So Crazy Steve has actually contributed something useful to the sum of human knowledge? I'm gobsmacked and discombobulated. I thought he was just a clown.

I think you will be surprised. Contrary to popular belief systemd is actually pretty easy to work with, once you have grasped the basics.

I'm sure I could work with systemd, if I had to. I'll admit I don't know a lot about it, so I've had a quick browse through here:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Systemd

Now, to me, that lot looks a long way from upholding the KISS principle. And this quote didn't inspire confidence:
No, it seems too radical a change to Linux in general, Slackware in particular, in my opinion.
I'll admit, too, that I'm allowing personalities to influence me slightly against systemd. I've watched some of LP's talks, read some of his articles, but it would infringe LQ rules to comment any further.

Red Hat wants to get rid of shell scripting completely, because that adds power to the system administrator. Corporate enterprises don't want powerful system administrators. See where SELinux and capabilities came from? First they tried XMLing everything and now we see INI files. The next logical step from INI is a binary registry database without any possibility to add comments, overcomplicating things further.

It's a completely different philosophy and once you understand it, it makes complete sense. But for an IT enthuiast there is really no point to bother with that kind of boring/ubercomplex corporate software, unless you get paid heavy compensation for it.

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http://www.jeffstory.org/wordpress/?p=1220

Facts speak for themselves...

I'll pass, thanks.

Citation needed.

Arch is a nice system, AUR is the probably the best community driven repository on the Linux world. Systemd is ok for my usage, had a few annoyances here and there (went back to Slackware then) but mostly because I am unfamiliar with it. Since I still can't get why it exists and I strongly dislike its attempt of reinventing all the wheels and I dislike the developers I won't use it.

You,ME and prolly hundreds...thousands...bunch of arrogants !!!

i have used Arch Linux in the past (2011) when they still had the installer and no systemd. Nowadays, I prefer Slackware over Arch, because:

- the system has a stable release and I can be sure it will be reliable
- no surprises
- no systemd
- installer, that does perfectly what it is for: install the system. And i do not need online documentation to accomplish this.
- I can install Slackware and get a ready to use, working system from the default DVD media only
- only important updates of the system pop up in the stable branch
- at the same time, third party software, like LibreOffice from AlienBob gets updates frequently
- SlackBuilds.org: IMHO, the collection there is quite rich already, has passed inspection by the core team, there are no duplicated items, and gets frequent updates, as well

So, to summarise: Slackware stays very stable, robust and a little conservative. However, this is combined with frequently updated third party software.

I think, that's a very good compromise.

Otherwise, I still think Arch Linux is an excellent system for those who like to experiment with their OS and have the latest software.

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Very easy to get banned from Arch forums, just rub a little in about systemd, pottering, sieverts, and lo!, you are banned

One day I said I was using ArchBang, got banned for a month.

Used Arch for 2 years. The forum is full of people with superiority complex. They think every body posts without reading. Very rare that you get a straight forward decent reply to your query. One or the other will show you how dumb you are. The moderators are gods.

Used arch only for pacman

Guys, this tread is getting pretty negative.

I find Arch Linux to be a breath of fresh air, especially compared to Windows. Slackware is great as well as Debian and Fedora. I even find LTS Ubuntu great. Everything had their niche and everyone has their likes and dislikes. No reason to diss the communities

The negativity always happens when you mention Arch or systemd. The community tends to piss people off because it's not all warm, gooey and all encompassing and systemd is polarizing to say the least.