Archbang is a rolling release distro, with live CDs issued four times a year. It’s based on Arch, and the differences are that Archbang installs a GUI and some software for you, and its forum is friendly instead of rude.

All of the documentation warns that it’s neither user-friendly nor suitable for beginners, and this is born out by the installer. For example, it only enables you to choose a keyboard at the stage where you can optionally edit configuration files. But do you know the abbreviation for your keyboard driver? And to configure, you’ll need “#”; do you know where it is on the default US keyboard? It’s vital to read an installation guide before you start, to know what what questions you’ll be asked and what the answers are.

The only software installed is Firefox, Shotwell, Gnome-mplayer, DeaDBeeF, and the media codecs. There is no GUI tool installed for adding software, so you can’t see what’s available: only search for programs or their descriptions. The installer is pacman. I couldn’t get it to work until I remembered it first had to load the repository data with “pacman -Sy”, which isn’t mentioned in the pacman man page. When I asked for LibreOffice, it offered over 100 versions. I chose UK, only to find that’s Ukrainian! If you don’t choose, you get Afrikaans by default. At least all the software provided or installed worked perfectly, and the media player coped with everything, even my “mp4 from hell”.

Archbang will run Firefox or LibreOffice in 128MB, so it invites comparison with AntiX, Bodhi, Salix, Swift, and ZorinOS. Those are all far easier to install, and have reasonable package managers; nevertheless, this is a sound distro, and pleasant to use if you know what you’re doing.