ARCH

Introduction Arch Linux is a bleeding edge Linux Distribution, that is mainly focused on simplicity, according to them "...without unnecessary additions, modifications, or complications..", read its philosophy. It has a powerful and efficient package manager Pacman

I will in this Arch Linux review, to be fair and not biased.

Release cycle Arch Linux is a rolling release distribution, meaning there is no specific dates for new releases, it is continuously developing, it is almost always at the bleeding edge, with the most updated versions of packages. This means you only have to install once, and then just keep updating arch, and you will always have the most "recent release", this is one of the aspects I like the most about Arch Linux

Installation

You can install Arch Linux from a CD or from a USB flash memory, they provide you with ISOs for the CD installation and with USB images for the flash memory installation. They provide with two ways to install, from the network or from the media, anyway you end up with a very minimal installation, it is a base system. From this point you have to install all the software you may need, if is more or less like installing Debian minimal CD, and choosing nothing when running the tasksel. This is another thing I like about Arch Linux, you may install only the needed software and do not end with a bunch of software you will never use, and do not be afraid about the process of installation their wiki pages are a great source of information, and everything is explained there.

Configuration

Configure Arch Linux is really simple, and I think they achieved their goal of keeping it simple, you mainly have two configuration files. /etc/rc.conf where you can define the modules to be uploaded, and the daemons to be started, among other things, I like this way to configure modules and daemons, I am a Debian fan, and like this even more than the way Debian does. The other configuration file is /etc/pacman.conf where you configure all necessary to install new packages and keep your system up to date, including mirrors.

Repositories

Arch Linux comes with four official repositories, they are:

• core, which contains all the packages needed to set up a base system
• extra, which holds packages not required for the base system, including desktop environments and programs
• testing, a special repository, with packages that are candidates for the core or extra repositories.
• community, which contains packages built and voted on by the community; includes packages that have sufficient votes and have been adopted by a "trusted user".

You will find all you need for a normal work on these repositories, at least they were enough for me so far.