DHH · 2026-08-26 · source ↗ · whole document (27)
Obsessing about speed
`1:55:45`
That obsession is what gives me this great satisfaction with using computers, that we do not accept things the way they are. And this is why this agent-accelerated reality that I now inhabit is so invigorating. Because I can look at these kinds of constraints and go, do you know what? Um, I could have stopped when we were at five minutes. That would already have been fast enough. This was the argument on X, right? Why do you keep going? Five minutes is fast enough. Okay, maybe for you, but for me, 12 seconds is a lot more fun. And I always try to think these first principles. Okay, in that machine, actually hit the Omarchy, key again, and then do speed. You'll see a list come up, and one of them is, like, disk speed.
`1:56:37`
Disk speed. Do do that one, and then run it. So this is testing the performance of the built-in NVMe drive, and what are you getting?
`1:56:47`
So seven gigabytes a second. That's how fast that drive is. Why can we not install a Linux distribution in one second? The Omarchy distribution is 5.8 gigabytes. If we can run at seven gig... Now, of course, you can't actually do that because the USB key is a lot slower than that, but you should be able to maximize the underlying physics and protocols that we're dealing with, and that's your goal. We gotta get all the way back down to that.
`1:57:35`
The macOS we have today is scarcely different from the macOS we had 10 years ago. In fact, it's worse in many ways because Apple continues to chokehold the control on users. They don't want them to install software that they haven't already said good-... to go for. They don't want users to reconfigure their hotkeys without doing it manually. They didn't want to change the 500-millisecond animation switching workspaces. It is an infuriatingly locked-down computer. Now, to Apple's credit, it's a pretty good computer for being locked down, but I don't want a locked-down computer. I wanna own my computer. Better yet, I wanna mutate my computer, and this is where the agentic age needs a new operating system. When you can vibe code whatever app comes to your mind, you should be able to vibe code your operating system. You should be able to change anything, how it looks, how it works, what panels are there, what are not there, and that requires Linux. As simple as that. There are no... None of the other two operating systems can deliver this.
`1:59:12`
Well, I'll say that it didn't start quite as grandiose. When I got going with my Linux journey, I actually just started with Ubuntu, and I just built on top of it. Here's a system that already does a lot of the things I wanted to do, and at least it's Linux. So can I just build on top of it and make it more modern, make it actually look good, and have the programs I wanna use? I got, like, some version of that, and then I discovered that there's seven layers deeper you could go, and as, the closer you get to the metal, the closer you get to the kernel, the closer you get to the individual packages and so forth, the more freedom you discover. So as I discovered more and more freedom, I got more and more ambitious, and I realized, oh, surprise, surprise, I have strong opinions about how computers should work, how they should look, what programs should be installed, and whether they should take 42 minutes to install or 45 seconds. That's the current world record, by the way. So if anyone installs Omarchy Quattro after this and can beat 45 seconds, take a screenshot, send it to me, and you'll be the new holder of the world record.
`2:00:19`
It's funny because it's like that the old limit on, what was it? It was a four-minute mile or something-
`2:00:28`