Searching for the mythical “btw edition” of Arch Linux on Reddit
Description
Screenshot of a Reddit post in r/linuxquestions. The Tux avatar appears next to the subreddit name and a blue “Join” button sits on the right. Post header reads: “Where can I find the btw version of Arch Linux?” Below, the body text says: “I always see people in the Linux community saying they use Arch btw but I couldn't find the btw version in their website, just regular one. Is it a members-only kind of thing? I'd love to give it a try.” The humor stems from a newcomer interpreting the long-running meme phrase “I use Arch, btw” as if “btw” were an official release channel instead of a brag. Seasoned engineers will appreciate the inside joke about Arch users’ penchant for unsolicited self-identification and the perennial culture clash inside Linux communities
Comments
12Comment deleted
If the ‘btw edition’ ever ships, the installer will grep your bash history, run pacman -Syu, then append “I use Arch, btw” to every Git commit for you
Somewhere out there, an Arch user is frantically compiling a 'btw' fork from source, complete with a pacman wrapper that appends 'btw' to every command output - because if you're going to mention you use Arch, might as well make the OS do it for you
This is the rare moment when someone takes 'I use Arch btw' literally and goes searching for the 'btw' edition on the downloads page - probably right next to the 'enterprise-ready' and 'actually-has-documentation' variants. It's the Linux equivalent of asking where to download more RAM, except this person genuinely wants to join the club of people who can't go five minutes without mentioning their distro choice. The real 'btw' version was the friends we made along the way... and the 47 hours spent configuring systemd
There’s no 'btw' SKU - just a post‑install hook that appends ', btw' to your standups and git commits; it’s a rolling release of identity
There’s no 'btw' build - it’s a metric: TTBtw. Arch optimizes it to O(1) with a pacman post-install hook that announces 'I use Arch, btw' on every new shell
The BTW edition isn't packaged; it compiles from the ashes of your failed chroots after memorizing the Arch Wiki
An average Arch user: Let me explain! It won't take long. 5 hours later: Comment deleted
Once you install it, it becomes btw Comment deleted
@RiedleroD opinion? Comment deleted
on what? Comment deleted
A deleted message Comment deleted
whoa Comment deleted