Aer Philosophy

AetherOS Aer, shortened to Aer, is the rolling Arch Linux platform in the AetherOS family.

Aer keeps Arch’s rolling model and native package ecosystem while adding AetherOS identity, shared tooling, repository integration, and reproducible build orchestration.

Why Aer exists

Aer is for users who want the AetherOS experience on an upstream rolling Linux foundation.

It preserves Arch’s core characteristics:

• rolling updates
• native pacman workflows
• upstream package availability
• user control over system composition

AetherOS integration should remain visible and should not obscure Arch’s behavior.

Upstream contract

Aer uses:

• Upstream: Arch Linux
• Release policy: rolling
• Package manager: pacman
• Native image tooling: Archiso

AetherOS follows Arch Linux’s officially supported architectures. Exact target values are defined by the AetherOS manifest.

What AetherOS adds

Aer can include:

• product identity and branding
• AetherOS repository configuration
• shared utilities and integration tooling
• normalized build and artifact handling through AetherForge
• reproducible image composition around Arch-native tooling

Arch’s repositories and package manager remain native.

What Aer is not

Aer is not the stable counterpart to Ignis. Ignis now uses openSUSE Leap and has its own upstream lifecycle.

Aer also does not promise a curated or LTS-style lifecycle. Its release behavior follows the rolling nature of Arch Linux.

Theme identity

Inside the OS, the short form Aer is used for identity and themes. The supported appearance names are Aer Light and Aer Dark.