Arch Linux

You cannot unsee the fat man with a triangle on his shoulders.

Arch Linux is a rolling release GNU/Linux distribution focussed on minimalism, simplicity, and elegance. Arch is often used by advanced users in light of its relatively difficult installation process. Arch is a distribution favored by the /g/ community for ricing.

If you're looking for some troubleshooting with Arch, go take a look at the ArchWiki and/or Arch Linux Forums. They're very useful.

Advantages

• Minimalist installation process
• Near-complete customization
• Excellent package management
• Offers bleeding-edge software; always up to date (hence, rolling-release)
• The very complete Arch User Repository; every package you want is highly likely to be either in the official repositories or in the AUR
• Godlike wiki
  

  A comic made by 4chan showing some issues with Arch

Disadvantages

In addition to the advantages of using Arch Linux, there are also a number of costs, including:

• Offering bleeding-edge software can cause stability issues
• When Arch Linux breaks, it is often difficult or time-consuming to repair
• A minimalist installation process can often confuse new users
• Smaller community than other distributions, for example, Ubuntu
• Software in the AUR isn't always to be trusted to be safe or up to date
• systemd

Installation

Arch's installation process is a fully command-line process. If you can't into command-line, you won't into Arch. See installers or lesser distros such as Artix or EndeavourOS for an automated install.

The Arch Linux website supplies ISO files that the user may flash onto a USB flash drive to install.

For beginners, it is recommended to use the Arch Beginners Guide which helps providing a well documented and easy to follow installation process. For average or advanced-level users, a Wiki page is offered on the Arch Wiki that describes the install process from scratch.

Package management

pacman is the package manager for Arch. This uses the repos specified in /etc/pacman.conf.

paru is one of many pacman wrappers that manages packages from the Arch User Repository. Beware, this software is not maintained by the distro maintainers.

Forks

Parabola GNU/Linux-libre is an FSF-endorsed Arch derivative which repositories only contain free software.

EndeavourOS is an Arch Linux easy installer, formerly known as Antergos. A wide variety of desktop environments are available.

Artix Linux is a Arch Linux based distribution without systemd. You can get the minimalist base ISO, or with a desktop environment / window manager and preconfigured Calamares installer. You have the choice of three alternative init systems: OpenRC, runit, or s6.

SteamOS 3 is Valve's own Arch-derived Linux distribution built specifically for handheld games consoles like the Steam Deck. It uses an immutable file system approach in a similar fashion to Fedora Atomic and NixOS.

Controversy

Many channers call Arch Linux a "meme OS". This is mostly due to the fact that it does have a package manager, however it is very glitchy and most Arch users compile. Furthermore, a large number of users in their community are underage and in a middle school grade level. There have been many criticisms for Arch Linux for not using the GNU coreutils and instead using busybox for its userland. This is mostly a criticism of followers of the Free Software Foundation, and users of Arch Linux (and members of the Open Source community) often refute it by stating that the GNU coreutils are bloated in their coding.

The complexity of Arch Linux makes it difficult as a beginner's distro, however it's use makes it good as an advanced distribution.