Why Arch Linux?

08 Jan 2016 . linux . Comments

I have been a Linux user for some time, with vast knowledge in Debian based systems. My OS of choice before Arch was Ubuntu. This served as a great learning environment, but often found the release cycle and locked package versions a pain… As a IT professional I like tinkering and playing with new features. Ubuntu just wasnt cutting it for me… Always doing a release upgrade every 6 months was getting old.

So I choose Arch linux as a new project, The reason I picked Arch over others is:

1

Rolling release cycle - no more release upgrades, just the latest packages, all the time.

2

No Setup GUI - I actually had a learn how to install Linux Including Partitioning, LUKS, bootloader, xorg, drivers etc - And this meant I could set it up how I wanted, if I want BTRFS over LUKS, I can do that, or If I want wnt to install wayland instead of x11, I can also do that.

3

Huge community support and very informative wiki pages. The Wiki and forums and amazing and very well written, I found myself in the wiki almost everytime I needed to learn something. They were actually written well, not just a “run this command” style, but included definitions. I also found the Arch IRC channel useful also.

4

You get a clean slate after the install - When you install you get nothing, and I mean nothing, no GUI, no applications (execpt some base stuff) and nothing “preconfigured”. I got to install what I wanted and where I wanted, no bloatware or unrequired services.

Arch has been a great experience for me and am learning new stuff every day. Anyone interested how to install Linux should have a go, or at least read up on the installation process. If you have no Interest in Arch, The Wiki is still very relivant for learning and even applying the knowledge to Debian or other OS distrubutions.