Arch Linux

chunix64

Member

Registered: 2025-11-01

Posts: 1

What happened with Arch Linux ISO in 2024

According to https://archlinux.org/releng/releases/ , why did the ISO size increase so rapidly from 2024 to 2025 — from about 800 MB to 1.4 GB, almost half the total size growth in Arch’s entire history?

Last edited by chunix64 (2025-11-01 15:15:18)

nl6720

The Evil Wiki Admin

Registered: 2016-07-02

Posts: 710

Re: What happened with Arch Linux ISO in 2024

archlinux-2024.05.01-x86_64.iso changed the UEFI boot loader from GRUB back to systemd-boot (which was used in archlinux-2022.06.01-x86_64.iso and prior ISOs) which means the kernel and initramfs need to be duplicated; see https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/ … quests/374 for details. The rest of the size increase is just general bloat accumulation. I.e. the kernel and linux-firmware get bigger with each release.