diff -r fedb33e2bf77 Lib/platform.py
--- a/Lib/platform.py	Mon May 30 12:25:38 2011 +0200
+++ b/Lib/platform.py	Mon May 30 20:24:29 2011 +0800
@@ -194,8 +194,8 @@
     """ Tries some special tricks to get the distribution
         information in case the default method fails.
 
-        Currently supports older SuSE Linux, Caldera OpenLinux and
-        Slackware Linux distributions.
+        Currently supports older SuSE Linux, Caldera OpenLinux, 
+        Slackware Linux and archlinux distributions.
 
     """
     if os.path.exists('/var/adm/inst-log/info'):
@@ -235,6 +235,8 @@
             version = verfiles[-1][14:]
             return distname,version,id
 
+    if os.path.exists('/etc/arch-release'):
+        distname = 'arch'
     return distname,version,id
 
 _release_filename = re.compile(r'(\w+)[-_](release|version)', re.ASCII)