I love you. I just got an AMD64 system and I've been hunting for something nice to install alongside Arch32 that is nice and light off the bat that has a binary package manager. You'd be suprised how hard this requirement is to meet (and not be a big name that I need to download 5 CDs for) but I completely forgot about the BSDs!

Thanks

For me its NetBSD followed by FreeBSD. The only problem with NetBSD is that it does not have as many packages as FreeBSD available using pkgsrc.

Gentoo is great if you have lots of free time. Arch is it for me for awhile

In reality I don't notice much difference between distros except in boot-up time. But that's because each distro is configured differently to run boot up tasks. Some prefer the safer approach by trying to check hardware every time. In reality that's what takes up so much time to boot Linux. Hardware detection as well as hard-disk checking.

But as far as regular performance is concerned, I hardly find a difference between compiling my own packages or using a stock binary package. In reality performance depends much on the way the system is configured, which has nothing to do with x86 optimization or compiler flags. For example, if you use KDE with lots of eye-candy, it's going to be slightly slower than KDE without eye candy and much slower than if you use a lightweight WM. That's what makes the difference. With pure command-line, you hardly notice any kind of performance issues between distros...

I mean filesystem also has it's role in speed. Since i'm using reiser4 in Arch i noticed a speed improvement in almost everything that involves reading/writing to HD's

Yes. Arch is the best performer. Processing/disk access time + compile time (0) + dependency-resolving time (0) + fiddling with settings and optimizations time = the minimum of any distribution.

Currently booted into Arch after a long, long time. Arch + Fluxbox is an ideal desktop for lower end machines. Even on newer hardware, Fluxbox is quite a lightweight desktop which simply flies.

The only disadvantage of not having KDE or Gnome is that you miss all those KDE apps that make the DE so productive over a WM.

sigh

currently using arch(+garnome-daily), but lfs style debian also good(time saver).

Arch + Ratpoison = ideal desktop.

hi,

Arch is really a good compromise for my oven-laptop anyway maybe ratpoison is good old machine but it's not so usable but if somebody likes minimal WM why don't you use evilWM? Why do you exclude tWM :-))) you only need to install X and it's surely minimal.

deadlinx

Arch is faster than slack, boot time for arch = 12 sec. 16 with cups and hp-lip.
Slack=30 without cups too~

it takes you 30 mins to download and compile ndiswrapper?