Disclaimer: Generally speaking this topic is about my experience with Arch and my early impressions with it.

A little backstory: In the past I tried Arch a few times (the last time was in 2015), never stick with it (lack of Linux experience back then) and I was afraid of the "too fast updates policy".

Now the story is different: After running Debian Stable (Jessie, after that Stretch) for 3 years, I said to myself "You should give Arch a chance one more time." and I installed it on my spare laptop...

First Impressions

The installer and the initial setup was my favorite part. I don't understand how a text based installer can be a hard "experience". The Wiki is just perfect and mind blowing (I even used it when I searched for specific Debian packages because I usually assembly the install myself)! It went really fast and the boot was about 2 seconds in total...

First, I had slight annoyances with the idea that I must enable manually every service but thinking about this - this is the best option.

Then it was time to install my "minimal setup" for KDE (I always avoid 80% of the KDE apps and install what I use). I was pretty amazed that they had small dependencies unlike Debian, where I explicitly selected what I want to avoid the dependency wave. To my surprise KDE was not only responsive but very stable and well integrated DE (that comes from month of using Plasma 5.8.6).

Next on the "To Do List" was checking for drivers and after installing the Intel drivers and running "dmesg" for a quick look, everything worked. I said "Man, why everything works?"! I expected to add missing firmware and stuff, find that my Bluetooth is not working or my WiFi but nope (this is not my usual Debian setup after all).

And lastly, I installed the LTS versions of the packages where possible (LTS kernel, LO Still) and technically I slowed down the updates. One day is too little to judge but I'm really impressed so far!

PS: I still love and use Debian Stable on the other laptop. I just pointed out what I liked in Arch and why I prefer it now for my main system.

Thanks for reading!

word!

I've never installed plain arch. But I've seen good results from arch based distros, I imagine the original would still be better.

As far a Arch Wiki. What would we do without that? Such a great resource!

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so I go this blank black screen, no means to refer to arch wiki or and other wiki for that matter for instructions. I got a usb sick with every other distros known to mankind created and I do not need a wiki or two laptops/desktops to help me install a Linux distro. that Arch installing part is by far out dated. that is why mankind invented another means to install Linux.

It's my personal opinion, mate. If you don't like it - don't use it.

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and I was just sharing my personal option on Arch, mate and it is a valid one.

And here is the final configuration (for now) of my desktop:

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What system monitor are you using? It looks really cool!

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I'm glad you like it! This is conky with the LSD widget from Conky Manager. For the terminal I'm using Archey.

Thanks for sharing. I haven't used Conky Manager before, but it looks like it would simplify configuration greatly.

You can always add the mainline kernel too and select between the two at boot. The fast updates aren't bad, sometimes a little bumpy but I run -Syu almost everyday and find that seems to work best, others might not agree. I find it easier to deal with the bumps in the smaller daily batches than waiting a month or so (sometimes work away from home for long times and those are usually the more involved updates).

Arch had a graphical installer years back. No one wanted to maintain it so they dropped it. No one wanted it. Some people make their own.

This makes one learn a little, and it's all there.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Installation_guide

Sure. Each to his/her own. I like the text-based installer on Arch. It meets my needs as all of the operating systems that I like don't come with GUI installers.
This is the Arch Plasma desktop on my Dell 780. Very light and fast.

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