Hi: To begin with, Slackware (SW) uses bash and Arch uses zsh (by default).
Arch uses pacman as a package manager, SW does not. Of course both are
Linux, but I don't know anything about Arch and I, an old user of SW,
am now obliged to use it.

Anyway, the question is: Is there a great difference, for the end user,
and I am thinking of a cli user here, between the two of them? Could I expect
to get familiar with Arch after a few hundred hours use?

Ooh, I want to hear more of this story.

Who's forcing you to use Arch?

Are you at a school or company that's actually using Arch?

Anyway... another big difference would be the init system. Arch uses systemd.

It's simple enough. I have tested several Linux distros, among them Slackware, and none of them are able to write the eMMC "hard disk", save Arch Linux. By the way, systemd does not make a difference for the end user. It's operation is transparent.

Installing Arch is more labor intensive than installing Slackware, as you need to build Arch into what you want, whereas Slackware gives you a fully-functional multi-featured system out of the box. The one caution I've heard about using Arch is that you must keep it updated; not doing so can lead to issues as updates are issued frequently and uninstalled updates pile up. (I've played with Arch, but not used it on a regular basis.)

On the command-line level, I think you will find Arch a nice piece of work and not have any issues with it.

I agree with you about SystemD. Philosophical objections aside, the fact that it works is likely its most annoying feature.

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I ran Arch for a time several years ago and it is a good idea to frequently update your system. At the moment I'm running all Slackware(one Slackware box is a dual boot with OpenBSD).

Arch evolved out of Slackware and like most flavors of Linux these days the greatest differences are found in Package Management. Package management influences almost everything especially when combined with automated dependency resolution. Arch, being a Rolling Release is powerfully altered to suit that feature. All the rest like choice of shell as default are available to all distros AFAIK.

Regarding installation, there is a minor fork of Arch, called "anarchy" that provides a menu-driven installation not unlike that of Slackware's. BTW it is not only recommended that one update Arch regularly and often, it is a requirement.

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You sure about that? Pretty sure that Arch was developed from scratch with a lot of influence and ideas from Crux.

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Basically, initially they borrowed the CRUX package tools, and applied them over Slackware, adding in the mix the fatwa "the latest software releases are the best"

The latest component of the mix made the ARCH (in)famous for its instability.

Surely, over time, ARCH evolved in something entirely different by CRUX and Slackware. BUT still, even today the ARCH tutorials apply well to Slackware, as you know...

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This will be slightly off-topic, but: You could try using the USB installer for slackware-current to install 14.2. That's what I did (because of my laptop's eMMC card not being recognized by the 14.2 installer).

They have a "full install" too, BTW...

And an ARCH's full install is several times bigger than Slackware.

Not as big as the Ubuntu, thought. That, considering that an Ubuntu "full install" has easy over 100GB.

Our OP try also to install (whatever) Linux in a 4GB partition, which essentially enter in contradiction with the traditionally fully recommended and only supported "full install" of Slackware (which has around 9GB in the 14.2 incarnation).

“Citation needed”

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I was there, I seen that.

Seriously speaking, I followed the ARCH development since its inception, when it was just an obscure idea of "Slackware with deps and more efficient build system".

OK, that happened until relatively recent times. No time today to mess with ARCH.

Still, out of my old habits, usually I stay in the Slackware's -current.

BTW, would be really nice if Slackware would adopt the ARCH's BUILDPKG. It is a script made in bash, and its usage results in much less verbose build scripts.

OK, probably it should be adapted to generate Slackware packages and... to strip the deps support.

Regarding Slackware roots for Arch I csan't say that I see it but some tree of Linux distros I saw listed it that way and some early Arch users said it was so. It is so different now that it's barely worthy of mention IMHO, but that's what I've heard. Frankly I don't get the whole Rolling Release thing which is where the instability comes from. Guys who like it tell me they have minimized that but still, why ever endanger the base system? to what advantage?

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SalixOS does something like that. I am fine with SlackBuilds. They do the job and they are used to build the system, itself.

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