Support Multiple Users

[khalido]

I understand Omarchy is designed for a single user - but I would really like to enable multiple users.

I installed Omarchy for a pc shared b/w me and kids. Its great - its perfect for what I and kids need. They will actually learn a lot by using Omarchy / Arch Linux - I'm finding it really well setup and the defaults are a delight.

Considerations:

1. Some of the Omarchy configs are user specific - so with multiple users the install script needs to take that into account. Some users will not have root access, in case that is also a consideration - and ideally don't even have sudo access.
2. Security implications - personally it would be enough to just warn that users on the system have access to each others files.
   • On Mac, the first user (admin) can see every other users files. Standard users can't.
3. There will be other considerations I'm sure (but new to linux)

The actual implementation seems straightforward - where multiple user accounts, boot to a display manager1 instead of straight to desktop. The first (admin) user could control this setting in a conf file.

[sailoz]

This is not part of the design, as you mentioned, and uses LUKS to gate only you to use it.

However some users enabled by their own to use SDDM or ly.
Here is an exmaple: https://www.reddit.com/r/omarchy/s/4Zvha7ArXf

Other settings and security concerns, you need to manage yourself.. Good Luck.

[khalido]

I can defintely bumble my way through enabling multi-user - but it would be nice to also have a formal best practice way of doing this which won't conflict with future omarchy updates.

@sailoz The linked method does seem very easy - testing it now. My concern was more around omarchy features like seamless login coming back - e.g sudo systemctl disable omarchy-seamless-login could get overwritten in a future update? E.g see #619

Ideally Omarchy adds an optional script sudo omarchy-enable-multiuser which does the necessay changes and also sets a flag so future updates can respect the multi-user setup.

[rsd]

AFAIU, the override will only happen if the Omarchy team decides to go to a different path than the one in a previous version.
So, my take is to keep track the changes you do to repeat it if necessary.

This is also true for some .config files. an update can backup your file for a new version.

[andrewib]

It would not hurt Omarchy market share if multi user setup was an option during install. Many desktop PCs are multi user, and not having this feature is a dealbreaker for many.

The same goes for encrypted drives - it's not necessary or wanted by many. Again, mostly by desktop PC users.

Don't see why both these things should not be an option.

[naillizard]

My use case, I use my PC for work and personal, I cannot use my PC for both work and personal if using a single user as there are a lot of security implications and my work wouldn't allow that. It was hard enough to convince them to let me user Linux lol.

[rsd]

you mean you have different users for home / work?

you can install SDDM and have a login screen (I do this) and even be able to use KDE / Gnome / X11.

[naillizard]

Not to mention people that use the same PC but do not want to polute a single user with both work and personal stuff, apps and configuration. Ideally a work and personal profile so things can be kept isolated.