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submitted 4 days ago by cm0002@lemy.lol to c/linux@programming.dev

The Arch Linux project has reached an important infrastructure milestone by making its official Windows Subsystem for Linux image fully reproducible.

In simple terms, this means that the image is now built so that it produces exactly the same result every time. If the image is rebuilt later using the same source, it will be identical down to the last bit.

For everyday users, the benefit is mainly about trust and reliability. It becomes much easier to verify that the image you download has not been altered, tampered with, or accidentally changed during the build process.

I use arch btw

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[-] IEatDaFeesh@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

What does fully reproducible mean? Like NixOS fully reproducible or just an LTS version that will have close to 0 installed packages hence "reproducible."

[-] BCsven@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 days ago

You Compile and I compile, we get the same binary file.

[-] towerful@programming.dev 2 points 3 days ago

In simple terms, this means that the image is now built so that it produces exactly the same result every time. If the image is rebuilt later using the same source, it will be identical down to the last bit.

[-] IEatDaFeesh@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago

Yes I read that but it doesn't explain how it produces the exact same image.

[-] FooBarrington@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago

Lots of software has non-reproducible build artifacts due to e.g. timestamps being inserted, or due to non-stable algorithms being used during compilation. They presumably managed to remove all sources of randomness from the image they build.

this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2025
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