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ZDNET’s key takeaways
- Omarchy’s latest release (Quattro) combines AI and Hyprland
- The desktop OS is powerful, but not for beginners
- Omarchy Quattro brings together two very efficient technologies.
AI in Linux has become a hotly debated subject. For some, it makes perfect sense. Linux creator Linus Torvalds has decided that AI is a great option for the kernel development process.
I’ve been of the opinion that injecting AI into Linux places the open- plane as Windows and MacOS, where many users prefer not to have either Copilot or Apple Intelligence getting in the way
Also: Linus Torvalds puts his foot down, tells anti-AI programmers to ‘fork it’
But some distribution developers have other plans. Take, for instance, the developer of Omarchy, who claims:
Omarchy is leaning fully into the future and the age of agents. This is how we truly democratize Linux, bring the malleable OS to all, and capture as much of this newfound intelligence as possible. If that’s not your jam, there’s a lot of anti-AI distro options.
That’s right, if you’re an Omarchy fan, you’d better get used to AI, because it’s officially a part of the system.
Also: I struggled with Hyprland for months, until this Arch-based distro fixed it
Now, before you get too up in arms, it’s not like it’s embedded into every corner of the OS, but it is certainly there. If you glance at the official Omarchy manual, you’ll catch this passage:
Omarchy treats AI coding agents as first-class citizens, but it doesn’t pick a favorite for you. Instead, every major coding-agent CLI comes pre-wired as a lazy-loaded launcher. The launchers are tiny mise-managed stubs in ~/.local/bin/, so nothing is downloaded until the first time you actually run one.
AI and Omarchi’s target audience
“AI coding agents” is an important piece of that puzzle, as it clearly indicates Omarchy’s purpose — its primary audience is developers. Trust me when I say that this is not a distribution for the average user. Not only are the AI agents geared toward coding, but the desktop environment is Hyprland, which is a puzzle in and of itself.
Don’t get me wrong, I really like Hyprland, but unless you want to memorize a ton of keyboard key combinations, you’re going to have a rough time with this desktop. I know Hyprland, and I had a couple of moments with the Omarchy desktop that had me going, “Huh?”
Also: 10 Linux apps I install on every new machine (and why you should, too)
One example was almost immediate. I went to set up the AI agent (choosing Gemini) and wound up with a web browser opened for authentication that I couldn’t access because it was behind the AI agent setup overlay. It wasn’t until I opened a third app — which caused the currently open windows to tile — that I could complete the action.
Even then, logging in with my Google account failed to authenticate the Gemini AI agent, so I had to create an API token instead.
Once I did that successfully, the Omarchy AI agent worked just fine. The agent is essentially a command-line tool that lets you chat with the service you’ve set up. It works quite well and even allows you to set up sandboxes.
It’s also possible to work with local AI. To set up a local agent, click the menu button at the top left corner of the desktop and then go to Install > AI > LM Studio. LM Studio is a great option for beginners because it includes a GUI (whereas Ollama only installs the CLI version). Once installed, you can launch LM Studio from the Apps menu. From there, you can download a model of your choice and work from within the LLM app.
One cool thing about this is that you can run LM Studio alongside your default Omarchy AI agent. This way, I can run a local GUI AI and a third-party CLI AI simultaneously.
Also: AI-enriched Linux 7.2 delivers cache-aware scheduling – here’s everything new
There are other cool AI-centric features found in Omarchy:
- You’ll find an AI agent icon on the top bar the first time Omarchy detects AI coding use on the machine. It can track all of your AI subscriptions, including your plan, usage percentage, weekly limits, and token usage by day and by model.
- The systemd-coredump is also watched by AI for process crashes. When an app or service segfaults, you’ll see a “Process crashed” notification. Click the notification, and the crash is handed to your default agent (as well as Omarchy’s built-in diagnose-crash skill. This system walks your chosen agent through gathering information from the core dump and deciding whether it’s worth reporting.
- Agent skills help AI do things like tailor the system, tweak your Hyprland config, adjust the top bar, and even create a new theme from scratch
It’s still Hyrpland
Omarchy was one of the first distributions I used that made me fall in love with Hyrpland. If you decide to give Omarchy Quattro a try (and you should), it’s important to learn the keyboard shortcuts. One of the first ones you’ll want to know is how to close a window, which is Super+W.
Also: I asked Codex AI to customize my Hyprland desktop – it worked, but beginners beware
Beyond that, make sure you open the desktop menu and click Learn > Keybindings, where you can view all of the important keyboard shortcuts to help you navigate the desktop. You’ll see shortcuts like Super + Space to open the Omarchy menu, Super + Return to open a terminal window, and many more. One shortcut you won’t see listed is for opening the AI agent: Super + Shift + Ctrl + A.
Hyprland is a challenging desktop, but it’s also very cool and super efficient (so long as you’ve memorized the keyboard shortcuts). Once you get the hang of it, you may not want to return to a standard desktop; and once you get a feel for how Omarchy presents AI, you’ll see how it can benefit you on the desktop.
You also get a collection of prebuilt themes and the powerful Aether Hyprland theme editor.
At the end of the day, Omarchy Quattro is a Linux distribution built for power users who want AI front and center. This OS isn’t for Linux newbies or those who aren’t in favor of AI being involved in more and more aspects of the operating system.
Also: I used OpenFactory to build my own Linux distro overnight – this AI tool is going to be big
I look forward to seeing what the developer has in store for future releases, but Quattro certainly includes a lot of really impressive features — whether or not you’re a fan of AI.
Open Source
- How AI has suddenly become much more useful to open-source developers
- Google’s Gemma 4 model goes fully open-source and unlocks powerful local AI – even on phones
- Why AI is both a curse and a blessing to open-source software – according to developers
- I tried a Claude Code rival that’s local, open source, and completely free – how it went
