Where software comes from
Three sources, each for one kind of software:
| source | what comes from it | how it updates |
|---|---|---|
| apt | the system, the desktop, command-line tools and Based's own packages | in the update you run; the distro's security fixes arrive by themselves |
| Flathub | desktop apps, Zen among them | by themselves, daily, and again in the update |
| mise | languages, developer tools and coding agents | in the update, within the version you asked for |
There's no AUR and no PPA. Updating covers when each one moves.
apt
Your sources are the distro's own archive, Debian 13 or Ubuntu 26.04, and Based's repo, which is
one file: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/based.sources. Anything Based needs beyond the distro, patched
or not, is built into Based's repo instead of adding another source.
Two exceptions ship in the image. Based Workstation and Based Poweruser keep Docker's own archive,
so Docker updates come from Docker. Based Poweruser also takes a few packages its shell needs from
Debian's trixie-backports. A handful of Install menu rows add a vendor's source when you pick
them; Vendor downloads lists those.
Based pins its own patched builds of a few packages, sway on Poweruser and one Zorin shell extension on Workstation, so a distro update to the same package can't replace Based's patch. Nothing else is pinned.
To install a package, open the Omarchy menu, then Install, then Package, which searches everything apt knows. From a terminal either of these works:
omarchy pkg add <name>
sudo apt install <name>
Flathub
Flatpak apps come from Flathub and are installed once for the whole machine. Install, then
Flatpak in the menu searches Flathub. An app installed with flatpak install --user moves to
the system installation at your next update, unless it came from a remote the system doesn't have.
mise
Languages, developer command-line tools and coding agents install through mise, the way upstream Omarchy does it. Developer tools has the details.
What's installed, and what's a menu row
The Install menu is Based's catalog. Every app Based offers has a row there, installed or not, and a row disappears once the app is on the machine, however it got there. What an edition installs up front is a choice from that catalog:
- the platform's everyday apps and utilities, with one app per job: Papers for PDFs, Showtime for video, Ghostty as the only terminal, Thunderbird for mail, calendar and contacts
- LibreOffice, LaTeX and Pandoc on every edition that isn't pure
- on Workstation and Poweruser, the development base: the C and C++ toolchain, Docker, mise and Hoppscotch
- Zen as the browser (Firefox ESR on Retro Chicago95), and Chromium for web apps
A client that serves one cloud service, such as the Nextcloud client, NetBird or the Matrix app, installs when you approve that service at sign-in. Everything else is a menu row you pick when you want it.
The pure editions keep upstream's software and none of this.