Stable or testing or similar versions do not exist in Arch linux. While it rolls along for years without problems just by regularly upgrading with a package manager, mishaps may happen. About a week ago there was a major, major screw up in Arch. After a regular update and a new kernel 2.39.1 many people including me, just couldn't boot any more. Other people reported kernel fails to load modules, etc.

After six years with Arch this is the first time to me that something like this happens. I thought something is incompatible, so I tried a fresh, net install. Kernel waits for "eternity" to process udev, than it fails, and it goes to Call trace w/o any other error messages. We can not examine system logs because we couldn't boot, of course. Sometimes it display just Call trace without any explanation or hints... Some people are not affected as much. Perhaps hardware plays a role there too.

It may take a while till they iron out all issues with the new kernel, if it's about the kernel. Who knows what... Back in 2004 I abandoned Slackware as Arch seemed so appealing, easy to process packages, simple maintenance and so on... and I really loved Arch. Two days ago I installed Slackware again. Being so disappointed after this issue I am not sure if I'll return to Arch. Probably not. As much as I value Arch's as simple and easy, so I value Slackware's reliability as a tested version.

I'm running 2.6.33 right now - the latest kernel provided in the Arch core download. After installation, I tried to do a 'sudo pacman -Syu,' and I got an error saying that ndiswrapper needed kernel 2.6.4. Thus, unless I missed something (and I very well may have because I'm a n00b), the rolling releases do not work if you're too far behind. (Mind you, I dl-ed the latest Arch torrent no more than 2 weeks ago).

I somehow must manually install the 2.6.34 (or 2.6.36) kernel. I wouldn't go above 2.6.36 right now; there are a number of threads reporting problems from .37 and up.

I am using 2.6.39-ARCH and haven't noticed any problems. I am also using E17, XFCE4 and Fluxbox. Not really sure if any of the other DE's or WM's have anything to do with stability issues and the kernel or not. Or for that matter what would be causing it if it was related to the DE's or WM's.

Note: As I said, I am only guessing. I am not sure if that has anything to do with it or if it is even possible.

Nothing to do with WMs or anything similar, it's all hardware related. Arch is moving fast ahead and also dropping support for less known and older chipsets, video cards...
May work if you downgrade to their previous kernel, or compile your own with all modules and support you need for your specific old hardware.

I understand now. I thought maybe some conflicts or something but your explanation makes sense.

So then is Arch not the right distro for older hardware?
Is there a list of supported hardware on the website that I missed?

Depends, certainly not any more for my six years old tower with all Intel chips. Not that I 've seen any list of supported hardware.

It depends on the hardware. A friend of the family gave me an AMD 900 MHz Compaq unit with 320 MB RAM. The unit had Windows ME. It was so infested with spyware and viruses it would hardly run. I did a clean install with Arch today and it runs very well with XFce 4.8 and the latest 2.6.39.x kernel.
I am primarily a Slacker, but, I like Arch a lot too.

Yep. Nothing beats the rock-steady reliability of Slackware. But, like me you will probably return to Arch in the future. The pacman package manager is an amazing utility. I got frustrated awhile ago with Arch and blew it out in favour of Debian 6.0. Debian 6.0 is also a very reliable, stable OS. I currently run mostly Slackware units, but, my testing box runs Arch. I'm enjoying Arch a lot. I like configuring everything from /etc/rc.conf. My background with FreeBSD and Slackware makes me feel right at home with Arch.

Yes, you can really roll along for years, that's true.
No really well.
You can completely update your system with just one command: "pacman -Syu". Or "pacman -Syyu".
But if your last update was several months ago, you'll get new config files with "*.pacnew" extension and they will need to get some attention from you. Otherwise your system won't work properly. Many more things to know... You can even break Arch with an update. Your DE can break, also some other parts of the system... The point is: it won't be just one command to update the whole system. One command and hours of work later. But again - this is the case of updating an old system. If you updated last week, it will probably be just fine.