I've been using Arch for about three years now and can't imagine using another distro.

The install phase is a pain if you want to get a full-blown plug-and-play ready-to-go desktop experience that rivals Ubuntu, OS X, or Windows.

It's actually really easy if you just want a bare-bones system that boots into a shell and doesn't install any packages other than what it needs to do just that.

Switch to Arch if you're a minimalist.

My rig only runs Stumpwm on Xorg. I only use xterm, emacs, and the usual GNU toolchain. A couple of interpreters. I have installed GTK so I can use Firefox (and so I can hack on Firefox), but nothing else. I don't have a crap load of applications running in the background waiting to notify me of crap I don't care about or services that I never use. I know exactly what runs on my system and it does no more than that and no less.

I think Arch fills a very nice niche and I'm so happy it exists.

I read the article and groaned. My days of "tweak it until it works, just for fun" are pretty much past me (I'm typing this on a Mac, for instance). I like to spend my energy creating things these days.

But Arch seems really cool if you want to rebuild Linux systems for fun & knowledge!

My favorite thing about running on an Arch system is I know what's going on all the time. If an Ubuntu system breaks I'm generally dealing with a mass of preinstalled things, it's hard to know what's relevant.

Similarly for increasing boot speed, I really like knowing exactly what I need to be running at any one time.

I appreciate it's not for everyone, but I imagine most coders around here who run a Linux system would benefit a lot by taking the time to set up an install and having it work how they like.

I wanted to try Arch to see what the fuss was about after I got badly burned by the Ubuntu 11.10 upgrade. I'm not a Linux newbie by any stretch and I managed to get it set up in a virtual machine, but when it came time to install the community package installer, I just couldn't do it. I was no doubt doing something stupid. But after fiddling with it for half an hour, I sat back and said to myself, "If I can't even install the installer, what is maintenance going to be like for anything remotely complicated?"

And that's when I realized that while it's fun to tweak and fiddle, I have real work to do and doing things like fighting with a package manager and installing drivers is not very high on my to-do list. I ended up rolling back to 11.04, which I'll probably stick with for some time.

I like Arch as a whole but I've found that for my purposes it is a time sink compared to Debian for example.

Debian has lots of sensible well thought out defaults. Arch has lots of disparate defaults each provided by the package vendor (as they don't customise packages).

It's not a criticism, but a difference to bear in mind.

Those downsides were upsides for me. I love that everything must be configured on Arch, because I know that I am doing all the configuring. I've tried to customize Ubuntu's motd, change services to start backgrounded, and install packages from source in a way that integrates with the packaging system. Ubuntu likes to get in the way of this in the name of simplicity and for a casual or even intermediate user, sure, this works. For advanced users too, depending on your priorities.

Arch is awesome because it's basically FreeBSD-like packaging and something not unlike FreeBSD's service configuration on a Linux box. Things are in a predictable place, rather than in /usr/local OR /usr/, and installing source packages is something that is very customizable and very easy. It yields the responsibility to be careful about your versions to you, but in doing so gives you an immense amount of power to be the master of your system.

For minimal systems, where you know what you're doing, it's fantastic. Running Xorg is a bit of a pain, but I hardly blame Arch, and if something that "just works" were what I was going for, I wouldn't run Arch. I wouldn't use it on my MBP, but it's been running great on my home server for quite some time.

It feels like he's describing installing Linux (any distribution) around 1997-1998. A bit complex, lots of manual setup, etc. Not terrible, and it has its benefits for sure, but it feels a tad like a step back.

I've been using Arch for the last 7-8 months and I think my love affair with it has already peaked.

Everything written here is true re: learning about Linux, having more control, straightforward architecture, bleeding edge software, etc.

But the instability factor eventually will bite you in the ass, and per Murphy's Law, often at the worst possible time. It's happened to me twice in this time span.

My solution is to use a separate data partition for all my files and install Arch and a more stable distro (Mint in my case) in different partitions. Both OSs link to the data partition and grab dotfiles and things from a git repo.

Arch is my preferred environment, with a tiling WM and everything painstakingly set up for my preferred workflow. But when it crashes, I can still use my workstation to get stuff done, and go about troubleshooting when I have free time.

Arch is fun to play with. A couple years ago the fact that everything was i686 optimized was a big deal. These days just about everyone is using 64bit. It's a good choice for embedded linux systems and servers (Beyond Oblivion used arch for their servers).

Speaking from experience, life is just too short to run arch on a laptop. Heck, I have a hp pavilion dv7 with switching graphics and even that was a pita to get stable on ubuntu.

As a developer who has been using Linux as a desktop and enjoys tweaking every little thing: I think Arch is fantastic. It took my understanding of the OS and exactly what is going on to the next level.

However I work with developers who don't want to tweak every little thing they just want their OS to work and let them be passionate about development. They should stick to OSX, or if they are feeling adventurous try Ubuntu. I also would not suggest Arch if you have not used another more friendly Linux distro for a while and had the "opportunity" to troubleshoot some issues and enjoyed it.

To enjoy Arch you really have to be passionate about Linux and tweaking your machine, otherwise you will just be frustrated. For those that are I cannot recommend Arch enough.

Arch is great, but my favorite thing about it is that it stays out of the way. It led me to using new tools like XMonad and MPD. I could be perfectly happy with using the same setup on debian-unstable, but never would have got there without Arch.

The package manager Arch uses, pacman, recently introduced package signing (albeit with a few bugs to iron out.) I wonder if more people will start to use Arch as a server OS now.

I find Archbang to be a good compromise. It presents a minimal Arch install with X+openbox (a la Crunchbang, hence the name) pre-configured. It has a live CD too, so really, it' s just like plain old regular Arch except you don't need a 2nd computer during install ^^

Sounds like a less stable/predictable version of FreeBSD.

I started using Arch about eight months ago, when Ubuntu didn't have the latest ATI and Xorg packaged so I could use EyeFinity + 3 monitors. At the time, I was very sad to leave my comfy Debian/Ubuntu roots.

After struggling a little with the initial setup, I got everything in place, and it has just worked since then. Breakage from upgrades has been no worse than Ubuntu, and my Python work hasn't been disturbed at all.

For those who don't mind rolling up their sleeves and just RTFM'ing it, this is a great distro.

I have an ArchLinux installed at home. Well I am unsure on what to think. It can be used to go on the internet, have the latest software but if you are serious on coding stable things well... you're going to cry.

Since you always have the latest packets ready your code is going to be often broken by changes in the libraries (damn Boost!). Other problem, if you leave your computer untouched for 1 months you'll have 1 Gb of updates to do.

But it's still a very good distribution, just be careful about what to use.

>First of all, nothing works out of the box. You will have to manually set up the driver for your video card, support for your sound card (which can be a little difficult if you use USB headphones), wifi support, Xorg, your desktop environment and/or window manager of choice, etc.

I've been using Arch for a number of years and I don't see why the author thinks it's so difficult to set up.

During installation I only set up partitioning and /etc/rc.conf which is the main configuration file. I'd set up partitions and change some default settings (like keymap, locale, etc) on any computer, so it's not a problem. I also make sure wicd is installed for painless Wifi configuration.

After the first boot, I install most of the stuff I use with a one-liner, something like this:

    pacman -S xorg xfce4 chromium-browser pidgin gdm thunderbird mc skype htop vim gcc ruby

Plus, being a rolling release distro means that you don't have to do major upgrades (which tend to break things more often than not). The installation I'm currently using on my main computer is about 20 months old and I've even changed my machine since then.

My video card works after installing xorg, sound works out of the box, wifi works out of the box, etc.

Something the article mentions, but bears repeating, it that Arch has an excellent wiki on just about every component you're likely to use. So for those fearful of having to set everything up yourself, the wiki will be your savior.

First of all, nothing works out of the box. You will have to manually set up the driver for your video card, support for your sound card (which can be a little difficult if you use USB headphones), wifi support, Xorg, your desktop environment and/or window manager of choice, etc.

Literally everything mentioned here worked out of the box for me when I installed Arch (except for USB headphones, which I do not own).

"First of all, nothing works out of the box. You will have to manually set up the driver for your video card, ...Xorg, "

I stopped there http://xkcd.com/963/

I'm running arch and home and have a love / hate (mostly love) relationship with it. It's certainly taken up a lot of my time, but I learned more about linux just by installing it than I did in months of using ubuntu. Getting something to work is so satisfying, as it usually involves learning quite a bit about how it works, but there are times when you just want something working and it can be frustrating.

Being forced to make all those choices was the best part about it for me. I'm sure it's possible to customize Ubuntu to look like my arch set up, but if I hadn't been forced I likely wouldn't have tried. I'm currently running i3 as my window manager and I love it. I use a macbook pro at work, and It's nice but going back to a non-tiling window manager after getting used to i3 is pretty painful.

I've been a debian user for about three years now. Lately, I got somewhat settled, since most of the things in my distribution were not new anymore, thus I was not learning that much anymore. Arch seemed a good possibility. I installed it in a virtual machine to code really simple 'hello world' kernel modules, and I liked it very much. It is a barebone installation and gives me the feeling to be in control. I think I'd use arch as a server distribution, since I haven't had any problems with the latest packages. Maybe my opinion will change, and maybe I'd prefer something more stable in a server... Anyway, I respect the opinion of the author, but it sounds a bit overdramatic to me. Tough were the days of winmoden + slackware... tears falling

I suppose, at the end of the day. It is all about an individual's preference. The gift of Linux is Choice. Having said that I've used Arch for the past 4 years or so and I have to admit that, for me at least, it is a beautiful thing. I've never had any issues with it what so ever. The box stays up for months on end without problems, except for the times when there is no power :). Pacman, is by far the most straight forward package manager I've come across. The control it lets you have on what you install on the system (the minimalist approach) is just wonderful. The blog makes it sound a bit intimidating when it really isn't. I would highly recommend it to anyone.

I've been using Arch on my HP Mini since May 2010. I haven't had any serious stability issues. Once in awhile I have to resolve differences between old and new system configuration files.

Arch is easy to set up with the installer. You get a minimal shell system which is good for focusing on code. Most things work out of the box if you just pacman -S the-package-you-need.

The hard stuff (wireless) is very well documented on http://wiki.archlinux.org/. Failing that, community on #archlinux is very helpful.

I'm sure it's not for everybody, but I like to spend my time creating things in code, and not arguing about what's the best environment to create things in.

If you want to learn the entire Linux ecosystem, I can't recommend Arch enough.

From personal experience, don't try to install Arch on your machine unless you have another internet-capable device in hand. You're going to reach for ArchWiki several times.

Of course, ArchWiki is an incredible resource with great examples, so as long as you have it, the process is mostly painless.

Arch is kind of an intermediate Linux in terms of how much it will rely on your configuration. Not quite Gentoo, but far, far, far away from Ubuntu.

Thanks for the tips, I was recently thinking of installing Linux on my secondary desktop and Arch seems like a good choice.

I played around with Slackware a few years ago and it was a good learning experience doing things like trying to get wifi to work and configuring xmonad. Arch does appear to have more extensive/organized documentation compared to Slackware though, which would make the learning process go smoother.

After 4 years of Gentoo I've switched recently to ArchLinux. Fantastic community, very rich wiki. The simplest Linux distro I have ever used. Everything works as you want -- zero debia/ubunto-nism. Rolling release just like Gentoo.

Also it has a very rich Arch Linux User-community Repository (AUR) + some AUR PKGBUILDs even install from Ubuntu's PPAs

Writing new PKGBUILDs is also very straightforward.

Arch was the very first distro I tried. I had no idea that there was "another" way to do it. Having to pay attention to the manual install helped me later when I was trying to figure stuff out. Highly recommended to jump in the hard way before getting pampered with something easy as hell like Mint.

I recently switched from Ubuntu to Arch for my web server and could not be happier. I prefer the bleeding edge packages and the simplicity. I also learned a ton by having to dive into my config files and launch scripts in more detail. I can imagine for a desktop though it could get overwhelming.

I recently got a system w/ a gtx580 that would be running the gpu 24/7. Was excited to try arch as I had heard a lot of good things about it and thought I liked the cut of their jib.

4 hours into install, I realized how much Ubuntu had spoiled me and remembered installing Linux for the first time as a kid and how confusing setting up X had been. I also remembered I had stuff to do so I installed Debian and called it a day. Cuda and nvidia drivers are frustrating enough, figured I'd pick my battles.

I suppose I liked the idea of arch much more than the practice.

I've been using Arch on my little Samsung N150 for a while now. Initial setup was tedious but not altogether difficult thanks to their brilliant wiki. I'm no guru and I'm sure If I looked hard enough I could find excellent documentation on Ubuntu. I don't have to look far for Arch, a simple google nets me their wiki page as a top result and it's almost always able to fix any current problem.

Oh wow so this is like 2002 gentoo then?

The community has become quite aggressive and elitist lately, they now remind me of the days of gentoo.

If you enjoy doing that, there is always Slackware or NetBSD or debian-unstable as well.