Omakub: Transform a Fresh Ubuntu Install into a Slick Web Dev System

David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH), the creator of Ruby on Rails, has released a new project called Omakub that aims to turn a fresh Ubuntu installation into a fully-configured, beautiful, and modern web development system by running a single command.

wget -qO- https://omakub.org/install | bash

Omakub: An Omakase Developer Setup for Ubuntu 24.04

The one-line pitch for Omakub is simple: no need to write bespoke configs for every essential tool just to get started or to be up on all the latest command-line tools. Omakub is an opinionated take on what Linux can be at its best.

Omakub includes a curated set of applications and tools that one might discover through hours of watching YouTube, reading blogs, or just stumbling around Linux internet. All so someone coming straight from a platform like Windows or the Mac can immediately start enjoying a ready-made system, without having to do any configuration and curation legwork at all.

What’s Included?

Omakub contains a mix of open source and commercial software. This isn’t meant as a Free Software Only compilation, but as a mixtape for working web developers who might begrudge Google, but still want to use the same Chrome browser that the majority of regular web users do. So you’ll find that browser as the default (Firefox is still there too), Spotify is installed by default, as is Zoom, and even 1Password.

The heart of the pre-configuration lies in the terminal, Alacritty, which runs Zellij to provide multiple panes/sessions. It’s still bash underneath, but one configured with a host of great file system tools, like eza, fzf, rg, zoxide, and bg.

For the editor, Omakub comes with both Neovim (configured via lazyvim) and Microsoft’s VSCode.

The overall UI of Ubuntu is Gnome, but it’s been tweaked substantially to cater to a keyboard-first and window-tiling workflow. While I personally prefer the i3 window manager over GNOME, Omakub’s Gnome setup looks promising. Additional tools like Ulauncher, Flameshot, VLC, Pinta, and more are also included.

Installation

To install Omakub, you need three things:

A computer (DHH recommends the Framework 13 7640U/32GB/1TB from Framework).
A USB thumb drive with 32GB+ to hold the Ubuntu installer.
Ubuntu 24.04 (see the instructions on how to install).

Then, with your fresh Ubuntu installation done, set your screen resolution to 200% (for those smooth-looking fonts!), open the terminal with Ctrl+Alt+T and enter:

wget -qO- https://omakub.org/install | bash

This will start the installation process, which is almost entirely automated.

You can find more details about Omakub, including the origin, context, and future ideas, on the official website: https://omakub.org/ and the GitHub repository: https://github.com/basecamp/omakub

Note: Omakub uses shell scripts instead of configuration management tools like Ansible.