Arch Linux

tuddy

Member

From: Lombard, IL

Registered: 2009-09-27

Posts: 16

Why Arch is my favorite Linux distro

Hi Everyone,

First of all thanks to every single person who has worked on Arch and put this distro together. I can't believe how this stuff gets put together so tightly just from people's contribution. I find it funny that in the "Linux Bible" and every other Linux book that mentions the different distros that Arch is never mentioned. Why is this? Here are the main reasons why I think it should be!

1. Learn how Linux works without getting hardcore and compiling from source. I think that if you're on your way to getting into Gentoo or something you should stop at Arch first to get a handle of how Linux works.

2. You're hand is not held, well in a way maybe with the beautiful Beginner's Wiki, like The really easy distros. Actually those are great if you don't care to learn the guts of Linux and want to get away from Microsoft. Come to think of it that's how I did it....

3. You install a base system, and I mean base, so if you just want to learn the command line you can. If you want to run KDE4 with all the bells and whistles you're instructed how to do so.

4. It's fast as hell. Sorry for partial swearing there but Arch is fast! I'm currently running it on my GF's 10 year old Gateway laptop with a Celeron 800Mhz nearly cacheless CPU, 256M ram, and 10Gig HD. Go ahead and laugh but I'm in the shell in 20 seconds and Fluxbox is up in about 5! My home machine is a Athlon Single Core 1.8Ghz, 1GB ram, and that is a different story. KDE4 feels like it runs faster on that machine that Windows 7 did on a quad core 8GB ram monster at microcenter. Bear in mind that if I started doing audio/video encoding my pc chokes but still....

5. Pacman. At first I was like "no way not this complicated package management at the command line". You know what? After using Shaman, a great GUI frontend for Pacman, I realized that it took longer to do stuff! I can see why everyone says the command line can be easier. I find myself configuring wired/wireless networs, using pacman, and moving files around suing the command line because its fast and easy once you get the gist of it.

5. It makes me want to learn more about Linux and help in some way. Believe me, I'm nowhere near being able to be helpful like everyone else here currently is but I can do my best to help.

Thanks!

-Tuddy

Misfit138

Misfit Emeritus

From: USA

Registered: 2006-11-27

Posts: 4,189

Re: Why Arch is my favorite Linux distro

Welcome home!

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ozar

Member

From: USA

Registered: 2005-02-18

Posts: 1,686

Re: Why Arch is my favorite Linux distro

Glad you've taken a liking to Arch! 

I've been running it for almost 5 years now and while I do check out other distros as any new releases come out, there's never anything about them that would draw me away from Arch.  Usually, it's their package management that drives me away more than anything else.  In the end, Arch just seems easier to use and makes more sense than other any other distro to me.

Hope you will continue to enjoy it...

Last edited by ozar (2009-09-27 19:18:56)

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Runiq

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2008-10-29

Posts: 1,053

Re: Why Arch is my favorite Linux distro

It makes me want to learn more about Linux and help in some way. Believe me, I'm nowhere near being able to be helpful like everyone else here currently is but I can do my best to help.

It doesn't take that much to help. Even though you might not be a programmer, you can still point people who are newer than yourself  into the right direction (hopefully): interesting wiki pages, links for bug reports probably related to their problems, etc.

I'm talking from experience.

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skottish

Forum Fellow

From: Here

Registered: 2006-06-16

Posts: 7,942

Re: Why Arch is my favorite Linux distro

Great introduction tuddy. Welcome to the forums.

slightlystoopid

Member

Registered: 2009-09-10

Posts: 61

Re: Why Arch is my favorite Linux distro

ooh ooh ooh *beems with excitement* and the init system is awesome. certain other major distros make it almost as difficult as windows to just get the system to NOT do something at startup, with Arch, it's a breeze. also, you can make a change in a config file and be pretty confident it is actually gonna affect the system. and then there's PKGBUILDS which make installing and uninstalling a snap, although you may wanna run configure and configure --help on its own to figure out your options first. couple years ago, I actually tried using slackware as my first linux distro, because c'mon, the founder's a member of the Church of SubGenius, 1. that's awesome, and 2. how hard could it be? well, it didn't take long at all to realize the o'reilly series definitely didn't cover this source compilation shenanigans. flew to debian fast, then after about a year to ubuntu 'cause debian didn't update enough. now here I am, and I love it.

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