Arch-chan is the best！
Users who often browse the Reddit Linux boards should frequently see his artwork: cute Linux girls in a Japanese art style. Those are Ravimo’s works.
He has drawn anthropomorphized works of Arch Linux, Gentoo, Linux from Scratch, Manjaro, Athena OS, and others. Put simply, they are insanely hot. The character designs not only match the Japanese art style, but also contain many details that geeks can happily dig into!
Some of his works have shaped part of the public image of certain Linux distributions as girls. Simply put, although OS-tan works already existed 20 years ago, there have not been many character designs for each Linux distribution. Japan paid more attention to the Windows family, including the classic Windows 3.1-tan. There were fewer Linux-related creations (most people probably do not even know what a distribution is). Therefore, with the images created by Ravimo, Linux anthropomorphism has gained a new chapter.
According to his Pixiv profile, he is an extremely chad illustrator. All his works use the CC-BY 4.0 license, letting you lick the waifu to your heart’s content.
(Note: the images in this article have been compressed. If you need the originals, please look on Pixiv or Twitter.)
First, here is an image that makes fans of both sides ecstatic: the symbol on Saigyouji Yuyuko’s head looks just like Debian’s spiral pattern.
Ravimo’s most classic work is the image of Arch Linux-chan. Although Ravimo did not clearly state her attributes, we can observe that her image is that of a mischievous little loli wearing a cool hoodie, fond of teasing users (because rolling updates often break?). If we cite Moegirlpedia’s design, we can give a more specific definition: “Arch Linux-chan’s masters are capable users. By giving them genuine and complete system control training ability, she makes her masters fully responsible for their own systems, thereby satisfying these masters’ evil needs.”
This image depicts common elements of Arch Linux. sudo raises user privileges, and the little spirit on the hat at the right reflects the pacman package manager. The Systemd on the clothes is a core system component. core, extra, and community represent Arch Linux repository categories. Under Arch-chan’s jacket, the design has her wearing only one thin garment, letting all gentlemen easily see everything (?) Perhaps this reflects the KISS principle. After all, Arch Linux’s founder once said: “If you try to hide the complexity of the system, you’ll end up with a more complex system. Layers of abstraction that serve to hide internals are never a good thing. Instead, the internals should be designed in a way such that they NEED no hiding.”
A funny comic where Arch-chan uses sudo privileges to command Manjaro-chan, incidentally teaching you the command to quickly join sudoer. From the information in this image, Ravimo probably also designed an image for Manjaro-chan, but it has never been publicly released.
Could this be Arch-chan’s “backdoor”? It is time for some penetration test and stress test!
Come on, tweak me to your heart’s content!
Fuck, the packages rolled and broke.
The image of Arch Linux-chan drawn by Ravimo is so well known that it also appeared in Clover Dot’s comic. This time I will not “use” you again! Windows 11! I am going to go play with Linux-chan instead.
But… Ravimo has not only drawn Arch Linux! An even more advanced duo has arrived!
Gentoo-chan is a voluptuous woman, but still does not wear much, probably because she is a distribution where packages must be compiled manually! Holding the two major compilers GCC and Clang, she represents the ability to create (emerge) all packages! The two icons on her shoulders represent the moe-ified Gentoo penguin and Gentoo’s mascot Larry the cow. A Gentoo installation handbook hangs by her feet. Worth noting is a shell-like necklace; that is the muslC logo! It indicates that Gentoo users can freely choose whether to install the system with the Glibc or muslC version during the stage3 installation phase. The biggest difference from other distributions is that the init system on her chest is OpenRC, but actually Gentoo can use Systemd too! (Looking forward to the author showing Gentoo’s many sides through another personality…)
Last is Levi-chan, referring to Linux from Scratch. It is the ultimate distribution where all system components must be untarred by yourself and compiled and installed with make. There are too many elements on this character to count, but all of them are indispensable necessary packages at the low level of a Linux system. LFS offers many choices. Systemd, OpenRC, and runit on her chest indicate that whichever init system you want to use is your freedom. On her leg she carries the GCC hammer used to forge the system. In her hands are components of the major desktop environments GNOME, KDE, XFCE, Cinnamon, and i3wm.
Look at the names in the image. She can be called the mother of all distributions. This can be called a divine existence, right! You absolutely must inject her with the user’s essence and together give birth to a newborn Linux system.
Finally, I will briefly write a little essay:
Among OS-tans, Arch Linux-chan in her default mode is a tsundere loli, with a flexible body that can thoroughly “serve” a good master.
The smallest system is only 500MB. That – bleep – is unbelievably tight.
Arch Linux is a system whose backdoor has no weaknesses… right? Do not play with her until she loses consciousness.
Of course, when installing the system, you can also buy some new clothes for her, such as KDE Plasma, letting her put on a layer of jacket, plus heavy armor formed by AppArmor and Linux-hardened. In an instant, Arch-chan grows from a little loli into a voluptuous and wild girl.
While maintaining a good figure, she still has very high flexibility (explanation: the X server and Linux kernel are separate; starting Linux does not require opening a graphical interface, and you can still SSH in to work), so Arch-chan can switch between two forms at any time according to requirements, satisfying her master, whether it is remote rear entry, forcing her to perform violent computation tasks; or intimate face-to-face contact up close, playing intense computer games together.
Arch-chan is also a child who is easily hurt (explanation: once pacman updates, the system may explode), so you must gently care for her and love her, not dump garbage into the system (explanation: do not randomly throw around i3wm configuration files), not randomly buy sex toys and use them violently (explanation: do not randomly install AUR software), and wear protection during intimate contact, putting safety first (explanation: use more Flatpak, Docker, and virtual machines), so that both of you can walk together for a long time, protecting you and protecting her.
Do not be like Windows-chan. She is a deeply scheming, promiscuous bitch (explanation: closed source software, omnipresent surveillance, forced updates, accustomed to raping users).
When role-playing with Arch Linux-chan (explanation: QEMU/KVM virtual machine), Arch complained that when doing Windows personality simulation, KVM’s high efficiency and 100% synchronization rate nearly made her lose herself. So scary. It is better not to open Windows virtual machines unless absolutely necessary.
…Wait, what am I writing?
