Direct Answer
The best way to learn Omarchy is not to customize everything on day one. Learn the keyboard model, confirm the recovery path, and then add one capability at a time. NetworkChuck's follow-up walkthrough turns 50 features into a tour of what an Omarchy workstation can do: manage tiled workspaces, install applications, recover from updates, dictate locally, transfer files, capture media, generate themes, run local models, and let an agent modify the desktop.
The useful lesson is that these are not 50 unrelated tricks. They form five systems: navigation, software management, recovery, local utilities, and programmable automation. Once those systems are understood, Omarchy becomes less like a blank tiling desktop and more like a workstation you can explain, repair, and reshape.
Watch the Full Omarchy Walkthrough
Credit and date note: the feature tour and practical observations come from NetworkChuck's Omarchy walkthrough, published on 5 September 2026. Current product links and documentation were checked against the official Omarchy surfaces on 15 September 2026.
Your First Five Minutes: Learn the Control Layer
Omarchy is keyboard-first, so the early discomfort usually comes from losing the familiar visual controls around each window. The fastest cure is a small map of commands that lets you open, find, move, close, copy, and recover without memorizing the entire manual.
| Action | Shortcut shown | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Open the keybinding guide | Super + K | Keep the system discoverable while muscle memory develops |
| Open a terminal | Super + Enter | Reach the primary control surface immediately |
| Search the system | Super + Space | Find applications, commands, and settings from one place |
| Open the app menu | Super + Alt + Space | Browse installed applications without leaving the keyboard |
| Close the active window | Super + W | Replace the missing title-bar close button |
| Copy and paste | Super + C / V | Use one consistent clipboard model across applications |
| Open clipboard history | Super + Ctrl + V | Recover earlier copied items instead of redoing work |
Learn the default bindings before remapping them. Otherwise, every tutorial and support answer becomes harder to follow, and it is difficult to tell whether a problem belongs to Omarchy or to a customization.
Workspaces Replace Window Piles
Omarchy treats workspaces as stable rooms for tasks rather than extra monitors. Super + number jumps directly to a workspace, while directional focus and movement commands rearrange tiled windows without dragging them. The scratchpad gives temporary windows a place to hide until they are needed again.
The walkthrough also shows groups and three fullscreen modes. Those details matter because a tiling desktop is not forcing every application into one rigid grid. The system can expose one window, preserve a layout, float an awkward utility, or temporarily hide the rest.
- Give the first four workspaces stable purposes such as browser, code, communication, and reference.
- Practice moving focus before moving windows.
- Use the scratchpad for calculators, music, notes, or a persistent agent terminal.
- Keep one fullscreen mode for concentration and another for presentations or screen sharing.
Install Applications Carefully
Omarchy can install packages from Arch repositories, the AUR, Flatpak sources, web applications, and terminal interfaces. That range is powerful, but the sources do not carry the same trust model. Official repositories are the conservative default. AUR packages are community-maintained build recipes and should be inspected before use.
| Source | Good use | Review before installing |
|---|---|---|
| Official Arch repositories | Common system and development packages | Package name, dependencies, and current documentation |
| AUR | Community software absent from official repositories | Maintainer, PKGBUILD, install scripts, votes, comments, and update history |
| Flatpak | Desktop applications with a separate packaging model | Publisher identity, permissions, filesystem, device, and network access |
| Web app | A site you want to launch like a native application | Domain, storage, notifications, authentication, and data handling |
| Terminal UI | Fast keyboard-first utilities | Repository, release source, configuration, and credential access |
Turning a site or terminal program into an app is a convenience layer, not a security upgrade. The underlying service still receives the data you send, and a local wrapper may inherit broad access from your browser or user account.
The Developer Workstation Is Already Opinionated
The base system includes an editor and terminal workflow, Docker support, programming runtimes, and modern command-line tools. NetworkChuck highlights fzf for fuzzy finding, zoxide for directory navigation, rg and fd for search, bat for readable file output, and eza for directory listings.
Persistent terminal work can stay in tmux or move into Herdr, which provides a visual multiplexer for long-running agent sessions. The important habit is to keep project dependencies inside the project, credentials outside the repository, and agent work isolated by directory or Git worktree.
Update the Right Way and Know What a Snapshot Can Save
Omarchy provides its own update path and intentionally trades the absolute newest Arch package for a more coordinated release experience. Before an Omarchy update, the system can create a Btrfs snapshot so a broken system change has a recovery point.
A snapshot is not the same thing as a backup. It usually lives on the same storage and can disappear with the drive, a bad partition operation, theft, or some forms of user error. Keep important files, credentials, and recovery keys on an independent backup.
- Read update notes before applying a large release.
- Confirm a recent snapshot exists and learn how to restore it before a failure.
- Keep personal configuration in the supported user layer.
- Back up data independently of Btrfs snapshots.
- After updating, test login, networking, audio, displays, suspend, development tools, and one real project.
Security Defaults and Agent Permissions
The walkthrough surfaces useful defaults and controls: full-disk encryption, a firewall that blocks unsolicited inbound traffic except explicitly allowed services, SSH disabled until needed, and optional fingerprint authorization for privileged actions. Those controls reduce exposure, but they do not justify handing an agent unrestricted authority.
| Agent action | Suggested boundary | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Explain a setting or log | Allow with read-only access | Low impact and easy to verify |
| Edit a theme in user configuration | Allow with diff and rollback | Visible, scoped, and reversible |
| Install a package or plugin | Ask first | Introduces code, dependencies, and update risk |
| Change firewall, SSH, users, or encryption | Human-owned | Can change the machine's security boundary |
| Delete files, repartition disks, or factory reset | Human-owned with backup verification | High-impact or irreversible operations |
| Publish a plugin or repository | Human review before release | Creates a public artifact and supply-chain responsibility |
The Small Tools That Make the Desktop Feel Complete
The middle of the video is a dense tour of practical utilities: quick toggles, night light, bar visibility, screensavers, gap controls, network details, DNS settings, speed tests, Wi-Fi sharing, subsystem restarts, reconnecting SSH sessions, power profiles, and btop system monitoring.
Media tools cover screenshots that freeze the screen for precise selection, screen recording with an optional webcam bubble, OCR, QR-code extraction, and video compression. There are also reminders, an emoji picker, and a way to download video from supported pages. These are small features, but they remove the repeated moments that otherwise send people back to another operating system.
Local Dictation and AirDrop-Style Sharing
Voxtype provides local dictation across applications. Because speech recognition can run on the machine, it is useful for drafting, agent prompts, notes, and accessibility without automatically sending every utterance to a cloud service. Model downloads, accuracy, language support, and hardware load still need testing on the actual laptop.
LocalSend moves files between devices on the local network and fills the AirDrop-shaped gap for mixed operating systems. Allowing it through the firewall is a deliberate exception, so keep the application updated and use trusted networks.
Themes and Plugins Turn the Desktop Into Source Code
Omarchy can generate a coordinated theme from a wallpaper, applying colors across the shell and supported applications. NetworkChuck uses a wallpaper collection as the seed, then explores the plugin marketplace for additional functionality. This is where the system starts to feel unusually personal: a visible design can become a set of files that an agent can inspect and extend.
Plugins deserve the same scrutiny as any software dependency. They can execute inside a long-running desktop shell, call external commands, read user-accessible files, and change over time. Inspect the source, pin or review updates, and keep a clean route back to the default shell.
Pick Your Agent, Then Set Its Boundary
Omarchy lets users select a preferred coding agent and provides system knowledge that helps the agent understand how themes, plugins, and configuration fit together. In the video, an agent changes the operating system, another task runs against a local model, and a custom coffee-counter plugin is built for publication.
Local inference through Ollama or LM Studio can keep prompts and model execution on the machine. A laptop without a dedicated GPU may still run a small quantized model, but slower output and weaker reasoning can make complex system changes less reliable. Use local models first for summaries, extraction, search, or tightly scoped edits with clear tests.
The custom-plugin demo also reveals an important distinction: generating code is not the same as safely publishing it. A marketplace submission needs documentation, licensing, compatibility, maintainership, and review beyond a successful local run.
A Sensible First-Week Rollout
| Day | Focus | Proof before moving on |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Launcher, terminal, focus, close, workspaces, clipboard | Complete normal browsing and communication without getting stuck |
| 2 | Network, audio, displays, power, suspend, fingerprint | Hardware survives a full work session and reboot |
| 3 | Updates, snapshots, independent backup | You can identify and explain the recovery path |
| 4 | Editor, containers, runtimes, Git, terminal persistence | Build and test one real repository |
| 5 | Screenshots, recording, OCR, dictation, file transfer | Produce and share one complete media workflow |
| 6 | One theme and one reviewed plugin | Changes are versioned and reversible |
| 7 | One bounded agent task and one local-model experiment | Review the diff, result, logs, and rollback before expanding access |
Video Chapters
| Time | Topic | Time | Topic |
|---|---|---|---|
| 00:00 | 50 Things to Do After You Install Omarchy | 14:13 | SSH, Power Profiles, and btop |
| 00:06 | Your First Five Minutes | 15:23 | Screenshots and Recording With a Webcam Bubble |
| 01:32 | Workspaces, Fullscreen, and the Scratchpad | 16:17 | OCR, QR Codes, and Video Compression |
| 03:22 | Let an Agent Work Without Letting It Roam | 17:36 | Voxtype: Completely Local Dictation |
| 05:24 | Installing Apps and AUR Caution | 19:06 | LocalSend: AirDrop for Linux |
| 06:57 | Turn Websites and Terminal Tools Into Apps | 20:23 | Emoji, Reminders, and Video Downloads |
| 08:07 | Development Environments and Shell Tools | 23:36 | Build a Theme From One Wallpaper |
| 09:55 | Updates and Btrfs Snapshots | 25:57 | Plugins and the Marketplace |
| 11:12 | Encryption, Firewall, and Fingerprint Unlock | 27:29 | Pick an AI and Rewrite the Operating System |
| 12:08 | Toggles, Screensaver, and Network Tools | 29:52 | Run a Local Model Without a Dedicated GPU |
| 32:16 | Build and Publish Your Own Plugin | 34:47 | A Prayer for You |
Verdict
Omarchy's strongest feature is not any individual shortcut, theme, or AI integration. It is that the workstation behaves like a system whose parts can be found, read, changed, and restored. That makes a keyboard-first Arch desktop approachable enough for a newcomer while preserving the control that experienced Linux users expect.
The 50-feature tour is most useful as a sequence: learn the controls, validate the hardware, understand software sources, prove recovery, adopt the local utilities, and only then expand into plugins and agent-written system changes. Follow that order and Omarchy becomes a capable daily environment instead of an impressive desktop demo with an unclear maintenance story.
Sources and Links
- NetworkChuck: Omarchy Can Do WHAT?! 50 Features You're Missing
- Official Omarchy site and official Omarchy manual
- Omarchy source repository and plugin marketplace
- Arch Linux, Hyprland, and Quickshell
- Voxtype and its source repository
- LocalSend, Herdr, Ghostty, and btop
- Ollama and LM Studio
- Wallpaper collection shown as a theme source and cliamp
- Framework laptops
- ThreatLocker network and application-control information (video sponsor)