Archer Lesser Distractions

Archer Linux in as open-source Linux distribution based on Arch Linux. Archer Linux focuses minimalism, user-friendliness, provides working environment right out of the box and goes by the slogan “lesser distractions”. Archer Linux is an academic project. The Archer Team developers have and are rigorously researching and studying operating systems and related computer science fields, thinking up, implementing and manifesting ideas and research.

  • 100% Compatible with all desktop
  • Rather small ISO ~ 1 GiB
  • Ready system right out of the box

Minimalism

Slick and clean system with carefully singled out packages without redundancies and un-necessary packages.

Cutting-Edge

Cutting edge software (latest stable version) brought to you by curated rolling release model.

Stable System

Bridged background and foreground , uncompromised boot process and WYDAWWD protocol.

System Stability:

Archer Linux brings system stability to the next level by trying to bridge the background and foreground for the users. The technology is proposed to be called WYDAWWD (What You Did And What Was Done) protocol. The technology tries to enhance system stability by prioritizing log entities (warnings and errors) and visibly representing them to user. Moreover, in case of any sequence of user actions that might reduce system stability, the system starts talking to the user to acknowledge its opinion for user’s sequence of actions. Archer Linux brings in a rather better interface for systemd daemon management (including graphical user interface) allowing user to optimize the background activity of the system according to his need. It also includes easy-to-use network management and power management interfaces. .

Minimalistic Base:

Archer Team puts big deal of time to carefully single out packages to include in the system to keep minimalism intact and avoid any redundancies and unnecessary packages. Famously saying “Entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily” and “To have big memory and processing resources is only nice if they are not occupied with unnecessary garbage.” – Asad Noman Archer maintains major part of Arch Linux base including AUR (Arch User Repositories) compatibility.

Rolling release and updates:

Archer Linux uses rolling release model rather than traditional model, which simply means that with a couple updated packages you happen to use the most latest version of Archer Linux without ever having to carry out a full distribution upgrade. Archer Linux uses pacman package manager to manage packages in the system. Cutting-edge packages are installed (latest yet stable versions) and beta versions are excluded altogether except if a user manually carries out their installation. This rolling release model is also referred to as curated rolling release model. The updates are cutting edge rather than bleeding edge. Archer is to release only desktop version yet. (see future work) .

Security:

Archer lets a user execute commands with low privileges. Tools like sudo and fakeroot come preinstalled to grant temporary or fake privileges respectively to a process according to its need. Polkit also comes preinstalled and prompts user if a process requires privileges. Most of the networking ports are closed by default and are required to be manually enable in order to use them. User Firewall daemon and interface come preinstalled with a pre-specified set of rules.

Hardware Accelated Video Encoding/Decoding:

Archer Linux prompts to setup hardware accelerated video decoding if the computer is capable of doing so. For those users who intend to play videos, video encoding and decoding process is with no doubt harsh for a CPU. Using video card (GPU) for hardware accelerated video encoding/decoding, the lifting is offloaded from the CPU resulting in better performance and rather better battery power time. Hardware accelerated video encoding/decoding is achieved through VA-API (Video Acceleration API, an opensource API provided by Intel).

Installation:

Archer Image (ISO) download size is estimated to be around 1 Gigabytes only. The installer is offline, partly-automated and user-friendly unlike Arch installation which really gives its users a hard time. A default installation size is less than 3 Gigabytes .

Undecided Features:

Archer Team is considering to implement automatic security patch and live patch (Canonical’s proprietary technology) but it has not been clearly decided yet. In the long term, the Team might consider including foreign keyboard layouts, native antivirus, and an easy to use sandbox. .

Future work:

For the time being, Archer is to release only a desktop version. It is very probable that a secure server version and an IoT core release will follow in a matter of months. Archer might also develop to support OpenStack for cloud computing. .

Is Archer a GNU/Linux?

Archer is GNU/Linux only because of the Arch base that includes some GNU components like GNU coreutils, GNU toolchain etc. which are either part of GNU base or GNU base-devel.

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ASAD NOMAN

Lead Developer

Coined, started and leads Archer project.

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QADEER AHMAD

Developer

Collaborates majorly on research and project outlook

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WAJAHAT MUNIR

Developer

Deals with support and community representation.