right? Also preinstalled if you like. Then there's also Tuxedo (which I understand are only rebranded chinese OEMs but still...)

Do you disagree with including Dell due to hardware quality?

> developers are the one group of people today that don't generally have a problem running Linux on the desktop.

And yet majority of developers use either corporate mandated Windows or Macs.

Both are perfectly fine OS for the corporate world

Historically I'd agree, but I push back on this for two reasons:

1. AI Agents (which are at the center of Omarchy) arguably make just about anyone a "developer" in the conventional sense, and potentially more willing to use a dev-forward desktop 2. Converting the types of devs who've been stuck on MacOS for years because they're neurotic about UI/UX "polish" could be a great way to smooth out Linux's many rough edges

IMO the biggest hurdle with building "a Linux desktop for everyone else" is QA. Discovering and fixing the random little bugs that only surface from millions of slightly different hardware/software configurations is a massive undertaking that I'm not sure can be easily brute-forced.

Alternatively, I see a lot of value in building an exciting desktop that attracts a critical mass of folks who are comfortable diagnosing bugs, submitting clear diagnostic reports, or even fixing said bugs themselves, and willing to do that work (or delegate it to an AI agent) for free.

Even if Omarchy doesn't end up being the desktop "everyone else" actually uses, it could be a great first step towards building out the kind of community linux would need to ensure such a desktop meets the requisite user-friendliness standards.

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.

You realize that's not about server costs but paying people that already do open source work (Like the window manager) to get paid for their work, which is what everyone in the OS community always wants?

If people pay for real open-source work, for example, KDE and GNOME, rather than some dotfiles, that's better.

This money is funding Hyprland and QuickShell.

So a fancy window manager and a desktop environment (toolkit) in its infancy?

Yes, because when you build a product on top of something, you support your dependencies. Crazy idea, I know.

The foundation is not even one week old, and the first project just got selected as they were already closely working with the Omarchy project on some things.

What makes you come to the conclusion that "more important" dependencies wouldn't receive funding in the future?

Both are cool projects, but their scope is totally different to that of GNOME or KDE.

Limited scope isn't a bad thing.

But both have done great work too - I use gnome-keying and KDE Connect all the time.

Many people are/were already paid for gnome dev work, less so for KDE, but there is a bit. RedHat & friends has funded loads of it over the years since it was picked as the defacto enterprise desktop. It hasn't really managed to have a big impact on penetrating the desktop market because they have not tried to push a real non-enterprise desktop linux variant in multiple decades at this point. I don't think giving them a little bit more money will have any noticeable impact on this whatsoever.

Calling work on these newer projects not "real" work is frankly just disrespectful, even if you don't personally use them. And they are not paying for dotfiles, they are paying the core devs of the software...

I’ll bet some of this money will benefit Arch.

Or KDE for over 10 years: https://ev.kde.org/reports/ev-2025

I am all in seeing more people run Linux and I think this might help the whole ecosystem and other distros long term.

That being said I’m a bit concerned about videos like this https://xcancel.com/thestanduppod/status/2091511392717213707 (really hope this is AI generated) and that so many people are okay to give money to David’s project despite his commentary on various societal topics.

I like many of David’s technical ideas, especially back when I did Ruby, but I’m sad he’s decided to spend time and energy on certain topics. Tech needs more kindness, not less.

I'm sorry, maybe I'm out of the loop.

David said he wants an open group no one cares about politics or whatever you support, you are welcome to join.

Seems pretty inclusive?

I agree it sounds inclusive but I find it to be in tension with some of his previous writings:

- https://world.hey.com/dhh/as-i-remember-london-e7d38e64

- https://world.hey.com/dhh/wolves-sheep-and-gypsies-ba44af6a

You can say politics don't matter, but if elsewhere you lay out your controversial opinions, people will self-select whether you like it or not.

And since this is such a predictable thing, it's very likely done intentionally.

People can come together on a project and not involve their politics in that project or their communal interaction.

And then in their own private sphere they are free to express their opinions.

The fact this is confusing to people beggars belief

Why does it beggar belief? If a loudly woke person started a computer club, would you want to join? Why is it hard to believe that someone loudly anti-woke starting a club cannot make people stay away?

I am not saying this is the case here. I don't know DHH much, and I don't really care for the whole situation. But using and fronting 'openness' (especially around the 'no-politics', which is political, thing) is a typical way to create non-mixed, non-open community.

The idea is you claim to be open to everyone. This includes people who are judged to be undesirable elsewhere. In fact, you make sure those people want to join by specifically targeting and vilifying specific organization (in this case, you could say Nix or whoever he is talking about). So, by design, you don't create a mixed community, but one with the specific population that feels rejected by whatever or whoever you are targeting/opposing. Because of this concentration of a specific population, member of the organization you are targeting will not be welcomed (which mean it is not truly open). They are on paper, but nobody wants to be part of a community made in majority by people who dislike you. Now, all this can be used actually for good, for example to create community for the oppressed marginalized or whatever. But it can also very easily be turned into a fascist utopia. It alls come to how you set the rules and how you enforce them within the community, and also simply the people that you are trying to group up. Trying to create a community for disabled people to push for more accessibility within free-software is laudable. Trying to group up people who thinks X or Y are 'clown' usually only lead to the creation of negativity-focused/ego-driven communities.

EDIT: Also, and this is more my (very subjective) opinion, but people who are fronting 'no-politics', 'openness' with no clear claim that whoever they are pointing to are not open, and typically talk about free-speech (not the case here), are typically PoS with big egos who got rejected from the main communities for being PoS and now want to create their own PoS community. See also twitter

EDIT2: Actually, an easy example of this is with reddit. There is often subreddit that I created in reaction of moderation and people being ban from main subreddit X or Y. If you go and look at those communities, they are usually not of very high quality, even more trigger happy on the ban hammer, and have a single focus on what got them ban from the main subreddit in the first place. A very easy example is r/europe vs r/europe_sub. The latter being extremely, if not entirely focused on immigration and being borderline or openly racist.

> I'm going to pass on this one. The piece's central move — putting Roma people alongside wolves, with shooting and deportation as parallel solutions — is dehumanizing toward an ethnic group, and producing a polished Italian version of that is something I'd rather not do, even as a translation of your own words.

An actual LLM response David posted talking about the brand of "openness" he wants to see in the world. That he posted to the hey.com blog, thinking it makes the LLM look bad. Nearly unbelievable but there it sits, so it stands!!!

Fascists and racists and anti-woke MAGAt dipshits and JK Rowling loons are who David feels are being excluded, are who need to be included, so they can rail against others with abandon.

Omacom is a fascist right wing organization designed to be a funding target for a right wing insurgency in Linux, some shitty dotfiles that somehow are going to be funded to the point where they form a beacon to stand and work against the free open peaceful citizens of Linux, to drive strife and bedlam and suffering forward, like fascist right wing projects everywhere lust for. Insighting tensions and terrormongering the world.

It's not even hidden. Thanks OP. It's on clear display.

The wolves know how to use the weapons of words against the free and open and inclusive people. They always have. Their quest for din and bedlam on earth has no real respect for anything but their own right to shout and hurl their rage as they see fit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

If you want a project without politics, you talk about the great technicals of your project, not go on a long unhinged rant about how everyone else is clowns because of their politics

That video is so unhinged

But nix is full of crazy clowns.

> Tech needs more kindness, not less.

How is lets not talk about politics and focus on the tech counter to that

He's absolutely correct about the clown infestation, though.

eg. when Framework sponsored Hyprland and Omarchy (amonmg many other projects), a GNOME dev said the Framework people must contain Hitler particles ton even consider doing it.

Framework tried giving money to GNOME, they refused it.

Framework released a computer that ran Fedora KDE: Freedesktop.org Code of Conduct committee member starts crying about the fascism of it.

Omacom foundation is established:

PostmarketOS dev: "nothing quite as depressing as seeing a fascist get 8 mil and corpo backing to keep building their 'distro' while not even having the funds to hire folks to work full time.

Elementary OS dev to that: "yeah it seems the trick to financial success is to do as much harm as possible"

And they go on to compare Omarchy to servants of the Chaos God Khorne in Warhammer. You know, a god of bloodshed and warfare. Blood for the Blood God, Skulls to the Skull Throne.

The clown problem is real.

The sad part is that stuff like PostmarketOS is a really good idea.

> audacious mission to make Linux on the desktop happen

and a arch linux reskin with a tiling window manager + his companies apps pre-installed is the way to do that?

What alternative plan are you implementing?

There are so many modern Linux distributions available, that’s such a weird thing to say

Just run a boring Ubuntu or Fedora installation like a normie?

Marketing an Arch based "distro" as beginner friendly is just buffoonery.

But that's not going to "make Linux fucking happen".

Not that Linux is going to ever happen anyways. (talking Desktop)

I guess this is what happens when people separate the art from the artist, they get millions in funding.

For the uninformed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45454026

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.

A lot of companies are built on the principle of having an opinionated way of doing things.

The main reason Omarchy exists is Apple

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.

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.

> 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.

Vibecoded Linuxslop with a Dropbox sponsored product placement. Buy now, only 10 million dollars!

but it's free, what is your point? open source devs should not be paid for their efforts or what?

It’s a bunch of LLM developed scripts for Linux. Free is too expensive.

Well, don't use it

This is a mad response. a) scripts are so painful to write that LLMs do well here and b) users will decide if it's too expensive or not.

How will it stay free once these investors that facilitated this 10M funding start asking for their return on investment?

It's not investors, these are donations.

Excluding extreme minor exceptions to the rule, do you think on average charities and foundations have investors?

DHH's company literally runs on the OS nowadays, they want good tasting dogfood.

Best of luck to this project. They seem to be targeting developers who are frustrated with Apple and Microsoft which is probably a large market.

And the opinionated aspect is also a positive since there's often decision paralysis for many people new to Linux.

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.

> I'm not even going to criticize DHH for getting that money, good for him

He's not getting that money, he literally donated 10% of that money himself

DHH is like Elon - at some point the personal brand tarnishes the project.

For you.

Not if you see the ridiculous codes of conduct projects like Gnome and Nix have - many were begging for an alternative path and DHH brought it. Congrats to him for delivering on it!

There has always existed alternatives to Gnome and Nix.

The entire thing is a who's who of fashtech (and those self-identifying with it) and it's gross. Skinheads unite, I guess.

Only because the definition of fascism changed completely, and got devalued into just "maintaining a border is fascism". So actual fascists are now ignored because who can tell who really is or isn't one?

You’ve lost the plot if you seriously think that’s the case

Which bit?

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

Barely even a "distro"; it's built atop Arch.

Exactly - Ubuntu's barely a distro because it's built atop Debian. Brilliant logic.

FWIW that’s what people were saying for years, when Ubuntu was still very close to Debian. Over the years they took their own paths but for a while Ubuntu felt like a Debian with a simpler installer and some different defaults

Still built atop Debian, though.

Ubuntu was a fork of Debian that slowly gained more and more of an independent existence, but this is a collection of badly-written shell scripts that mutate an Arch install.

Imagine what Debian could accomplish with that kind of money...

$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/

Still it's really weird imho - there are many projects that are the foundation of many important things are struggling finantially (maybe even Arch itself, which its apparently the base of this thing) yet these people have this absurd amount of money to spend on linux ai slop. Sounds like another example of "money is in the wrong hands" but well. Hoping the projects this thing depends on can get some benefits from this and that this won't be a similar case like the linux foundation.

Linux (and all OSes) and computers in general are what you get when tech bros are let loose on the world.

The term tech bro is a pejorative for men who work in tech who are obnoxious, often sexist, have an inflated ego, and are generally pretty toxic for everybody around. And are now very aligned with American nationalism and reactionary ideas. It’s not really something you should be proud of.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tech_bro

Yes of course it's a gossipy, zero-cost, zero-evidence, sexist (against men, natch) pejorative.

This would have been really interesting about 20 years ago.

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