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openEuler Developer Day 2025
Arch Linux RSS Feed DistroWatch.com: Arch Linux

Arch Linux


Last Update: 2025-05-13 02:20 UTC

Arch Linux is an independently developed, x86_64-optimised Linux distribution targeted at competent Linux users. It uses 'pacman', its home-grown package manager, to provide updates to the latest software applications with full dependency tracking. Operating on a rolling release system, Arch can be installed from a CD image or via an FTP server. The default install provides a solid base that enables users to create a custom installation. In addition, the Arch Build System (ABS) provides a way to easily build new packages, modify the configuration of stock packages, and share these packages with other users via the Arch Linux user repository.

Popularity (hits per day): 12 months: 69 (166), 6 months: 69 (177), 3 months: 68 (182), 4 weeks: 71 (186), 1 week: 57 (201)

Average visitor rating: 9.22/10 from 254 review(s).

Arch Linux Summary
Distribution Arch Linux
Home Page http://www.archlinux.org/
Mailing Lists https://lists.archlinux.org/listinfo/
User Forums http://bbs.archlinux.org/
Alternative User Forums
Documentation http://wiki.archlinux.org/
Screenshots DistroWatch Gallery
Screencasts
Download Mirrors http://www.archlinux.org/download/ • DistroWatch Torrent Archive
Bug Tracker http://bugs.archlinux.org/
Related Websites Planet Arch • Arch Linux ARM • Wikipedia • Arch Brazil • Arch Chile • Arch Denmark • Arch France • Arch Germany • Arch Hungary • Arch Italy • Arch Russia • Arch Spain • Arch Turkey
Reviews 2024: MichlFranken (German)
2023: DistroWatch
2019: Ordinatechnic
2016: Keith Curtis
2015: DistroWatch • Keith Curtis • LWN
2011: Guillermo Garron
2010: ITworld • LWN
2009: It's A Binary World • DistroWatch • Adventures in Open Source • Polishlinux
2008: Guia do PC (Portuguese) • DistroWatch • OStatic • Blogspot • Wordpress
2007: Blogspot
0.8: Polishlinux • Pro-Linux (German) • Skatox (Spanish) • Tuxmachines
0.7: USALUG • Wordpress • OSNews • LinMagazine (Hebrew) • Linux Magazine (PDF) • LinuxUser (German) • ABC Linuxu (Czech) • OSNews • LWN • OSNews
0.5: OSNews • OSNews
0.3: OSNews
Where To Donate, Buy or Try

Recent Related News and Releases
  Releases announcements with download links and checksums:
 • 2012-11-02: Distribution Release: Arch Linux 2012.11.01
 • 2012-10-07: Distribution Release: Arch Linux 2012.10.06
 • 2012-09-08: Distribution Release: Arch Linux 2012.09.07
 • 2012-08-05: Distribution Release: Arch Linux 2012.08.04
 • 2012-07-22: Distribution Release: Arch Linux 2012.07.15
 • 2011-08-20: Distribution Release: Arch Linux 2011.08.19
 • 2010-05-18: Distribution Release: Arch Linux 2010.05
 • 2009-08-09: Distribution Release: Arch Linux 2009.08
 • 2009-02-17: Distribution Release: Arch Linux 2009.02
 • 2008-06-24: Distribution Release: Arch Linux 2008.06
 • 2008-04-16: Development Release: Arch Linux 2008.04 RC
 • 2007-10-07: Distribution Release: Arch Linux 2007.08-2
 • More Arch releases...

  Headlines:
 • 2025-02-17 Arch Linux is retiring old repositories
 • 2024-11-18 Arch system installer gets new text-based menu system
 • 2024-05-22 Arch community discusses mirror requirements
 • 2023-04-11 Arch powers the PINE64 PineTab-V
 • 2023-02-13 Arch Linux advises manual updating of base-devel
 • 2022-11-14 Unity desktop ported to Arch Linux
 • 2022-10-05 Arch users report Intel video driver bug in recent kernels
 • 2022-09-23 Arch drops Python 2 packages
 • 2021-01-05 Arch making progress toward reproducible builds
 • 2020-11-01 Arch offers install media accessibility options
 • More Arch headlines...

Table Notes and Explanations

(Please refer to the table below.)
  • Select view:
  • To compare the software in this project to the software available in other distributions, please see our Compare Packages page.
  • Notes: In case where multiple versions of a package are shipped with a distribution, only the default version appears in the table. For indication about the GNOME version, please check the "nautilus" and "gnome-shell" packages. The Apache web server is listed as "httpd" and the Linux kernel is listed as "linux". The KDE desktop is represented by the "plasma-desktop" package and the Xfce desktop by the "xfdesktop" package.
  • Colour scheme: green text = latest stable version, red text = development or beta version. The function determining beta versions is not 100% reliable due to a wide variety of versioning schemes.
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Feature current 2011.08.19 2010.05 2009.08 2009.02 2008.06
overlord		 2007.08
dontpanic		 0.8
voodoo		 0.7
wombat		 0.6
widget		 0.5
nova		 0.4
dragon		 0.3
firefly		 0.2
vega		 0.1
homer		 Feature
Release Date 2025-05-13 2011-08-19 2010-05-17 2009-08-09 2009-02-17 2008-06-24 2007-08-05 2007-04-01 2005-01-24 2004-03-01 2003-07-21 2002-12-18 2002-08-07 2002-04-17 2002-03-11 Release Date
End Of Life                               End Of Life
Price (US$) Free Free Free Free Free Free Free Free Free Free Free Free Free Free Free Price (US$)
Image Size (MB)   1-659                           Image Size (MB)
Free Download PKG ISO ISO ISO ISO ISO ISO ISO ISO ISO ISO ISO ISO ISO ISO Free Download
Installation Text mode Text mode Text mode Text mode Text mode Text mode Text mode Text mode Text mode Text mode Text mode Text mode Text mode Text mode Text mode Installation
Default Desktop                               Default Desktop
Package Management Pacman Pacman Pacman Pacman Pacman Pacman Pacman Pacman Pacman Pacman Pacman Pacman Pacman Pacman Pacman Package Management
Release Model Rolling Rolling Rolling Rolling Rolling Rolling Rolling Rolling Rolling Rolling Rolling Rolling Rolling Rolling Rolling Release Model
Office Suite GOffice, Calligra, LibreOffice -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- KOffice KOffice KOffice     Office Suite
Processor Architecture x86_64 i686, x86_64 i686, x86_64 i686, x86_64 i686, x86_64 i686, x86_64 i686, x86_64 i686, x86_64 i686 i686 i686 i686 i686 i686 i686 Processor Architecture
Init Software systemd SysV SysV SysV SysV SysV SysV SysV SysV SysV SysV SysV SysV SysV SysV Init Software
Journaled File Systems Btrfs, ext3, ext4, JFS, ReiserFS, XFS ext3, ext4, JFS, ReiserFS, XFS ext3, ext4, JFS, ReiserFS, XFS ext3, ext4, JFS, ReiserFS, XFS ext3, ext4, JFS, ReiserFS, XFS ext3, JFS, ReiserFS, XFS ext3, JFS, ReiserFS, XFS ext3, JFS, ReiserFS, XFS ext3, JFS, ReiserFS, XFS ext3, JFS, ReiserFS, XFS ext3, ReiserFS ext3, ReiserFS ext3, ReiserFS ext3, ReiserFS ext3, ReiserFS Journaled File Systems
Multilingual                               Multilingual
Asian Language Support                               Asian Language Support
Full Package List current 2011.08.19 2010.05 2009.08 2009.02 2008.06 2007.08 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 Full Package List

Full Package List:   Arch Linux 2011.08.19
  Number of packages: 172 (download as TXT)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  •  acl 2.2.51-1
  •  aif 2011.08.19-1
  •  attr 2.4.46-1
  •  b43-fwcutter 014-1
  •  bash 4.2.010-1
  •  binutils 2.21.1-1
  •  btrfs-progs-unstable 0.19.20101006-1
  •  bzip2 1.0.6-1
  •  ca-certificates 20110421-3
  •  coreutils 8.12-3
  •  cracklib 2.8.18-1
  •  crda 1.1.1-3
  •  cronie 1.4.8-1
  •  cryptsetup 1.3.1-2
  •  curl 7.21.7-1
  •  db 5.2.28-1
  •  dbus-core 1.4.14-1
  •  ddrescue 1.14-1
  •  device-mapper 2.02.87-1
  •  dhclient 4.2.1.1-1
  •  dhcpcd 5.2.12-1
  •  dialog 1.1_20110707-1
  •  diffutils 3.1-1
  •  dmraid 1.0.0.rc16.3-2
  •  dnsmasq 2.57-1
  •  dnsutils 9.8.0.P4-1
  •  dosfstools 3.0.11-1
  •  e2fsprogs 1.41.14-1
  •  elinks 0.13-8
  •  eventlog 0.2.12-2
  •  expat 2.0.1-6
  •  file 5.08-1
  •  filesystem 2011.08-1
  •  findutils 4.4.2-3
  •  fuse 2.8.5-1
  •  gawk 4.0.0-1
  •  gc 7.1-3
  •  gcc-libs 4.6.1-2
  •  gdbm 1.8.3-8
  •  gettext 0.18.1.1-3
  •  glib2 2.28.8-1
  •  glibc 2.14-4
  •  gmp 5.0.2-2
  •  gnu-netcat 0.7.1-3
  •  gnutls 3.0.0-2
  •  gpm 1.20.6-6
  •  grep 2.9-1
  •  groff 1.21-1
  •  grub 0.97-20
  •  gzip 1.4-2
  •  hdparm 9.37-1
  •  heirloom-mailx 12.5-2
  •  iana-etc 2.30-2
  •  idnkit 1.0-1
  •  inetutils 1.8-3
  •  initscripts 2011.07.3-1
  •  iproute2 2.6.39-1
  •  iputils 20101006-1
  •  ipw2100-fw 1.3-5
  •  ipw2200-fw 3.1-3
  •  iw 3.0-1
  •  jfsutils 1.1.15-2
  •  js 1.8.5-3
  •  kbd 1.15.3-1
  •  keyutils 1.5.2-1
  •  krb5 1.9.1-3
  •  less 444-1
  •  lftp 4.3.1-2
  •  libarchive 2.8.4-2
  •  libcap 2.22-1
  •  libedit 20110802_3.0-1
  •  libevent 2.0.12-1
  •  libfetch 2.33-3
  •  libgcrypt 1.5.0-1
  •  libgpg-error 1.10-1
  •  libgssglue 0.3-1
  •  libidn 1.22-1
  •  libldap 2.4.26-3
  •  libnl 1.1-2
  •  libpcap 1.1.1-2
  •  libpipeline 1.2.0-1
  •  libproxy 0.4.7-1
  •  librpcsecgss 0.19-5
  •  libsasl 2.1.23-7
  •  libssh2 1.2.7-2
  •  libtasn1 2.9-1
  •  libtirpc 0.2.2-2
  •  libui-sh 2011.08.19-1
  •  libusb 1.0.8-1
  •  libusb-compat 0.1.3-1
  •  libxml2 2.7.8-1
  •  licenses 2.8-1
  •  lilo 23.2-3
  •  linux 3.0.3-1
  •  linux-api-headers 2.6.39.1-1
  •  linux-firmware 20110727-1
  •  logrotate 3.8.0-1
  •  lua 5.1.4-6
  •  lvm2 2.02.87-1
  •  lzo2 2.05-1
  •  man-db 2.6.0.2-2
  •  man-pages 3.32-1
  •  mdadm 3.2.2-3
  •  memtest86+ 4.20-1
  •  mkinitcpio 0.7.2-1
  •  mkinitcpio-busybox 1.18.5-1
  •  mkinitcpio-nfs-utils 0.2-1
  •  module-init-tools 3.16-1
  •  nano 2.2.6-1
  •  nbd 2.9.23-1
  •  ncurses 5.9-1
  •  netcfg 2.6.7-1
  •  nettle 2.2-1
  •  net-tools 1.60-18
  •  nfsidmap 0.24-2
  •  nfs-utils 1.2.4-2
  •  nilfs-utils 2.0.23-1
  •  nmap 5.51-1
  •  nspr 4.8.8-1
  •  ntfs-3g 2011.4.12-1
  •  ntfsprogs 2011.4.12-1
  •  ntp 4.2.6.p3-3
  •  openconnect 1:3.02-1
  •  openssh 5.8p2-9
  •  openssl 1.0.0.d-1
  •  openvpn 2.2.1-1
  •  pacman 3.5.4-3
  •  pacman-mirrorlist 20110816-1
  •  pam 1.1.4-1
  •  parted 3.0-3
  •  pciutils 3.1.7-4
  •  pcmciautils 018-1
  •  pcre 8.13-1
  •  perl 5.14.1-3
  •  popt 1.16-3
  •  ppp 2.4.5-2
  •  pptpclient 1.7.2-3
  •  procps 3.2.8-4
  •  psmisc 22.14-1
  •  readline 6.2.001-2
  •  reiserfsprogs 3.6.21-3
  •  rpcbind 0.2.0-3
  •  rp-pppoe 3.10-7
  •  rsync 3.0.8-2
  •  run-parts 3.4.4-1
  •  sed 4.2.1-3
  •  shadow 4.1.4.3-2
  •  speedtouch 1.3.1-3
  •  sysfsutils 2.1.0-6
  •  syslinux 4.04-2
  •  syslog-ng 3.2.4-3
  •  sysvinit 2.88-2
  •  tar 1.26-1
  •  tcpdump 4.1.1-2
  •  texinfo 4.13a-5
  •  tre 0.8.0-1
  •  tzdata 2011h-1
  •  udev 173-3
  •  usbutils 003-1
  •  util-linux 2.19.1-3
  •  vi 1:050325-1
  •  vpnc 0.5.3.svn457-1
  •  wget 1.13.1-1
  •  which 2.20-4
  •  wireless-regdb 2010.11.24-1
  •  wireless_tools 29-4
  •  wpa_actiond 1.1-2
  •  wpa_supplicant 0.7.3-3
  •  xfsprogs 3.1.5-1
  •  xz 5.0.3-1
  •  zd1211-firmware 1.4-4
  •  zlib 1.2.5-3


Reader Ratings
Reader supplied reviews for Arch Linux

Average rating
9.2
from 254 review(s)
Please select a rating in the range of 1-10.
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Past reviews - sort by:

Version: current
Rating: 10
Date: 2025-05-11
Votes: 1


 I was a Fedora user for a while. I still have it installed on my personal PC and daily drive it. I installed Arch on my 12yo son's and 10yo daughter's low powered laptops and absolutely love it. I am planning on replacing Fedora with Arch on all my systems. Contrary to what many of the Youtube personalities say about Arch, I have experienced literally ZERO stability issues. I have had more issues with Fedora to be honest. I am using KDE and everything works really well. No issues with the laptop's ability to sleep on lid close - yes, I am bringing this specific issue up because I dealt with this in Fedora. I think it's on all of us to change the narrative that Arch is a hard distro to install and use. This may have been true at a point in the past but that is not the case anymore. I think I've found my forever distro!


Was this review helpful? Yes No
Version: current
Rating: 10
Date: 2025-05-06
Votes: 6


 My 10 year Arch anniversary. Same GNOME installation.
I use it primarily for gaming and recording my gameplay for Youtube playthroughs. For some reason, Arch uses about half the amount on a cold boot than any distro I've seen (next to Solus.) It boots the fastest and has the least issues. Over the years the package count has only gone up a little bit (I think it started at 750, now it's around 800 from dependencies.) I clear the cache on a monthly basis, deal with pacnews promptly, and always watch closely as pacman updates. It simply just stays working. Something I cannot say for my distrohopping days pre-Arch, even with the "preconfigured" "user friendly" distros.


Was this review helpful? Yes No
Version: current
Rating: 8
Date: 2025-04-21
Votes: 24


 I used Arch for over 10 years and eventually switched to Void Linux. I was tired of being a test pilot of untested software and I was tired of endless system maintenance. The system should work and not create an endless monotonous meaningless task. Arch is not as light and not as customizable as it is usually believed. Most other distros also allow individual installation of packages, so you can build a light DE without extra dependencies on any Linux with a standard installer. Maybe have to tinker a little with the list of packages.


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