Arch Linux in July 2024 #

Pacman #

Pacman v7.0.0 has been released as a major feature version. A new DownloadUser configuration option allows for dropping privileges when downloading files to a temporary directory. On top of this security measure, the new Landlock sandbox also prevents writing outside the restricted download directory.

Additionally, makepkg removes GITFLAGS support, as it required breaking changes to git source handling. Furthermore this release addresses unstable git checksumming influenced by specific user configuration. On top, it now prevents PKGBUILD from overriding BUILDENV to avoid undesired side effects.

ArchWeb #

We have released ArchWeb 2024-07-29, featuring improvements in rebuilderd integration for reproducible builds status, enhanced caching for several pages, and implementation of a Django Prometheus exporter for better monitoring inside our Grafana dashboards.

ArchISO #

ArchISO v79 is a minor update that introduces reproducibility for the ext4 image, thanks to improvements related to tune2fs.

infrastructure #

ArchWeb now exports Prometheus metrics via the /metrics endpoint, including request duration data. We are now scraping the endpoint and added visualization in our Grafana dashboards.

SPI #

We have drafted a project status update highlighting our major achievements and key focus areas for the 2023 Annual SPI Report.

Packaging #

Statistics #

In this month, we’ve successfully rolled out 6084 package updates addressing various enhancements and rebuilds, including 2476 package upgrades. Additionally, we’ve received 200 new package issues, while resolving a total of 143 issues.