24 years of Arch Linux: simple, rolling, our home
Today, 11 March 2026, marks 24 years since the release of Arch Linux 0.1 «Homer». Judd Vinet announced it on the mailing list with a sentence that sums it all up:
Arch Linux is a lightweight and flexible Linux distribution that tries to Keep It Simple.
Twenty-four years later, that promise —Keep It Simple, Stupid (KISS)— is still the lighthouse guiding every project decision. And it’s the reason VasakOS exists on top of Arch.
What Arch gave us (and no one else did)#
| Feature | What it means for VasakOS |
|---|---|
| True rolling release | Kernel, mesa, wayland, pipewire, rust… arrive days after upstream. No six-month freezes. |
| Pacman + makepkg | Binary package management and building from source with the same tool. Our PKGBUILDs live in PKGBUILDS/. |
| AUR (Arch User Repository) | The world’s largest community repository. If something is missing, someone has already packaged it. |
| No unnecessary abstraction layers | /etc is /etc, systemd is systemd, the kernel is the kernel. No overlays hiding what’s happening. |
| Technical community | The forum, the wiki and IRC/Matrix are quality references, not just «how to install X». |
From Judd to Levente: continuity#
Judd Vinet founded Arch in 2002. In 2007 he passed the torch to Aaron Griffin, and since 2020 the lead developer is Levente Polyak. Throughout that time, the philosophy hasn’t changed: the user decides, the system doesn’t impose.
That ideological stability is what allows projects like VasakOS to build on a predictable base. We know that pacman -Syu tomorrow will still work exactly like today, and that base packages won’t bring surprises.
VasakOS = Arch + Wayland desktop + Rust apps#
We don’t hide that we’re Arch. On the contrary: we want it to show.
- Our installer adds the VasakOS repository and Arch’s, and that’s it.
- Our packages (
vasak-desktop,vasak-terminal,vasak-file-manager…) are built withmakepkgand signed with the same infrastructure. - Arch updates (kernel, glibc, systemd…) reach VasakOS the same day.
- The Arch wiki is our wiki for everything that isn’t specific to our desktop.
The future: 24 more (at least)#
Arch has no «versions» or «lifecycles». As long as there are people who value simplicity, transparency and control, Arch will be there. And VasakOS with it.
Thanks to Judd, to Aaron, to Levente, to the AUR Trusted Users, to the [core], [extra], [community] maintainers, to the Wiki authors, and to every user who ever read man pacman before asking.
What was your most memorable pacman -S? Tell us on
Telegram
or
GitHub
. And if you want to help us package more things for VasakOS, the
packaging guide
is waiting.
