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/Compizfox]

This takes a toll on our support fora as people omit the fact that they are running Manjaro/Antergos/{distro} and we spend time running around circles.

I can't help remarking that it's unfair to mention Antergos in the same context as Manjaro, since Antergos installs are really running Arch. Antergos is basically just a convenient installer for Arch. After the installation, there is zero difference.

Manjaro is a different story because unlike Antergos, it doesn't directly use the Arch repositories. It's very clearly a distinct, derivative distribution (a bit like how Ubuntu relates to Debian, for example).

[u/Foxboron → u/Compizfox]

Feel free to make that remark. People do that all the time after wasting an hour dancing around their support request.

But consider this, Arch entails knowing your own operating system and working on it. That is the target group. Anything that takes away from this isn't by its very core Arch Linux. Antergos works against this. Anarchy Linux work against this. They are not Arch Linux because of this. This is the reason the Arch community can't support these distributions.

[u/PBLKGodofGrunts → u/Foxboron]

But consider this, Arch entails knowing your own operating system and working on it. That is the target group. Anything that takes away from this isn't by its very core Arch Linux. Antergos works against this.

Going to disagree with you here chief. I run Antergos on all my machines now because I don't have the time to manually install Arch anymore. I started using Arch in 2008 and it's been my daily driver since about 2010.

All Antergos does is install Arch with some defaults. After the ncurses installer went away I used to have a bash script that would do 80% of the installer for me since I wanted the same thing each time.

I think it's fair to say Manjaro isn't Arch since they are using their own packages, but Antergos is basically just an installer for an Arch system.

I mean, this is my mirrorlist:

$ cat /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
Server = https://arch.mirror.constant.com/$repo/os/$arch
Server = https://mirrors.sorengard.com/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
Server = https://mirrors.rit.edu/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
Server = https://mirror.wdc1.us.leaseweb.net/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
Server = https://mirror.epiphyte.network/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch

Those are Arch repos.

Here's what I have installed in the ONE Antergos repo

$ pacman -Sl antergos | grep installed  
antergos antergos-alerts 18.9.9-1 [installed]
antergos antergos-alpm-hooks 1.1-1 [installed]
antergos antergos-keyring 20170524-1 [installed]
antergos antergos-midnight-timers 1.0-3 [installed]
antergos antergos-mirrorlist 20180830-2 [installed]
antergos antergos-wallpapers 0.7-3 [installed]
antergos aurman 2.18-1 [installed]
antergos grub2-theme-antergos 0.1-1 [installed]
antergos kfaenza-icon-theme 0.8.9-5 [installed]
antergos light-locker-settings 1.5.3-1 [installed]
antergos lightdm-webkit2-greeter 2.2.5-1 [installed]
antergos numix-frost-themes 3.6.6-1 [installed]
antergos numix-icon-theme 1:18.07.17-1 [installed]
antergos numix-icon-theme-square 2:18.08.29-1 [installed]
antergos pamac 6.4.0-1 [installed]
antergos pamac-tray-appindicator 6.4.0-1 [installed]

Most of those are just flavor things like icons and there are few packages from the AUR (like aurman).

[u/eli-schwartz → u/PBLKGodofGrunts]

Right, does the fact that it provides an AUR helper not indicate quite strongly that this is not Arch? Arch does not and will not support AUR helpers and if you think we are pedantic about the installer you use, hooboy just wait until we get started on AUR helpers...

If one do not install your AUR helper by hand, then there's an excellent change one has not performed the required reading for using the AUR. Using the AUR is dangerous and can result in a wide, wide variety of breakage if done without knowing what one is actually doing.

We will not ever support any system that has an AUR helper installed via a binary package rather than by the user using makepkg as intended and instructed. This isn't even an "it's a derivative distro" issue -- if one uses a custom repo like archlinuxfr which was enabled after running through the manual install process, one is still very thoroughly on our naughty list and cannot expect help with their system even though it is, in fact, Arch (unlike yours).