Omarchy 4.0 'Quattro' Replaces Its Entire Desktop Shell with Quickshell

Omarchy 4.0 'Quattro' Replaces Its Entire Desktop Shell with Quickshell

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Omarchy 4.0, codenamed “Quattro,” landed on August 14 as the biggest release yet for the opinionated Arch-based distribution from Basecamp’s David Heinemeier Hansson. The headline change is architectural: the entire desktop shell has been rewritten on top of Quickshell, replacing the loose federation of independent components that previously surrounded the Hyprland compositor.

One shell instead of eight components

Waybar, Walker, Mako, SwayOSD, hyprlock, hypridle, swaybg, and polkit-gnome are all gone. In their place is a single long-running Quickshell process providing the bar, launcher, menus, notifications, lock screen, and on-screen displays as one coherent, fully-themed, IPC-scriptable shell. DHH noted the whole thing runs in under 300MB of memory once shared library usage is accounted for.

The practical upside for users is consistency: theming applies uniformly across every shell element rather than requiring each standalone tool to be configured to match, and the IPC scriptability means the whole desktop can be driven programmatically from one interface.

Dual-boot support arrives

Less flashy but arguably more consequential for adoption: Omarchy 4.0 now supports dual-boot installations. Earlier releases assumed they owned the whole disk, which kept the distribution firmly in dedicated-machine territory. Dual-boot support lowers the commitment barrier for people who want to try Omarchy alongside an existing OS.

The release also brings a smaller ISO, and the new network panel is backed by NetworkManager, a swap toward mainstream plumbing over minimalist alternatives.

Why Omarchy keeps drawing attention

Omarchy occupies an unusual spot in the distro landscape: a highly opinionated, keyboard-driven Hyprland desktop assembled by a famous developer, aimed at people who want a tiling Wayland setup without assembling one themselves piece by piece. Whether or not that pitch appeals to you, the 4.0 shell consolidation is worth watching from a distance, because if the Quickshell approach proves maintainable, it’s a pattern other Hyprland-based setups and distributions are likely to copy.

# Existing Omarchy installs update in place
omarchy-update

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