The gap this fills is simple: those who just want a flashy arch installation to post on socials. These people have no concerns about quality because they haven’t used Linux extensively and aren’t using their OS for genuine work.
There are numerous other, much more professional and vetted distributions that will better serve you. If you had read the article you’d not be making this comment.
Non work as good as omarchy for my very light web development needs at home.
Starts with very simple things, like podman with its improved security getting in my way, or copy paste not working the same in all apps and terminals.
I unfortunately have not a lot of time, between my familie, friends, hobbys and job.
Tbh the reduced/sensible security is most likely one of omarchys selling points.
As always, there are some nebulous "processional" and "vetted" (by whom) distirbutions that will serve "better" (what is the definition of "better")? And it's always a different set. The article doesn't even pretend to qualify why the distributions it picked are better. It even goes as far as saying "If that’s still not to your liking, maybe explore something completely different." and links to distrowatch, as if that's helpful
I've installed and used vanilla Arch from scratch on at least three different machines, but this time around I wanted Arch on a ThinkPad but didn't want to spend a few hours configuring and ricing it to my liking.
I’m not gatekeeping. This is something I have seen time and time again. I have no animosity towards these people, I am glad to see more people working with Linux, but it is a fact that they are not concerned about the quality of the software they run. That’s why they’re running Omarchy.
People who need "help" to switch, from what I've seen, are realistically going to care more about the included DE/WM than anything else. Any number of distros offer Windows-migration-friendly options like Cinnamon (and bundle popular software like LibreOffice, even if there are better alternatives and even forks). And the newcomers really do need to get used to a well-thought-out package manager rather than training to curl | sh all the things.
For a new user that would prefer a familiar DE, linux mint and elementary is a good choice. If you’re willing to learn a new OS but wants to start quick, I would recommend Fedora.
Anything else is better suited when you have opinions about the ecosystem.
Also the tech-influencers like tj and primeagen hyping this hard. I sometime wonder when out industry went to shit. Its all AI slop and hype influencers these days.
Much nicer configuration then fedora/Ubuntu for productivity.
And be assured, i have not posted a single screenshot anywhere.