Thank you Arch Linux documentation team

Posted Aug 12, 2025 18:50 UTC (Tue) by smoogen (subscriber, #97)
Parent article: Arch shares its wiki strategy with Debian

I want to say that if I need to find how a newer piece of software works, the Arch Linux wiki has always been the place for me to go to over the last .. 20 years? The documentation has always been top notch, kept up to date and filled with a technical knowledge rare in many places. I always wanted to know how this was possible when so many other documentation teams have struggled to keep up with the rapid changes in FLOSS ecosystems.

This article gave me a lot of ideas on how this was possible and how they promoted a community to keep it going for so long. Thank you again everyone who has written documents for Arch.. they have been helpful to everyone.

Thank you Arch Linux documentation team

Posted Aug 15, 2025 8:26 UTC (Fri) by kreijack (guest, #43513) [Link] (1 responses)

> I want to say that if I need to find how a newer piece of software works, the Arch Linux wiki has always been the place for me to go to over the last .. 20 years? The documentation has always been top notch, kept up to date and filled with a technical knowledge rare in many places. I always wanted to know how this was possible when so many other documentation teams have struggled to keep up with the rapid changes in FLOSS ecosystems.

Google frequently points me to Arch Wiki pages when I search for technical answers. While not perfect, they’re often the most useful and practical resources available.

I believe this is largely due to the nature of the Arch user base: highly technical, deeply engaged, and committed to sharing knowledge. It reminds me of the spirit behind the old HOWTOs I used to read when I first started using Linux in the late’90s.

The documentation feels like it’s written by technicians, for technicians—which brings both strengths and limitations:

- It’s geared toward experienced users (which aligns with Arch’s philosophy), but this can make it inaccessible to beginners or those who prefer graphical interfaces over the command line.
- The quality is generally excellent, though not flawless. Skilled users are usually able to navigate minor inaccuracies—and often contribute improvements themselves.

That’s why, for technically inclined users, the Arch Wiki remains a trusted and invaluable reference.

How this can be ported in a Debian world, will be an interesting challenge, being Debian more generalist.

Thank you Arch Linux documentation team

Posted Aug 15, 2025 12:23 UTC (Fri) by smoogen (subscriber, #97) [Link]

I don't mean this in any disrespect for Debian, but if there is an operating system where I think such deep knowledge like the Arch wiki has is needed, it is Debian. It has a large amount of different software which can be set up in so many ways just like Arch. I say this as someone who never got a Debian to install from scratch without extra help until premade vm's and clouds were available. [I think it is because I come from a Red Hat RPM background so certain choices I would make in the install seemed obvious to me and obviously bad to the person who would end up fixing my mistakes.]

The Debian documentation has been my second goto after the Arch wiki because it does go into deep things on software but I usually need the Arch wiki to find the proper terms to get a search engine to pull up the relevant Debian documentation. Hopefully the items which Arch has found successful can be useful or at least inspire things which would help someone like me figure out things.