Getting Started

Before installing Omarchy, you might want to consider Omakub, if you're new to Linux. It's based on a more conventional desktop environment and built on top of Ubuntu — the most popular Linux distribution. It's less intimidating and less nerdy. But if you really are ready for the acquired tastes of Omarchy, go on.

Omarchy runs on Arch, so you must install that first:

  1. Download the Arch ISO, put it on a USB stick, and boot into the installer.
  2. If you're on wifi, run iwctl, then type station wlan0 connect <tab>, pick your network, and enter the password. If you're on ethernet, you don't need this.
  3. Run archinstall and make sure you setup disk encryption. Omarchy relies exclusively on disk encryption to secure your device, as it'll auto-login the user after the disk has been decrypted at boot. Under Audio, pick pipewire. Under Network configuration, pick Copy ISO network configuation. Under Additional packages, add wget (you can filter with /wget). And of course, set the timezone, hostname, root password, and add a user. The rest you can leave as-is.
  4. Reboot, then run wget -qO- https://omarchy.org/install | bash after logging in with the user you just setup.

Here's what the disk encryption setup should look like. You need to pick LUKS, then set the encryption password, then apply to the partition (this step is crucial or nothing gets encrypted!):

arch-encryption.png

If any of this is new to you, I recommend following the video tour of how to run the archinstaller.

When you run the omarchy installer, you'll be asked for your name and email address. Those credentials are used to preconfigure git (git config --global user.name/email) and set for auto-expansion on CapsLock Space E (email) and CapsLock Space N (name).

Now you're ready to Omarchy!

Note: If your computer has an Nvidia GPU, there are a few more steps you need to take after running the omarchy installer and before rebooting. You need to manually add sudo pacman -S nvidia-utils libva-nvidia-driver nvidia-dkms, then edit ~/.config/hypr/hyprland.conf to uncomment these env variables:

# Extra env variables needed if running an NVIDIA GPU
# env = NVD_BACKEND,direct
# env = LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME,nvidia
# env = __GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME,nvidia

We're going to make this automatic via this open issue soon!