January 10, 2026
Crates vs. hot takes
A Year of Work on the Arch Linux Package Management (ALPM) Project
Arch’s Rust revamp: brilliant upgrade or over-engineered rabbit hole
TLDR: Arch Linux spent 15 months building a Rust-based packaging framework with STF funding. Commenters are split: some praise modern specs and security, others mock “crates upon crates” as over-engineered and question whether it actually simplifies parsing or speeds up everyday updates for users.
Arch Linux just wrapped 15 months of work on the Rust-powered ALPM project, funded by the Sovereign Tech Fund. The team delivered specs, tools, and security checks aimed at modernizing how Arch packages are handled. But the comments? Absolute fireworks. One user declared it “both cool and over-engineered,” sparking a split between folks who love the new formal specs and cryptographic verification, and those who see crates upon crates as a tech flex that might not help everyday users. The hottest mini-drama: a parser tool choice that had people asking if it’s really simpler than the classic approach—basically, does this make updates easier, or just fancier?
Fans cheered the transparency—stats, milestones, and a mission to help the wider open-source world—while skeptics dropped memes about Java EE flashbacks and asked the eternal Reddit question: “But will it make pacman faster?” Supporters say the groundwork matters; critics want less ceremony, more speed. Somewhere between “stop rewriting everything in Rust” and “finally, grown-up packaging,” the thread became a reality show for nerds. Read the devblog for the specs; stay for the comments, where the vibe swings from cautious optimism to roast-level sarcasm.
Key Points
- •STF funded the Rust-based ALPM project for 15 months starting in 2024.
- •Six milestones tackled file formats, cryptographic verification, and package/system management.
- •The project emphasizes generic solutions to benefit the broader free software ecosystem.
- •Contribution stats show major activity, led by David Runge, Arne Beer, and others.
- •Code metrics (tokei) report 551 files and 92,267 lines, with Rust as the dominant language.