- Arch-dev-public - lists.archlinux.org

Arch Linux devblog
by David Runge 24 Jul '25

24 Jul '25

Hi all, during and since last Arch Summit some of us have been discussing a dedicated blog focused on Arch Linux development topics. This blog is now live at https://devblog.archlinux.page and is also available through the Arch Planet feed aggregator [1]. The devblog is meant for all Arch Linux staff to highlight work on Arch Linux projects. Topics may include (but are not limited to) - providing an overview of recent/current/future developments (e.g. contextualizing our existing tech stack with new tools) - explaining more intricate or complex topics of our projects to a wider audience (e.g. the use of tools with code examples, etc.) Here, the audience may range from Arch Linux staff to anyone interested in the technical developments of the distribution. While this blog is probably a good place to highlight new work, it may also serve as an avenue to reduce our tribal knowledge a bit and give in-depth insights. As a side effect of producing technical posts generally increasing the knowledge about our projects, we also hope to attract new contributors. If you are interested in writing something, head on over to the repository for the blog [2] and open a merge request. In case you are interested in helping review posts, please reach out to the current developers of the project [3]. Happy writing! Best, David [1]: https://archlinux.org/planet/ [2]: https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/devblog [3]: https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/devblog/-/project_members -- https://sleepmap.de

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Licensing changes in package sources (implementing RFC40 and RFC52)
by Sven-Hendrik Haase 23 Jul '25

23 Jul '25

Hey all, With [RFC40][0] and [RFC52][1] merged, we're now going full steam to make sure the changes outlined in those RFCs are soon implemented. If you are a packager and only care about how this concerns you without the nitty gritty details, here's what you need to know in short: 1. PKGBUILDs and auxiliary files (e.g. config files, etc.) that Arch Linux contributors provided will be licensed under 0BSD. Full current list [here][3]. 2. Licensing information will be documented in a `REUSE.toml` file per repository and will be maintained by package maintainers going forward. 3. We will generate a `REUSE.toml` (using `pkgctl license setup`) for most packages. 4. You may have to make changes to your packages (details below)! 5. When moving package source repositories from the AUR, either contact past contributors and ask for consent to license under 0BSD, or rewrite the package sources. The changes introduced in [RFC40][0] and [RFC52][1] have a general impact on packaging work. To clearly document which licenses apply to which files, we are introducing REUSE [2], which provides a structured configuration file format (`REUSE.toml`) for mapping files to concrete licenses. In the near future, we will add these files to package source repos in an automated fashion using `pkgctl license setup`. While doing so, we will exclude some packages added after 2024-11-01, see [this issue][4] for further details. In some cases (around 750 out of 12462 repos), packager maintainers will need to manually perform some changes, as adding a `REUSE.toml` will not work out of the box. There will be a todo list on Arch web for those packages where manual action is required. The most common reasons for this are: 1. The package's license isn't specified in an SPDX conforming fashion (e.g. `GPL2` instead of `GPL-2.0-or-later`). There are open MRs on GitLab to make some packages SPDX conforming [5]. We will go through these and we'll try to merge all of these. 2. Multiple license identifiers are specified in the PKGBUILD and SRCINFO files and patch files are present in the package source repository. In this case, we can't automatically pick a suitable upstream license. By default, all files in package source repos must be licensed under 0BSD. 0BSD is very permissive and files licensed under its terms can be contributed upstream under their desired license. For some files, 0BSD might not be suitable, and contributors need to choose a different license depending on the situation. Here are some common cases: - Included files originating from contributors that have not agreed to the 0BSD license. If the files are available under a FOSS license, mark the files under that particular license in the `REUSE.toml`. If no license is provided, the files need to be rewritten or removed. - Patches taken from upstream and committed to the repository need to be annotated with the correct upstream license. `pkgctl license` will be available from devtools v1.4.0 onwards. After this release, you will encounter a warning when running `pkgctl release` if your package source repository isn't compliant. If there are any open questions with existing packages and the new reuse setup, reach out over the mailing list or in the packaging channel. Cheers, Rafael and Sven [0]: https://rfc.archlinux.page/0040-license-package-sources/ [1]: https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/rfcs/-/merge_requests/52 [2]: https://reuse.software/ [3]: https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/devtools/-/blob/b8c475b3f402809fc65b… [4]: https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/packaging/licensing-package-sources/… [5]: https://gitlab.archlinux.org/search?scope=merge_requests&search=spdx&state=…

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Scheduled maintenance for gitlab.archlinux.org
by gromit 09 Jul '25

09 Jul '25

Hello everyone, our hosting provider Hetzner has just informed us that there will be a scheduled downtime window on the 9th July 2025 starting on 10:00 GMT+2 until 14:00 GMT+2 [to replace the mainboard of our Gitlab server][0]. During this time period the service will be offline for up to 40 minutes + however long it takes us to fix potentially resulting issues with the booloader, network configuration and so on. This will effect the following services/components of our distribution ecosystem: - Packaging: No packages can be updated during the downtime (as the source repositories for it will be offline) - Project Maintainers: The other projects (pacman, aurweb, buildbtw, signstar, mirrors repo etc.) will be unavailable - Bugtracker: No bugs can be reported during this timeframe - Static sites as served via Gitlab Pages (Arch Linux WKD, project pages etc.) will not be available We can not really circumvent the downtime and think it's an acceptable timeframe to not warrant any further action from us as a team. Let us know if you have any questions or additions to the above! Cheers, Christian for the DevOps Team [0]: https://docs.hetzner.com/robot/dedicated-server/general-information/mainboa…

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Orphaning phosh
by Jelle van der Waa 06 Jul '25

06 Jul '25

Hi All, Lately I have noticed I haven't gotten around to updating phosh to the latest version. As this is a returning issue and I don't use phosh anymore as GNOME is good enough for tablets I decided to orphan it. Maintenance should be fairly trivial, the only issue is that it requires a revert on top of wlroots and of course needs to catch up to wlroots from time to time. [1] Upstream is very friendly and nice. [2] The packages in question which are now orphan: * phoc * phosh * phosh-mobile-settings * libgmobile * feedbackd If no one picks it up I will drop the packages to the AUR in one month so someone there can maintain it. [1] https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/packaging/packages/wlroots0.19/-/blo… [2] https://phosh.mobi/

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Re: What is "Arch Linux Modernity" these days? (cvlc12)
by Cédric Clavel 22 Jun '25

22 Jun '25

Hi, I'd like to chip in about modernity, and draw attention to https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/ideas/-/issues/13 It's still not really possible to perform a clean installation using UKIs straight out of the box, at least not by following the installation guide. Using UKIs will most likely require using pacman hooks from AUR or added manually. I think it should be a lot more straightforward to set that up in a 'modern' OS. Using 'kernel-install' would probably streamline things a lot, and choosing between UKIs and traditional linux/initrds is as simple as setting this in `/etc/kernel/install.conf` Happy to hear your thoughts, have a good day Le dimanche 22 juin 2025 à 08:09 +0000, arch-dev-public-request(a)lists.archlinux.org a écrit : > Send Arch-dev-public mailing list submissions to > arch-dev-public(a)lists.archlinux.org > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via email, send a message with subject or > body 'help' to > arch-dev-public-request(a)lists.archlinux.org > > You can reach the person managing the list at > arch-dev-public-owner(a)lists.archlinux.org > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of Arch-dev-public digest..." > Today's Topics: > > 1. What is "Arch Linux Modernity" these days? (Andrei Korshikov) > 2. Re: What is "Arch Linux Modernity" these days? (Andrei > Korshikov) > _______________________________________________ > Arch-dev-public mailing list -- arch-dev-public(a)lists.archlinux.org > To unsubscribe send an email to > arch-dev-public-leave(a)lists.archlinux.org

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What is "Arch Linux Modernity" these days?
by Andrei Korshikov 21 Jun '25

21 Jun '25

Hi, folks. I don't like the second paragraph of [1]. All that stuff (systemd, udev, …) was modern 10+ years ago, but nowadays they all are kind of mainstream. So, could you say what you think about modernity? My very personal opinion [2]—that second paragraph should be just deleted. But I hope you will point me out. --- Andrej Koršikov [1]: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Arch_Linux#Modernity [2]: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php?diff=838344

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RFC - Manual changes for Plasma 6.4.0
by Tomaz Canabrava 20 Jun '25

20 Jun '25

Plasma 6.4.0 will need manual intervention if you are on X11 On Plasma 6.4 the wayland session will be the only one installed when the users does not manually specify kwin-x11. With the recent split of kwin into kwin-wayland and kwin-x11, users running the old X11 session needs to manually install plasma-x11-session, or they will not be able to login. Currently pacman is not able to figure out your personal setup, and it wouldn't be ok to install plasma-x11-session and kwin-x11 for every one using Plasma. tldr: Install plasma-x11-session if you are still using x11

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News draft: linux-firmware >= 20250613.12fe085f-5 upgrade requires manual intervention
by Jan Alexander Steffens (heftig) 18 Jun '25

18 Jun '25

Hi all, The linux-firmware package in core-testing has been through some churn as of late, as I've been trying to split the firmware properly and ran into several issues in the process. I apologize for the mess. Unfortunately, we're not done. This time it's a Pacman limitation involving symlinks and multiple packages that I don't remember how to handle properly. The best solution I see is instructing a manual intervention. Is this how we handled this situation in the past? Does anybody have a better idea? Draft: --- With `20250613.12fe085f-5`, we split our firmware into several vendor-focused packages. `linux-firmware` is now an empty package depending on our default set of firmware. Unfortunately, this coincided with upstream reorganizing the symlink layout of the NVIDIA firmware, resulting in a situation that Pacman cannot handle. When attempting to upgrade from `20250508.788aadc8-2` or earlier, you will see the following errors: linux-firmware-nvidia: /usr/lib/firmware/nvidia/ad103 exists in filesystem linux-firmware-nvidia: /usr/lib/firmware/nvidia/ad104 exists in filesystem linux-firmware-nvidia: /usr/lib/firmware/nvidia/ad106 exists in filesystem linux-firmware-nvidia: /usr/lib/firmware/nvidia/ad107 exists in filesystem To progress with the system upgrade, first remove `linux-firmware`, then reinstall it as part of the upgrade: # pacman -Rdd linux-firmware # pacman -Syu linux-firmware --- Greetings, Jan

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RFC: Automated digital signing of OS artifacts
by David Runge 17 Jun '25

17 Jun '25

A new RFC (request for comment) has been opened here: https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/rfcs/-/merge_requests/59 Please visit the above link for discussion. Summary: Introduce a centralized, hardware backed solution for the digital signing of OS artifacts. Gradually replace the need for manual signing of artifacts throughout the distribution. The stepwise plan in this document will eventually lead to changes for the following existing roles within Arch Linux staff: - Package maintainers will no longer sign packages using their individual OpenPGP private key. - The amount of OpenPGP certificates for main signing key holders to care for will be drastically reduced. - The DevOps team will have to monitor and administrate additional physical machines in a colocation. New groups of people within Arch Linux staff will - collectively take care of the administrative credentials for the described system as holders of shares of a shared secret, - provide software upgrades for components of the system as developers of Signstar - and create releases for a central, image-based OS as developers of Signstar OS. For details refer to the section "changes for users and staff".

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Update on Valve sponsored work in May 2025
by Rafael Epplée 17 Jun '25

17 Jun '25

Hi all, here is a quick progress report on Valve sponsored work in May 2025. ## Weeklies - [2025-05-13] - [2025-05-20] - [2025-05-27] ## Signstar This month we have been focusing on getting the RFC for automated signing of OS artifacts ready (we apologize in advance - it is not going to be a short one). We estimate to publish it this month (June). In the Signstar project we have improved the way we run integration tests, by implementing a custom target runner, that allows us to seamlessly run some tests in containerized environments (see [signstar!237]). We've updated our cryptography libraries (rpgp 0.16 includes support for Post Quantum Cryptography) and started work on gathering code coverage for tests. Further work has gone into adding a module for NetHSM syncing and state handling to the signstar-config crate (see [signstar!165]/[signstar!249]). ### Hours billed for Signstar April: David (35h), Wiktor (91h) ## Buildbtw We're focused on getting builds running in VMs inside gitlab pipelines. Besides that, we want to release parts of the PoC that can already be useful to other Arch Linux projects. - We've implemented background running of virtual machines in vmexec to support our custom gitlab runner executor which runs in multiple discrete steps, requiring virtual machines to stay running between each of them ([vmexec-background]). - We've improved vmexec's robustness, and fixed more bugs ([vmexec-pty], [vmexec-exit-codes], [vmexec-stderr]). - We've decided to license the buildbtw source code under GPL. - We're planning to release a standalone tool for keeping a local copy of all of Arch Linux' package source repositories and automatically fetching any changes. This can be used by projects such as bumpbuddy or ALPM. - We've started polishing up the CLI, web UI and documentation in preparation for a first PoC user test. We'd like to invite everyone who's interested to participate in our weekly coordination meetings. Tuesdays at 17:00 UTC (19:00 CEST), we meet on the Arch Linux Mumble server to discuss the current state of the project, groom gitlab issues, discuss technical questions and plan the week ahead. You're welcome to join and listen, or to contribute your expertise. If you'd like to participate through other means, we've also made an effort to clean up our issue tracker. Please browse the issues and pitch in if something feels unclear, or information is missing. You can follow along our day-to-day progress on the proof-of-concept milestone ([poc-milestone]) and the standalone tool milestone ([tool-milestone]). ### Hours billed for buildbtw and package source licensing May: Rafael (53h), Sven (81h), Levente (0h) ## Package Source Licensing - After some last fine-tuning, Morten has merged the RFC40 amendment (thanks!) ([rfc40]) - We've prepared a draft mail with packager guidelines for arch-dev-public ([licensing-adp-mail]) - We've created a plan for licensing new contributions since our last batch of licensing notification mails. Once RFC52 is merged and we've added REUSE.toml files to all repositories where all contributors have been notified, we'll send out a second batch of licensing notifications for new contributors. After a second 4 month waiting period, we'll add REUSE.toml files to the rest of the repositories. [2025-05-13]: https://md.archlinux.org/wmTzaT1IQlGp3S3WuDJgiA# [2025-05-20]: https://md.archlinux.org/s2yfyaFJTVavU1nMI2h6XQ# [2025-05-27]: https://md.archlinux.org/JDxTHJ4-Sw60bnDNPTWZXg# [vmexec-background]: https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/vmexec/-/merge_requests/5 [poc-milestone]: https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/buildbtw/-/milestones/11#tab-issues [signstar!165]: https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/signstar/-/merge_requests/165 [signstar!237]: https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/signstar/-/merge_requests/237 [signstar!249]: https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/signstar/-/merge_requests/249 [tool-milestone]: https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/buildbtw/-/milestones/17#tab-issues [vmexec-pty]: https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/vmexec/-/merge_requests/1 [vmexec-exit-codes]: https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/vmexec/-/merge_requests/7 [vmexec-stderr]: https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/vmexec/-/merge_requests/6 [rfc40]: https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/rfcs/-/merge_requests/49 [licensing-adp-mail]: https://md.archlinux.org/PYvbvENaTni5Skf67V1Jgg#

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