Turn SteamOS Into A Proper Workstation With Omarchy Tiling and themes
So you've built a Steam box, or you've installed SteamOS on a desktop, and you've hit that Switch to Desktop button. And you've been confronted by KDE Plasma. It's fine. It's just not very inspiring, and coming from Windows it's…
So you've built a Steam box, or you've installed SteamOS on a desktop, and you've hit that Switch to Desktop button. And you've been confronted by KDE Plasma. It's fine. It's just not very inspiring, and coming from Windows it's the same floating window mess you were trying to get away from.
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Amazing premade Omarchy themes here and other cool stuff
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So I built a script that ports the best bits of Omarchy across to SteamOS. Tiling windows, keyboard-driven workflow, Kitty terminal, JetBrains Nerd Font, a proper top bar, and — the good bit — an easy way to install Omarchy themes on your Steam desktop.
WHY BOTHER
SteamOS is atomic. You can't really tweak it, and that's deliberate — it protects the OS that drives your games. So this all lives at the user level. When SteamOS updates, your setup survives.
But KDE out of the box gives you floating windows stacked on top of each other. Launch Firefox, launch a file browser, and it's a mess. Tiling window managers use all the available screen space so you never have that problem. Once you learn a handful of keyboard shortcuts, it's a far more efficient way to work.
WHAT THE SCRIPT DOES
One command from my Git. It pulls down Omarchy dots and configs, installs Kitty as your terminal, JetBrains Nerd Mono font, sets up the top bar, adds Vim, and wires in a theme manager. Reboot and you've got a tiling, keyboard-driven desktop on SteamOS.
THE SHORTCUTS
Super+Enter for terminal. Super+B for browser. Ctrl+Super+T for btop. Super+W closes windows. Super+1 through 9 switches workspaces. Super+Space brings up the launcher. Ctrl+Super+Space changes wallpapers. Super+N for Vim. All the floating window commands are still there if you want them.
THEMES
This is my favourite part. Type "theme" plus a Git repo URL and it pulls down and applies an Omarchy theme. There are brilliant theme makers in the Omarchy community — Jobobo and Hardcore both have huge collections, links in the description. Retro 82, Last Horizon, Lumen, Miasma — grab whichever you like.
Type "theme" on its own and it lists what's installed so you can switch between them. You can also install the official Omarchy themes like Tokyo Night if you know the names.
Not every theme works perfectly — they're written at different stages and some skip certain elements. But most land beautifully.
THE POINT
If you've put SteamOS on a desktop rather than a console by the TV, this makes the desktop side genuinely usable. Play games in gaming mode, flip to desktop, do a bit of development, a bit of Claude Code, and it feels like a proper workstation.
It's also a nice introduction to how a tiling window manager works. If you like it, Omarchy is waiting for you when you're ready to make the jump properly. Consider this the gateway.
I'll keep developing it — the top bar is a bit thick for my taste and I want to swap the icons out. Fork it, rice it, do what you want with it.
Links to the script and both theme repos in the description.
ABOUT THIS CHANNEL
I make videos about Linux, Omarchy, gaming, SteamOS, and self-hosting. Subscribe if that's your thing.
00:00 - Start
00:06 - INTRO
03:28 - OMARCHY
06:01 - STEAM
07:28 - SETUP
11:18 - THEMES
16:45 - FINALE WORDS