What is Obarun

Obarun is not a distribution of its own, and it is not plain Arch Linux either. It is a build concept: Arch Linux, with the init system and service management replaced, and with every package that would otherwise drag systemd in rebuilt without it.

Concretely, an Obarun system is made of:

• Arch packages, taken unchanged from the core and extra repositories whenever they work without systemd.
• obcore and obextra, which are Arch's core and extra holding the packages that had to lose systemd, rebuilt without it. Plus observice for the 66 service definitions, which has no Arch equivalent. See Repositories.
• 66, which boots the machine and manages services. It is what you use instead of systemctl.

Who it is for

Obarun assumes you are comfortable with Linux. It is not hostile to newcomers, and a careful reader will get through an installation without trouble, but the project does not try to hide the system from you. Transparency is the point: if you want to know what starts at boot and why, the answer is a readable file, not a database.

The architecture supported is x86_64.

What Obarun is not

• Not a systemd-free Arch derivative with its own package set for everything. Most of your system is Arch, updated at Arch's pace.
• Not a replacement for the Arch Wiki. Configuring a printer, a graphics driver or a firewall works the way Arch documents it. This wiki only covers the places where Obarun differs.
• Not a fork of Arch. When Arch changes, Obarun follows or not, depending of the changes and the impact on the system(yes, we're not blind).

Where to go next

Install it: Download and write the ISO.

Understand the service manager: Services (66).