Arch linux, I love it!

It may not be the most talked about Linux distribution, but it most certainly IS the most controversial. Seen as the flyboy's distro, bleeding edge, likely to break at any time; Arch Linux has its fair share of detractors.

But theres something elegant about it. Once set up, it tends to go without a hitch, and theres plenty of ways to automate the install process, you can even download premade distros, some that actually endeavour to increase stability. Arch, after all thats been said about it, may be the most extensible distribution of them all.

I've been using Arch for about two months now, and had my own problems with it, mainly bluetooth and pulseaudio. I decided to try Manjaro - thinking it would be too difficult to install arch and keep my original home folder. But in the end I knew I needed Arch, its just too nice to be there on the edge of the cliff, feeling the wind in my hair, knowing any moment I could fall, and that my computer could explode. Its a good feeling.

Arch to me, is quite a libertarian distribution, its definitely small government, it lets you do whatever you want. You can simply have a cli environment, or you can have any DE/WM you want, seriously, it has THE largest selection of DE's out there, all the latest upstream releases. Its kernel is as close as you can get to upstream, and if you use the AUR you can get that too (or compile yourself).

Installation is ridiculously hard first time round, if you've never done it before you're going to have to follow the wiki or use a youtube video, or if you like you can have a pop at the aui script - which I used today to reinstall arch (utterly amazing, goes above and beyond!)

It solved almost every problem I had (bar the home folder problem which simply required me to specify the home folder in useradd)

I feel that Linux is pretty much the answer to the problem of safety and security on the web. Its inherently more secure - largely due to root access being restricted, and when you're using up to date programs you have all the loveliness of upstream security updates, with no one inbetween. Try Arch, theres not much to say about it other than its a real learning experience, one that is mightily fulfilling.