# Omarchy 4.5 RC1 makes the jump to ARM: Snapdragon X and NVIDIA N1X laptops - **Published on:** 2026-10-21 - **Category:** Releases - **Original page:** https://linuxgratis.com/en/articles/omarchy-4-5-rc1 The first release candidate of Omarchy 4.5, DHH's distribution built on Arch Linux and Hyprland, brings an aarch64 ISO with support for Snapdragon X and NVIDIA N1X laptops, absorbs Omarchy Mac, translates the system into 50 languages and adds per-monitor workspaces, a dock and one-second boots. --- On **20 October 2026** Omarchy released **4.5-RC1**, the first release candidate of the next version of the distribution David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH, the creator of Ruby on Rails) builds on Arch Linux and the Hyprland compositor. It's the first feature release since 4.0, "Quattro", and it comes with a change that widens the project's reach: until now Omarchy was x86_64 only, and this RC also ships an **aarch64 ISO**. Read the warning at the top of the notes first. This is a candidate, not a final release: the project itself warns of bugs, rough edges and the occasional thing that breaks outright, and asks you to try it on a test machine or with a backup or snapshot at hand. The stable release is still **4.0.6**, published the day before; it's listed on the [Omarchy page](/en/omarchy). ## Omarchy on ARM: Snapdragon X and NVIDIA N1X ARM support starts with two laptop families. **NVIDIA N1X** machines, namely the ASUS ProArt P14 and the Dell XPS 16, run on Omarchy's own aarch64 kernel and NVIDIA's open driver. **Snapdragon X** laptops have been tested on the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x and the ThinkPad T14s, also on that in-house kernel. On Snapdragon machines the installer does work that other distributions leave to you: it copies the GPU and DSP firmware from the Windows partition, picks the right device tree at boot and gets the cameras working on the desktop and in Chromium, with hardware video decoding in mpv and Chromium. Relying on Windows firmware isn't an Omarchy quirk but the general state of Linux on these laptops, as we explained when covering the [DeviceTree-ACPI hybrid mode for Snapdragon X](/en/articles/devicetree-acpi-modo-hibrido-linux-snapdragon-x). The third leg is Apple. **Omarchy Mac**, previously a separate fork, is merged into Omarchy: shared hardware and desktop support now lives in the main project and only the boot setup stays in Mac-specific packages. Phoronix points out that Linux support for the newer M-series chips still lags behind, so this is more about laying the groundwork than anything else. If that front interests you, the reference project is [Asahi Linux](/en/asahi-linux). ## What changes on the desktop The rest of the new features show up in daily use: - **50 languages.** Under *Setup > Language* or with `omarchy language `, the menu, desktop and notifications switch immediately; the system locale follows on next login. The installer also offers Japanese, Chinese and Korean input methods. - **Per-monitor workspaces.** `Super + 1-0` goes to the workspaces of the monitor you're on, each bar shows only its own, and a monitor gets the same workspaces back every time you plug it in. - **New notifications.** They stack by sender, can be snoozed, there's Do Not Disturb and a history, and action buttons, verification codes and links work right from the card. This grew out of the Omapager plugin, now built in. - **Floating workspaces with a dock.** `Super + L` cycles between tiling, scrolling and floating. On a floating workspace every window gets a titlebar in the theme's colours and a dock shows pinned and running apps; `Super + M` minimises to the dock. For anyone coming from a classic desktop, this is the friendliest item on the list. - **One-second boot.** Limine's menu wait drops from about six seconds to one and boot is silent; press any key to reach the menu. - **Extras.** A world clock called Elsewhen, video wallpapers, a short intro for each theme at login (turned off under *Appearance > Animations*) and a Quake-style drop-down console on `Super + Grave`. There are under-the-hood changes that matter to everyone too: TCP congestion control switches to **BBR**, physical disks use the **kyber** I/O scheduler, updates ask for the `sudo` password only once and no longer break if you log out mid-transaction. A bug that could leave a kernel image without its `root=` parameter after an upgrade is fixed, as is one where a factory reset wiped other systems' boot entries. ## AI agents out of the box Omarchy calls itself "the malleable OS for the age of agents", and the RC leans into it: Kimi and Ori become default coding agents, Grok is brought up to par with Claude and Codex in the agents panel, and you can switch between several subscriptions and copy their logins over SSH. There's also voice dictation with Superwhisper and Voxtype, plus web apps for Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Teams and OneDrive. This is the most personal part of the project, which has never hidden that it's the desktop DHH wants for himself; if it's not for you, you can ignore it and nothing else changes. ## How to try it On an existing install, switch to the candidate channel with *Update > Channel > RC* and then *Update > Omarchy*. For a fresh install there are two ISOs at `iso.omarchy.org`, `omarchy-4.5.0rc1.iso` for x86_64 and `omarchy-4.5.0rc1-aarch64.iso` for ARM, with their SHA-256 sums in the notes. Bugs go to GitHub. If you've never used Arch, Omarchy is a very guided way in, but underneath it's still Arch with its rolling-release model; our [history of Arch Linux](/en/articles/history-of-arch-linux) explains where that way of working comes from. **Sources:** [Omarchy 4.5.0-rc1 release notes](https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/releases/tag/v4.5.0-rc1) on GitHub; [Omarchy 4.5 Expanding To AArch64 World With Snapdragon X & NVIDIA N1X Laptops](https://www.phoronix.com/news/Omarchy-4.5-RC1), at Phoronix.