AcreetionOS System Philosophy

Understanding the model prevents fighting it.

Composition

Vanilla Arch provides the toolchain and ecosystem. AcreetionOS layers:

Curated repo-main — a tested package set served from iso.acreetionos.org
Opinionated defaults — Cinnamon, PipeWire, NetworkManager, Timeshift, Recovery Environment
Managed keyring — signature trust handled coherently for you

What stays pure Arch behavior

pacman semantics, PKGBUILD/AUR workflows, systemd units, mkinitcpio, GRUB conventions, upstream package contents. Skills transfer both directions.

Where we deliberately differ

Area	AcreetionOS stance
Repositories	Single pinned server over mirrorlists — consistency beats geolocation (AcreetionOS Repository Architecture)
Keyring	Shipped + auto-updated via repo packages; no manual pacman-key rituals expected
Snapshots/recovery	Pre-configured, not DIY (Timeshift + Recovery Environment + ACRECOVERY)
Installer	Calamares graphical flow instead of pacstrap scripting

Area

AcreetionOS stance

Repositories

Single pinned server over mirrorlists — consistency beats geolocation (AcreetionOS Repository Architecture)

Keyring

Shipped + auto-updated via repo packages; no manual pacman-key rituals expected

Snapshots/recovery

Pre-configured, not DIY (Timeshift + Recovery Environment + ACRECOVERY)

Installer

Calamares graphical flow instead of pacstrap scripting

Upgrade philosophy

Stay close to upstream Arch releases so security fixes arrive fast; curate at the repository composition layer rather than patching packages heavily. When upstream breaks interfaces, expect brief churn and a changelog note rather than long-lived forks.

Practical consequences

Don’t add Arch mirrors (Repositories & Mirrors) — you’d bypass curation.
Do file issues against our repos when a package misbehaves — curation means we can act.
Expect wiki/Arch-wiki knowledge to mostly apply; these docs flag divergences as they appear.