why you choose ArchLinux?

jheller · 2015-12-16 16:45:22

Why Arch? I switched from Ubuntu via Arch to Manjaro (which is Arch based). Ubuntu did force to go to a newer release for a newer kernel, newer software versions, which did not make sense. I like a rolling release better.

Who not: there seems to be less overall governance and more individual developers maintaining their packages. For instance the binaries move to /usr/bin caused quite some issues back in 2013 for a lot of users. Lately, some issues with upgrading resulted problems unresolved for me, which I grew tired of and led me to try OS X.

memory_leak · 2015-12-28 21:45:40

Rolling distro is the way ... until new ABI comes out

Oelsner · 2016-01-12 22:16:10

Was looking around for a lightweight distro to act as a headless tv streaming server. I came across Arch, gave it a go. Took a few tries to get it right. But now it is running solid with only the stuff on it that i want.
I taught me quite a bit setting it up which is a big plus.
So i think it is safe for me to say that i found the right distro
Still running opensuse on laptop though, but that will change soon enough!

Oh, and pacman is just awesome!!

immysl · 2016-01-16 02:52:21

Have been a Linux user for nearly a decade. Tried out a few distros, but was always getting back to Ubuntu. But after I got quite comfortable with Linux and started to customize my system more and more I started to grow frustrated with how difficult it was to do it in Ubuntu. And the annoying upgrades most often than not caused headaches. I finally said no to Ubuntu upgrades and that led me to say no to Ubuntu itself. Nothing bad in the distro but felt it doesn't suit my needs anymore. That's when I came across Arch Linux. Was a bit daunting at first as I ain't used to rolling distros and cutting edge updates. Read in many places that Arch Linux tends to break often. But hey, that's what pacman is for (pacman -U) Loving the Arch experience and yes it is quite fast too.

djh712 · 2016-01-21 19:00:53

I wanted to try out something that wasn't Windows and the DIY nature that it seemed like Arch was intrigued me and it seemed like it would be fun (like those build-your-own electronics kits you might have come across as a kid).

TCBear · 2016-02-04 17:29:21

The process of installing and setting up Arch reminds me a little of building a ship in a bottle.

For me, Arch has turned out to be the most effective distro to bring an older computer back into use. I'm blind, so use screen readers like Orca and Speakup. Among the different operating systems I use, GNU/Linux has been one I know I can fall back on when something is going wrong with one of the other computers. It has gradually become my daily workhorse for things like web browsing and word processing.

sevendogs · 2016-02-05 01:48:16

OK, 5 year old thread, why not :-) I have used countless distros, mainly Gentoo (core) and Debian-based, most recently Mint. Gentoo takes work, Mint just works. I find that I get bored with "just works". Nothing against it, but for my personality, I love the control Arch gives me. Arch is a great balance between taking several nights to build a Gentoo box and 10 minutes to do a Mint install. I can use Pacman to gut the system down to the core, try a new DE/WM, gut it again and everything still work as slick as it did when I first installed. I can do this without spending days compiling and the system is still fast, fast, fast. On my hardware, speed is always pretty consistent because I have a lot of hardware - always been a believer of over-doing it, never can have to many CPUs or RAM :-)

Been using Arch for a couple of weeks now and yes, I am in love.

olegabrielz · 2016-02-07 01:07:03

When I was young I got a RC car (not a pre built one). I had to follow the manual and assemble it myself. Did some soldering and tweaking. And then I could go out and play with it. If I want that feeling back I just stick my usb into a computer, boot it up, and I am straight back into that beautiful childhood memory. This is why I use Arch Linux.

Thanks everyone

MiseroMCS · 2016-02-15 19:36:06

Raspbian on my Raspberry Pi 2 was too laggy. Now I can run Netbeans, Libreoffice Impress, and Midori all at once, without CPU going up 40%.

jasonwryan · 2016-02-15 19:38:39

MiseroMCS wrote:

Raspbian on my Raspberry Pi 2 was too laggy. Now I can run Netbeans, Libreoffice Impress, and Midori all at once, without CPU going up 40%.

You know you aren't running Arch, though. You are using Arch-ARM, which is a separate distribution: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=153431

marcus-s · 2016-02-16 17:57:15

My answer to that can be found here:
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 1#p1604241

Shiro · 2016-02-20 03:14:57

Mostly to see what the hype was about. And I also heard it had a great community.

Trinitrotoluene · 2016-03-07 09:56:14

Personally, I picked up Arch as my daily distro to try something new (and learn something new - it's another step in learning curve to me). Arch turned out to be really good os - really stable and easy to understand and fix in case of any problems. Complete documentation and huge amount of fresh software in repositories are really important advantages too. And if something isn't in repositories, probably it's in AUR. AUR - it's a killer feature in Arch (comparing to PPA's in ubuntu-based distros).

macstar3000 · 2016-03-10 10:35:40

i think for me it was a natural development. started with ubuntu many years ago and around that time i was happy that it provided an easy installation and a good community. a while back (pre plasma 5 days) i tried arch and was not impressed. the installation was not the problem but something was lacking and maybe i was not up for it yet. when my ubuntu 16.04 alpha broke, i tried antergos and came more involved into arch that way. so the next logical step was trying arch again and the chance came when i got a SSD. the arch wiki is amazing and you learn a lot. needless to add that a rolling release model has exactly the advantages i am looking for (the only way to keep very up 2 date on ubuntu was to add countless of ppa's to my system with all that nasty side effects).

endisliive · 2016-03-14 08:34:06

I choose to be simple, stable and is a step forward compared to other distributions

fc · 2016-03-25 13:53:10

e: removed

Last edited by fc (2016-04-22 10:59:44)

gsmlinks · 2016-03-28 21:31:09

Because of stability and do-it-yourself philosophy

JackyDawg · 2016-03-29 19:11:26

I got sick of windows and its lack of system control and speed. Mainly speed.

So when browsing Linux distros, I was like; "why settle for a little more speed, when I could have a lot more?"
Arch has SPEEEEEEED
Oh and pacman is literally Jesus in the form of software.

ArttuH5N1 · 2016-03-29 19:28:50

Seemed like the logical step from Manjaro. I like the rolling release model and I like having bleeding-edge stuff. Manjaro was a good introduction to Arch(-like) systems, so moving completely to (pure) Arch didn't seem as intimidating as it once did. I also wanted to know more about the inner workings of Linux distributions and installing and running Arch seemed like a good way to learn some of that.

And it's what the cool kids use.

sevendogs · 2016-04-03 15:51:20

I can't remember if I posted here before but no one will remember so here goes :-) I have been a distro-hopper for nearly 20 years. Won't name all of them because some don't exist anymore and it doesn't really matter. Suffice it to say I am a tinkerer and distros that have a graphical installer and hold your hand, flat out bore me. Recently I have been troubled by a trend in the Linux community that pertains to an init system that will go unnamed because of the associated controversy. About a month ago I switched from Arch to FreeBSD. For the uninitiated, FreeBSD is not Linux, it is Unix. The OS is structured very well: all OS applications and core processes are virtually separated from all software the end user installs. A completely separate set of tools from the user "package manager" is used to update the operating system. You can literally delete everything under the user software area (/usr/local) and the OS keeps trucking. Brilliant. But...there is always a but. I really did give the switch a fair shake. All of my software was in the repositories, except Steam. Where I ran into trouble was hardware: scanning and printing were both a no-go. I could have probably gotten the scanner to work but after several hours of messing with devfs rules I gave up.

So having tried for nearly a month to replace Linux, I found I couldn't do it. Some people have but even I have limits...Arch saved my rear-end on this switch. I had migrated all of my data, even on my backup drive, to UFS filesystems. After re-installing Arch on my two SSDs, I pondered how to get my data off the UFS volume and back onto my SSDs, Lo and behold, the Arch installer has built in UFS read-only support. Yay! Copied all my data from UFS onto my SSDs, reformatted the UFS volume back to EXT4, put data back.

I have used Arch for around 6 months and feel pretty comfortable with it. By no means an expert. I really, really like pacman. The AUR is very nice also, for those one-off apps you can't find anywhere else. The install I practically have memorized, which is a little sad actually. For being a distro that does not hold your hand in any way, it just works. My scanner just works, my printer (with a little help from AUR) just works. It's fast, simple, stays up to date and the documentation is phenomenal. It is everything I have wanted in a Linux distro.

Thanks Arch team!

qjamir093 · 2016-04-03 23:46:52

I continually use Arch due to four reasons:

1. I, and myself alone, get to choose how light or bloated it is.
2. It gives me absolute control over how I use my computer.
3. The doumentation and community support are fantastic. 9/10 I'll find the exact solution to any problem that arises.
4. The more I use it, the more I understand how Linux works in general. (I never used Makepkg until I switched to Arch)

Last edited by qjamir093 (2016-04-03 23:48:48)

Awebb · 2016-04-05 23:03:38

I cannot stop using Arch. I don't even know, whether Arch is actually good. I have not been working in a Linux related IT job, where I was responsible for actual servers for quite a long time. I have trouble remembering the correct command to search for an installed package on a Debian machine. I don't know how to use RPM based distros anymore. I couldn't build a Debian package without reading the docs again anymore. Using Arch has actively robbed me of the ability to operate other distributions. I'm just glad most of them use systemd, X.org or wayland, bash or zsh and pulseaudio these days, so at least some of what I know still applies. Arch - or rather pacman - has made me really really lazy. I don't even want to remember, how apt and dpgk work. The only other Distro I boot from time to time is Ubuntu, from a live CD, every time a new piece of hardware acts up, because Ubuntu sometimes has patches, udev rules or settings not yet to be found upstream.

Jristz · 2016-04-07 03:02:44

Awebb wrote:

I cannot stop using Arch. I don't even know, whether Arch is actually good. I have not been working in a Linux related IT job, where I was responsible for actual servers for quite a long time. I have trouble remembering the correct command to search for an installed package on a Debian machine. I don't know how to use RPM based distros anymore. I couldn't build a Debian package without reading the docs again anymore. Using Arch has actively robbed me of the ability to operate other distributions. I'm just glad most of them use systemd, X.org or wayland, bash or zsh and pulseaudio these days, so at least some of what I know still applies. Arch - or rather pacman - has made me really really lazy. I don't even want to remember, how apt and dpgk work. The only other Distro I boot from time to time is Ubuntu, from a live CD, every time a new piece of hardware acts up, because Ubuntu sometimes has patches, udev rules or settings not yet to be found upstream.

I think that pacman rosetta work in both directions https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pacman/Rosetta it a lifesaver either if you go outside and if you go inside... also just use aptitude.

elkoraco · 2016-04-07 07:42:17

Great install routine, good package manager, stable and predictable way of handling system maintenance, great documentation, a lot of community involvement, the promise that no aspect of the project will be commercialized.

Awebb · 2016-04-07 08:58:24

Jristz wrote:

I think that pacman rosetta work in both directions https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pacman/Rosetta it a lifesaver either if you go outside and if you go inside... also just use aptitude.

It indeed is. It's just that I once knew Debian in my sleep, but I have forgotten so much about how complex systems work, because Arch seems so simple.

Arch Linux

#501 2015-12-16 16:45:22

Re: why you choose ArchLinux?

#502 2015-12-28 21:45:40

Re: why you choose ArchLinux?

#503 2016-01-12 22:16:10

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#504 2016-01-16 02:52:21

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#505 2016-01-21 19:00:53

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#506 2016-02-04 17:29:21

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#507 2016-02-05 01:48:16

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#508 2016-02-07 01:07:03

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#509 2016-02-15 19:36:06

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#510 2016-02-15 19:38:39

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#511 2016-02-16 17:57:15

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#512 2016-02-20 03:14:57

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#513 2016-03-07 09:56:14

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#514 2016-03-10 10:35:40

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#515 2016-03-14 08:34:06

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#516 2016-03-25 13:53:10

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#517 2016-03-28 21:31:09

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#518 2016-03-29 19:11:26

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#519 2016-03-29 19:28:50

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#520 2016-04-03 15:51:20

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#521 2016-04-03 23:46:52

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#522 2016-04-05 23:03:38

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#523 2016-04-07 03:02:44

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#524 2016-04-07 07:42:17

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#525 2016-04-07 08:58:24

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