So I tried it. The installation worked great and was quite easy. However by default it doesn't offer a KDE desktop, so I tried GNOME. Which was really much more bare bone than I expected, even with the additional packages already selected during the installation.

Well, I get that Arch is all about customization, but at least for me it seems much more of a hassle than it is worth 😅

I also used the Anarchy Installer a while ago and it's very useful.

Nonetheless you are correct, Arch sadly takes the do-it-yourself a bit too serious imo, so the Arch team even denies some very easy changes to make the lifes of users easier.

Still I recommend Arch.
It wasn't nearly as complicated as I imagined it to be.
So if any reader of this is interested in Arch, don't believe all the comments about how difficult it is.
Essentially it works just like any other Distro and (temporary) breakage of the system (because of the bleeding edge/rolling release approach) is very very rare.
The only difference is that you need to adjust some (more) things (mostly configs) yourself, in relation to other distros, where you maybe need to adjust less things.

And the benefits of Arch makes it my distro of choice:
-many packages available
-most packages are very recent
-very clear package build-system (others are imo far more complicated to understand)

My recommendations/notes are:
1. Be aware that you need to start all systemd services yourself.
2. Be aware of the .pacnew "problem": https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pacman/Pacnew_and_Pacsave (which is one of the things the arch team does not want to make easier)
3. Use pamac (the Manjaro package manager) (available on AUR: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/pamac-aur-git/ ): this will make your life a lot easier (GUI, AUR-support etc.), but be aware of the .pacnew problem (see above) (bug report: https://gitlab.manjaro.org/applications/pamac/-/issues/877 )
4. Read the documentation ( https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/General_recommendations) and wiki ( https://wiki.archlinux.org/).
5. For some programs you need to adjust the config files manually to get it to work (but thankfully this is mostly covered in the Arch wiki).
6. Always take a look at the AUR PKGBUILD files to check whether it's up-to-date and correct etc.

Last edited by dr_jekyll on 9 September 2020 at 1:28 pm UTC

Recently found the Calam-Arch-Installer project and used it for my current setup, and it worked flawlessly, I recommend it: https://sourceforge.net/projects/blue-arch-installer/files/arch-installer/

Much prefer it over Anarchy or Archfi, which I've both had issues with in the past.

It has KDE as an option if you so desire.

Last edited by Akitake on 19 September 2020 at 7:39 pm UTC