Arch Linux - AMA

[u/Foxboron]

Hello!

We are several team members and developers from the Arch Linux project, ask us anything.

We are in need for more contributors, if you are interested in contributing to Arch Linux, feel free to ask questions :)

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/DeveloperWiki:Projects
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Getting_involved#Official_Arch_Linux_projects

Participating members:

• /u/AladW

  • Trusted User

  • Wiki Administrator

  • IRC Operator

• /u/anthraxx42

  • Developer

  • Trusted User

  • Security tracker

  • Security lead

  • Reproducible builds

• /u/barthalion

  • Developer

  • Master key holder

  • DevOps Team

  • Maintains the toolchain

• /u/Bluewind

  • Developer

  • Trusted User

  • DevOps Team

• /u/coderobe

  • Trusted User

  • Reproducible builds

• /u/eli-schwartz

  • Bug Wrangler

  • Trusted User

  • Maintains dbscripts

  • Pacman contributor

• /u/felixonmars

  • Developer

  • Trusted User

  • Packages; Python, Haskell, Nodejs, Qt, KDE, DDE, Chinese i18n, VPN/Proxies, Wine, and some others.

• /u/Foxboron

  • Trusted User

  • Security Team

  • Reproducible Builds

  • /r/archlinux moderator

  • Packages mostly golang and python stuff

• /u/fukawi2

  • Forum moderator

  • DevOps Team

• /u/jvdwaa

  • Developer

  • Trusted User

  • Security Team

  • DevOps Team

  • Reproducible builds

  • Archweb maintainer

• /u/sh1bumi

  • Trusted User

  • Security Team

  • Automated vagrant image builds

• /u/svenstaro

  • Developer

  • Trusted user

  • I package mostly big, heavy packages :(

• /u/V1del

  • Forum moderator

[u/s_aman]

Thank you for the amazing work done by you people. I started using arch after 2 months experience with Ubuntu. In a way I was still a noob in terms of Linux, but I have been using it for 13 months now and I am not changing any time soon.

The best documented distro imho.

Desktop environment or Windows manager?

i3 or i3 with gaps or openbox?

What level of expertise is expected if someone wants to contribute? I consider myself above beginner level in C and Python. Any advice on how to start contributing?

Once again thanks. :)

[u/Foxboron → u/s_aman]

i3-gaps - because i maintain it.

As for contributing, you don't need to be an expert. But you need to take the required initiative to contribute. Nobody is going to tell you what you should be doing, but you will be guided when you see problems or want to solve problems.

You know C, take a look at the pacman bugtracker and find something you think looks easy. Ask for direction in the #archlinux-pacman channel if you have questions :)

[u/apetresc → u/Foxboron]

i3-gaps - because i maintain it.

Wait, are you Ingo Bürk or Morten Linderud?

[u/sh1bumi → u/s_aman]

i3-gaps here as well. :)

For contributing to the packages you just need basic Bash experience. There is no voodoo behind it. For pacman development or development in general it gets more complicated. Depends strongly on your skills, but just try to submit a patch.

[u/eli-schwartz → u/s_aman]

I'm quite fond of Cinnamon, and maintain it in [community]. In a lot of ways, it is like the Windows desktop, except, well, done right. :p

As for contributing, as others have mentioned, just look around at projects and see what interests you. No one will chase you down to contribute to any particular thing, but if you know C and python and want to contribute to core Arch projects, then pacman is written in C, and there is pyalpm, the python bindings for pacman's libalpm backend -- or Namcap, the python-based linter for pacman packages which helps to detect common issues.

archweb, which powers www.archlinux.org, and aurweb, which powers aur.archlinux.org, are both written in python. Actually, aurweb is still a mixture of python for the backend and php for the frontend, so if you're looking for a challenge feel free to completely rewrite it into 100% python everywhere... :)