Omarchy A v0.1.0 is a one-command installer for an Omarchy-inspired desktop on the iPad 6
Henrik Klee’s iPad project went from a demo video to a tagged release with a CLI, an installer and a partition tool. It is experimental, tethered and meant for a spare test device.
Image: Henrik Klee (X)
Last week, Omarchy on an iPad was a demo video. Now there is something to install. On October 25, 2026, the OrchardLinux project published Omarchy A v0.1.0, and Henrik Klee shared the repo link on X a few minutes later. It is the code behind the iPad 6 work he has been showing off over the past week.
Be clear on what this is. The README describes Omarchy A as “an experimental, Omarchy-inspired desktop for Apple A-series devices,” built on Arch Linux ARM, “with Omarchy’s look and feel reworked for touch.” It is a community project, not an official Omarchy release, and the release notes say it plainly: “Experimental: physical-device qualification is not claimed.”
Exactly one device is supported for now: the iPad 6 Wi-Fi (iPad7,5 / J71b), listed as “Experimental; no GPU acceleration.” The iPad needs to be on iPadOS 16 or later.
The headline is the single install command, orchard install omarchy-a. Henrik teased it on October 24 in a sped-up video, saying the full install took 3.8 minutes. According to the README, that command downloads and verifies the release, boots recovery, prepares device-specific firmware, installs the desktop and hands off to the installed system, all in one DFU boot. There are a few steps before you get there, though:
- a Linux or macOS host with Python 3.9+, curl, libusb and OpenSSH, plus a USB data cable;
- a one-line bootstrap script that sets up the Orchard CLI on the host;
- a Linux partition carved out with Resize APFS, an app that runs on the iPad itself;
- putting the iPad in DFU mode before running the install.
Two caveats matter before you grab that old tablet. Boot is tethered: after a cold restart, you need a host computer running orchard launch to start Linux again. And the image logs in automatically as tablet with unrestricted passwordless sudo. The README asks you to use a dedicated test device and to keep sensitive data off it.
The bigger idea goes beyond one iPad. On October 25, Henrik listed what the release would include: a hardware repo with device-specific kernel and bootloader patches, a CLI “for you and your agents to bring up, debug and boot devices,” device manifests so more iPads and iPhones can be added, and bring-up documentation. “The goal is to make it easier for others to bring Linux to more Apple devices without reinventing everything from scratch,” he wrote. The kernel and device work lives in a separate hardware repo, and the README welcomes contributions for more devices.
DHH was clearly into it. Quoting the install demo on October 25, he posted: “WE GOT OMARCHY ON IPAD BEFORE GTA6!!”
And it keeps moving. The same evening, Henrik showed a Magic Mouse and a Magic Keyboard working with Omarchy on the iPad, asking: “Could an old iPad become a pocket desktop?”
Source: https://github.com/OrchardLinux/omarchy-a/releases/tag/v0.1.0
