The beloved Linux distribution, Antergos, has been discontinued by its principal developers. Antergos Linux is based on Arch Linux and often described as the version of Arch that is easier to install.
For most users who wanted a taste of Arch, without much difficulty (of course there would be some), they were always met with Antergos as their choice. Unfortunately, this excellent distribution has run its course now.
Antergos Desktop
A message from the Antergos team
The announcement on the website described a bit of Antergos’s history. This project started as a ‘summertime hobby’ about seven years ago. Its goal, sure enough, was to present a more user-friendly, and streamlined version of the Arch Linux, so that a larger group of people can use it. And just as they intended, Antergos just did that and bridged the gap between the command-line based Arch Linux and the intuitive user interface.
There have been 931,439 downloads of Antergos in the last five years. The developers mentioned that they were pleased with the community that got built around Antergos.
Reason for discontinuation
The blog post also describes the reasons for the conclusion of the project – the developers do not have the time to maintain and upgrade Antergos properly. They believe that such a condition would be a wrong behavior on their part towards the Antergos community.
Today, we are announcing the end of this project. As many of you probably noticed over the past several months, we no longer have enough free time to properly maintain Antergos., said the Antergos Dev team.
They also openly invited developers to use the available code of Antergos to develop their projects.
What about the existing users?
The existing users need not worry, as their systems will continue to receive updates from the repositories of Arch Linux. Shortly, an update will be released that purges out the repositories of Antergos, which will no longer be maintained. The programs that are Antergos-specific will be removed, too, as they will no longer be supported.
Any Antergos programs that are present in AUR (Arch User Repository) will continue to get updates from there, which means the popular applications of users may still be safe, which is good news.
Forums/Wiki
The forums will continue to run, till the time such that the developers believe that users have left the forums, and moved on to other projects. It has been mentioned that they don’t think it will take longer than three months.
Dustin, Alex, & Gustau have also thanked all the users and the community of Antergos for making it a fantastic experience for them. They believe it has improved their skills, in multiple spheres of life.
Conclusion
Antergos was an excellent distribution, and now that it will no longer be maintained, it will still be remembered like a fable by its community. The Linux-related Sub-Reddits were filled with Antergos related posts, with people appreciating the project, and people also expressing sorrow over its discontinuation.
We are sure we are saying this on behalf of the whole community, that the result of their hard work was always a great experience for all of us, and that Antergos will be missed.
Reach the official letter here. Let us know about your thoughts or your experience with Antergos in the comments section.
2 comments
Antergos will be missed. My first taste of Arch was with Antergos and it remained one of my favorite distributions these last few years. Hats off to the developers for their efforts.
Very sad to read this. RIP Antergos