this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2023
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whats so good about arch? is it faster?
due to the nature of arch and its rolling releases, it tends to get bleeding edge updates/features rather than having to wait for a major update to iron itself out then get rolled out. If you're a gamer for example, if Valve fixes a bug in the gpu driver, then Arch would probably get it asap (especially given that Steam OS is arch based)
It's just another distro that has gained a following more because of some perceived superiority than any truly practical reason. If you're new to Linux I wouldn't recommend it.
What's good about it is that if you know what you're doing you can install only what you need and keep your system small and tidy. Also, since it's a rolling distro, updates become available really quick and sometimes some of the updates introduce optimizations (meaning more performance) or better power consumption. And finally of course Arch has also an amazing wiki, they have hands down the best Linux documentation along with Gentoo, and they even have a page about Thinkpads: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Laptop/Lenovo
You have the freedom to customize it how you want. The downside is that you have to customize and install everything yourself. A happy compromise is to get an arch based distro which handles a lot of the main stuff, my current favorite is endevour os.
but cant you customise any distro yourself?
Yes, but with arch you have to because you have to set it up yourself. In all seriousness, arch is a great base but unless you have the patience and knowledge to set it up yourself, staying with arch based distros (like Manjaro) is much easier. And if youβre new to Linux in general but actually wanna try it, start with something like Mint. Itβs fast, stable, easy to work with and this a good entry point
Yes, but that's not the same thing as "all distros are really the same" just to be clear.
Some folks would have to spend so much time ripping things out of Ubuntu or Fedora etc that it's much easier to build Arch with only what they want.
There are other benefits, but like everything else, not everyone cares about the same things.
If you feel like no distro does things the way you'd prefer, Arch may be for you. If you have no complaints about whatever distro you use, there's probably not any reason to jump ship to Arch.
Here are a few articles.
https://www.systranbox.com/an-introduction-to-arch-linux-exploring-its-features-and-benefits/
https://linuxiac.com/archlinux/
https://www.howtogeek.com/872962/arch-linux-vs-ubuntu/
https://www.debugpoint.com/arch-linux-vs-other-distros/
The better way to say it is you need to build Arch youself. Other distros you can customize after installation, but you need to install Arch piece by piece by yourself. Hence the suggestion to go with EndeavorOS which makes installation easier.