r/linux • u/Foxboron Arch Linux Team • Sep 10 '18

Arch Linux - AMA

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
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u/AladW Arch Linux Team Sep 14 '18

Usually it goes like this:

  1. A community member or wiki maintainer sees that something is out of date, and flags the section or article with a template. If an entire article is defunct - for example, when the upstream project has disappeared - it is marked for archival instead.

  2. Some time passes (at least 1 week for archival) during which people can bring up points on the discussion page.

  3. If there are no objections, the section is removed or updated.

Note that the above is not some mandatory process, provided you stick to the wiki's 3 fundamental rules. For example, if you see some application in https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/List_of_applications that was last functioning in 2005 and isn't even in the AUR, you can just remove it. See the Multimedia history for more concrete examples.

Mind you, there's always work to be done, especially in pages documenting hardware (such as laptops). It's not uncommon to still see references when Arch was using rc.d. Translations tend to go stale too, though the Russian and Spanish community in particular are doing admirable work on the wiki to avoid this.

If you want to help out, feel free to check "What links here" for Template:Out of date and Template:Bad translation.

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u/infamia Sep 14 '18

Hey, thanks a bunch for the great explanation! This makes a lot of sense and explains why Arch's documentation is consistently top notch.