I just installed arch from the 0.6 CD, thinking it would be easy to upgrade things... but although I have a working internet connection, none of the listed "current" or "extra" ftp sites in /etc/pacman.conf would connect. So, I downloaded the latest version of pacman and manually compiled it... but now it is looking for /etc/pacman.d (and files within) which does not exist. Where can I get these files?

So far arch has been a bit of a pain... spent a few hours trying to just get my network card working. Eventually got it, the driver name when looking in /proc is via-rhine, but the actual module name was via_rhine.

I'm running Arch 0.7 and yeah, it took some playing to pick an FTP mirror that worked but yeah, once you get one it's good. I'd say reinstall, maybe try 0.7, it's not stable yet I don't think but it's working fine for me.

After figuring out that the resource links just needed /os/i686 put on the end, pacman was able to update itself properly and also do a complete "pacman -Syu" with no problems, so no need to re-install from scratch.

I also got my other kernel modules loaded (sound, usb, etc...) and all programs that have sound (xmms, xine, audacity) appear as though they are playing, there is actually no sound coming from the speakers. So I am obviously missing something here.
[EDIT: sound was muted, used "alsamixer" to fix this]

Also, my dvd's are not playing in xine, saying they are encrypted. Again, something I don't know how to fix off the top of my head.
[EDIT: http://directory.fsf.org/security/crypt/libdvdcss.html solved my problem with this]

Oh well, off to do more research, I'm sure I'll find a lot of other things that don't work, hopefully installing Arch will pay off in the long run. (in mandrake everything just worked after first install on this same machine)

Yeah, mandrake and suse etc are good because everything just works and everything can just work in Arch as well but you get to learn how to fix problems along the way, and usualy it's you who creates the problems