What are the best Arch Linux based distributions?

Default Desktop Environment:XFCE, KDE Plasma, GNOME

RAM:64

Top Pro

Based on Arch and user friendly

Manjaro is an Arch-based distribution with all the benefits of the Arch ecosystem and community but with the added benefit of being much more user-friendly than Arch. See More

Top Con

Calls itself "stable," but actually just holds Arch Linux repositories back for a week

CompetentLevana's Experience

Daily driver for the past year. Simple enough for newbies yet configurable enough for more advanced users. See More

Top Pro

Stable and consistently up to date

Manjaro receives regular updates, but more importantly these updates are stable. The updates are rolled out, which means you can easily update the software without needing to re-install the operating system, as opposed to fixed release distributions (Cough, cough: Ubuntu.) Furthermore, Manjaro's package repositories are two weeks behind Arch's, and the Manajro team tests these packages in this two-week period. This is how Manjaro guarantees both latest and stable software. See More

Top Con

Based on Arch but uses its own repositories

Manjaro repositories are basically curated snapshots of the official Arch repositories with a number of Manjaro-specific packages and customisations added. This means updates, fixes and new releases are not always available to you when they become available in the Arch repositories. Having to wait a week or more for the repositories to be updated is not uncommon. Also, instructions from the otherwise incredibly useful Arch wiki might not apply fully to your Manjaro system. See More

ExceptionalLaima's Experience

Very stable and friendly. But, same php codes running fast in Peppermint 8, quite slow in Manjaro ... that is the only problem I get so far, the others are fantastic, especially I can find a lot of free tools in the "Add and Remove Software" such as XMind8. Dia, ProjectLibre, etc. See More

Top Pro

Arch User Repository access

Manjaro allows the user to access the Arch User Repository, a very large user-maintained repository of packages for Arch Linux and derivatives. The Manjaro repository also includes AUR-helpers like yay, which are not easily available on Arch. See More

Top Con

Developers failed to renew SSL certificate not once, but twice

https://manjaro.github.io/SSL-Certificate-Expired/ See More

DiplomaticIlabrat's Experience

Recommand Manjaro , work better than other anny distro, specialy with Xfce and Budgie. No other linux 4ever . I use linux sience to 2003, and Ubuntu now it's not a king, the new king is Manjaro. Use manjaro from 3 years,never crash or some issue with ! See More

Top Pro

Support for multiple kernels

Manjaro has built-in support for multiple kernels as well as a way to easily install them. See More

Top Con

Calls itself "stable," but actually just holds Arch Linux repositories back for a week

PioneeringPazuzu's Experience

Brilliant See More

Top Pro

All major desktops and even less common ones like Budgie, LXQT, Deepin, I3 etc. can be directly installed from official repositories

Also available as independent variants. See More

Top Con

Bad dependencies

This is similar to the mac0S experience in that you're not allowed to remove plank. See More

PerceptiveAkurra's Experience

A Linux part-time user since 1999, I was dual-booting Windows, and Mint Linux at one point, before trying Arch for a few years. I no longer felt like the distro I'm using gets in my way of doing things like Ubuntu felt every time I try it, but grew tired of Arch breaking what seemed like every other few updates. When I discovered Manjaro Linux eight years ago I dropped Windows altogether in favor of Linux full-time a few years after running it. I find it easy to maintain, great community, fast, powerful, simple as other user-friendly distros, but open to for me to be a power user and tinker with things as I do from time to time. I find it as or more stable than any other distros. In the 1st few years of existence it would break a few times on updates, but still fewer issues than other distros I've run. Any real breakage has come from my tinkering more than the distro packages or updates themselves. See More

Top Pro

Friendly community

If you ask questions of users in their forums or on other platforms, they are willing to help you. Also according to the developers, they are open to new ideas in order to make the distro better. See More

Top Con

Bad Dependencies

This is similar to the mac0S experience in that you're not allowed to remove plank. See More

MaybeGreatReviewer's Experience

Manjaro can be easily customized and can use Arch repositories. Works well with KDE Plasma. See More

Top Pro

Excellent graphical package manager (Pamac)

Features include: providing notifications of available updates; mirror management; AUR support (with the option to suppress unnecessary confirmations during the install process); update settings (frequency, whether to check for updates from the AUR, packages to ignore updates for); and a history of packages installed, updated, or removed (from the official repositories - AUR packages are not currently tracked). See More

Top Con

The Manjaro unstable repository is slow to sync with the Arch stable repository

The Manjaro unstable repository syncs with the Arch stable repository and if any package has moved, it gets moved to stable. Manjaro gets package updates a bit than Arch. See More

CaringSamshinHalmoni's Experience

Easy to use and rock solid. Easy installation as compared to antergos cnchi which fails most of the time. See More

Top Pro

A rolling-release distribution

Manjaro uses a rolling release method for all updates, so once a system is installed, as long as the user regularly updates there is no need to re-install. See More

Top Con

Uses systemd

GutsyGoorialla's Experience

Very customizable, See More

Top Pro

Easy to start

Top Con

Same cons that apply to Arch Linux

Since it is based on Arch Linux. See More

CleverNinkasi's Experience

Easy to use and the update are sicure thanks to the Manjaro Linux stable repos See More

Top Pro

Manjaro provides its own distribution-specific tools such as the Manjaro Hardware Detection (mhwd) utility, and the Manjaro Settings Manager (msm)

Run automatically during the installation process, it allows for Manjaro to work fully on your system 'straight out of the box', without the need to manually identify and install the necessary drivers or to manually edit the appropriate configuration files. Also usable via the terminal after installation, the features of the mhwd command include: The choice of free (i.e. open-source) or non-free (i.e. proprietary) drivers Identification and listing (general or detailed) of your system's hardware Identification and listing (general or detailed) of installed drivers Listing of available drivers for installation (free and proprietary) Support of hybrid graphics cards (e.g. Nvidia Optimus) Easy removal and installation of drivers (selected automatically, or you can identify and choose your own) See More

Top Con

Make PC freezing when using browser

High CPU and RAM usage when using browser, any browsers :( See More

Verserk's Experience

Very simple to use, good OOTB experience with any of the default desktop environments. See More

Top Pro

Stable

This distro is very stable with either Xfce and Budgie as the DE. See More

Top Con

Bad way of handling dependencies

Manjaro is based on Arch Linux. Arch Linux and its derivatives have a bad way of handling dependencies. To handle dependencies, it installs a whole another program which contains the required dependencies. See More

GraciousHuehuecoyotl's Experience

rock-solid stability with plenty of software to choose from See More

Top Pro

Good documentation and forum

The Manjaro community is very helpful, and there are lots of tutorials. See More

Top Con

Nothing new

There is nothing new in Manjaro compared to any other Arch based distribution. See More

BenNevis's Experience

KDE runs sweetly See More

Top Pro

Uses low memory

By using XFCE (or LXDE, Fluxbox, supported by community) as the default desktop on an install, Manjaro is able to have a low memory footprint. See More

Top Con

Imcompatible with Arch User Repository and archlinuxcn

Because Manjaro packages are not synced with Arch, using AUR or archlinuxcn could break dependencies. See More

DeterminedEloiscol's Experience

Manjaro Cinnamon Edition (Community Edition) is like LinuxMint on steroids. I love it! See More

Top Pro

Improved stability due to a longer testing period for new packages

Packages from Arch's repositories are tested (about two weeks) longer for stability and compatibility issues. Patches are applied, when necessary, before being made available in the stable repositories. See More

Top Con

You can't change the default theme in certain applications

Although it is possible to change the default dark theme, this has no effect on Firefox, which appears to have the dark theme "hard coded". Hardened Linux pros may find a way to change this, but for the rest, it renders an otherwise nice distro a no-go. See More

FascinatingBathala's Experience

It looks great, stable, fast, ideal for beginners. I recommend. See More

Top Pro

Very good looking desktops

All desktops look good by default. See More

Top Con

Weekly manual updates

Since it is rolling release, it needs updates nearly every week, which (though are checked for automatically) must be manually downloaded, confirmed and installed. That may annoy or scare off many new users. See More

MagicalPhlegethon's Experience

Best linux distro (rolling release, very stable, very easy to install and use). See More

Top Pro

Different editions to select from + Manjaro community

You can choose between different Manjaro editions which have their own change in features, and there is also Manjaro community editions where the community can make their own changes. See More

Top Con

Daily manual updates

Since it is rolling release, it needs updates nearly every day, which (though are checked for automatically) must be manually downloaded, confirmed and installed. That may annoy or scare off many new users. See More

CoolManaf's Experience

Manjaro is my default OS, and has been since I first found it. It works fantastic, and it just feels comfortable now. The desktop gets me to where I need to be easily, but lets me customize it deeply at the same time. See More

Top Pro

Based on Arch but less prone to breaking

Manjaro repositories are basically curated snapshots of the official Arch repositories with a number of Manjaro-specific packages and customisations added. Updates, fixes and the like are delayed and only introduced from the Arch repositories once tested more thoroughly. This reduces the number of bugs that might otherwise have reached you - and potentially have rendered your Manjaro system broken beyond repair. See More

Top Con

It's Archbuntu

ResourcefulPenthus's Experience

awesome! See More

Top Pro

Stable, and perfect for newcomers, and as user-friendly as Ubuntu

Top Con

Nothing new

There is nothing new in Manjaro compared to any other Arch based distribution. See More

ClassyBunjil's Experience

Manjaro is very nice for its desktop, its repositories, its architecture and I'm impressed in its GBs need. But Manjaro has some unstable aspects, some unnecessary pre-installed apps, and make my PC slow when using browsera See More

Top Pro

Deepin desktop environment is a worthy attraction

Top Con

Installation is extremely buggy

There's no easy way to switch from local keyboard layout if non-Latin installer language is selected. See More

LuckyTibertus's Experience

it works out of the box See More

Top Pro

Excellent graphical package manager (Pamac)

Features include: providing notifications of available updates; mirror management; AUR support (with the option to suppress unnecessary confirmations during the install process); update settings (frequency, whether to check for updates from the AUR, packages to ignore updates for); and a history of packages installed, updated, or removed (from the official repositories - AUR packages are not currently tracked). See More

Top Con

Redundant

It's just Arch Linux with an easier installer so there is no reason to use it. See More

Eric Waters's Experience

I've tried several Arch based distros (including Arch itself), and Manjaro is the best one IMHO. It has a great look, the community is reasonably friendly, and everything works well right out of the box. The installer is easy to use, and the default application set isn't bulky or excessive. Having the option to not have an office suite during install is nice, and the Steam integration is the best outside of Ubuntu. It uses Pamac-CLI for command-line to manage AUR, which was a perfectly reasonable way to install yay. For graphical package management, however, Pamac is easy to use and set up, with Flatpak and Snap integration available with the click of a mouse. The in-house apps (like Manjaro Hardware Detection) work well, aren't excessive, and stay out of the way. Overall, my favorite distro. See More

Top Pro

All major desktops and even less common ones like Budgie, Lumina, LXQT, Deepin, Enlightenment, etc. can be directly installed from official repositories

Also available as independent variants. See More

Top Con

No gfvs pre-installed

So no Trash (and possibly smartphone file system access via USB) support. See More

ColorfulMictlantecuhtli's Experience

Easy to install and use. See More

Top Pro

Steam comes installed by default

Top Con

Very slow development for 32-bit hardwares

ArchLinux-32 community maintain their forums every day. They upload new ISO's every month. But Mannjaro-32 community upload new ISO's in every 6 month. And provide only an DE-mate. See More

InterestingInariOkami's Experience

stable and fast See More

Top Pro

Manjaro provides its own distribution-specific tools such as the Manjaro Hardware Detection (mhwd) utility, and the Manjaro Settings Manager (msm).

Run automatically during the installation process, it allows for Manjaro to work fully on your system 'straight out of the box', without the need to manually identify and install the necessary drivers or to manually edit the appropriate configuration files. Also usable via the terminal after installation, the features of the mhwd command include: The choice of free (i.e. open-source) or non-free (i.e. proprietary) drivers Identification and listing (general or detailed) of your system's hardware Identification and listing (general or detailed) of installed drivers Listing of available drivers for installation (free and proprietary) Support of hybrid graphics cards (e.g. Nvidia Optimus) Easy removal and installation of drivers (selected automatically, or you can identify and choose your own) See More

Top Con

When the installer finished it's not a pure Arch Linux system

MeticulousIoke's Experience

my os since 1 year See More

Top Pro

Complete

Top Con

KDE problems for Manjaro

ImmaculateTusholi's Experience

Beacuse I Use For Everytime On My Vmware See More

Top Pro

Beautiful

CharmingPhaenon's Experience

It is Arch without the pain, which I like, of going from scratch. See More

MethodicalAlala's Experience

A lot more stable than Arch, VERY friendly to new Linux users, easy swapping of kernels, beautifully integrated desktops, access to the Arch repository and AUR. See More

MethodicalGersemi's Experience

Really low CPU and RAM usage. At idle 0,9GB (on KDE). Nice and simple to use (even though based on arch). See More

Tomasz Mat's Experience

i've been using it on few low end computers & virtual machines, never noticed any instability, it did stop working on one of my less frequently used computers, but i set up too small partition for it, and it filled up during system update. i love using Pacman, the kernel browser is great, it's very easy to setup additional software sources. Overall: great distibution! See More

EarnestAeolus's Experience

From Mint to Manjaro - font rendering wasn't as good, although installation of software is more advanced (better choice, in built 'building' etc). Also issues with sound and video (windows 'shimmer' when video plays in multiple apps and Plex Media Player just kept losing the ability to pass more than 2 channels of sound to HDMI). See More

Ajay Kumar Rawani's Experience

Awesome ! See More

ToughHedetet's Experience

Great; it was my gateway into the Arch architecture. I have moved to EndeavourOS, which installs a bare-bones Arch system. Not set up, nor as bloated, as Manjaro is seen. When I say bare-bones, only yay is available as a package manager, no office suite, no VLC (!). Nonetheless, it's fun to install only the programs you want, and I have hit the taproot. See More

Madsen Altamirano's Experience

I have used Manjaro for about two years now, with a little break from GNU/Linux in between. As a student, I do not have the time to figure out how to get my audio, Bluetooth, or network interfaces working, and if I do know how, configuring them takes time that I would rather not spend. I have tried out other similar Arch-based distributions, but they were incomplete and somewhat lacking. Manjaro simply excels at quickly setting up a working operating system that I can use without breaking it. The community is a stark plus. People are there to help you, even if it's been answered thousands of times (but please, use the search function if you are capable!) Even I will help you there, if I see a problem I know how to fix. If you do use Google or DuckDuckGo to look for problems, the Manjaro Help Forums will likely be part of the search results, and already have an answer. For an example, I found easy-peasy instructions to install a specific WiFi driver from the forum. Why Arch-based, you ask? I simply love the Arch User Repository (AUR), and I am used to using pacman as a package manager (due, in part, to me using Manjaro.) Also, Manjaro is rolling release, so I get much newer versions of packages. But what's great about Manjaro, is that it's default (stable) package repositories are two weeks behind Arch's, and in those two weeks packages are tested a bunch, so Manjaro is somewhat less likely to break than Arch. All this isn't to say that you can't do an Arch-like minimal install. Manjaro includes a net-install tool called "manjaro-architect" that will install a base system, similar to the system you'd get in Arch after rebooting into your clean system. From there you can set up everything from scratch. I hope my experience will be helpful to some newbies out there! Overall, it's been a great beginner distribution for me, and feel confident enough to install a more traditional distribution like Debian or Gentoo. That is, if I have enough time and I forget about the AUR. Cheers! See More

OptimisticChijoraji's Experience

Same as another; left Ubuntu after 11 years, for the availability of apps I couldn't get any more from the Ubuntu repos. I love Manjaro; it's been like falling in love with Linux all over. And, it's as suitable for beginners as for experienced user. J See More

CreativeBachue's Experience

After 11 years of Ubuntu, I said goodbye to Canonical and am able to have my OS autocompile the apps which had vanished from the Ubuntu repos/ See More

CharmingBoreas's Experience

Amazing, easy to use, favours both new and advanced users, been using Manjaro Xfce as my daily driver and have had no issues with it so far, that's if you phase out the normal Linux problems which are in every distro. 10/10 Remember, this is not pure Arch, it is based off of Arch See More

SpiritedVastospati's Experience

I'm using Manjaro for over 1 year, and being a linux user for around 10 years I can say Manjaro is one of the sweetest thing in OS's. At first I thought I was going to miss some packages but the ease and the AUR system gives you more packages and options than any debian or redhat based system can offer. It's also fast and not laggy. I can say I'm delighted. See More

RespectfulLatona's Experience

The distro is fast and the environment has been polished to have a nice experience. But updates usually leaves the system KO and either you have to spend hours repairing or you have to reformat and reinstall much things. That usually not happens on stable distros See More

DignifiedWerethekau's Experience

Bad experience with Manjaro downloaded on 29/8/18. It installed quite well, but it would not connect to the internet. My computer is old, so it could be that. But it did not connect after repeated attempts to connect. I am not a novice! See More

It's just Arch with a graphical installer. See More

36 Other Options Considered

Anarchy Linux

Top Pro

The end result is a well configured standard Archlinux system

Top Con

Nothing new

FunnyRongo's Experience

Win-win. I've had a long love-hate relationship with Antergos. Loved the Arch side, loved the quick install, hated the Antergos packaging (superfluous, out of date, sometimes broken packages). Anarchy is that, without the annoyance of Antergos packaging. See More

Specs

Default Desktop Environment:Budgie, Cinnamon, Gnome, OpenBox, Xfce

Actual Download Link:https://gitlab.com/anarchyinstaller/installer/-/releases

Top Pro

Saves a lot of time to set up an Archlinux system

Once you had your experience to set up an Archlinux system manually from scratch this distro saves a lot of setup time. See More

Top Con

TUI can be confusing for the uninitiated

The TUI is as good as can be expected, but if you're not comfortable with the command line, this isn't where you want to be. See More

EnthusiasticOcypete's Experience

Anarchy is NOT a distribution.... See More

Top Pro

Full access to Arch repositories as well as Aur

Top Con

Just an Installer

Anarchy isn't its own distro, it's just an installer for Arch. That's great if it's what you're after, but don't expect bells and whistles. See More

schlaumeier's Experience

I have used it to set up several archlinux systems. Works like a charm. See More

Top Pro

Many preconfigured Desktop environments supported

Top Con

Anarchy Repo is completely unsigned

Ridiculous security risk. See More

EnterprisingBythos's Experience

THE BEST ARCH INSTALER See More

Top Pro

Fully developed in Bash

Being programmed entirely in Bash, it is relatively easy to find and solve errors or propose improvements. See More

Top Con

Redundant

It's just Arch with a graphical installer and ArchLabs already has this. See More

DebonairItzpapalotl's Experience

I've been trying to download Anarchy Linux for a few days now. Appears their website is down. See More

Top Pro

Everything you need in a small and fast Arch distro

Top Con

The installer has many bugs

Especially during the manually partitioning and the additional software installing procedure. If you do the automatic partitioning and you don't install additional softwares it's ok. See More

PopularPeklenc's Experience

very flexible installer See More

Top Pro

Low setup time

Even a person without prior knowledge will figure out how to set it up quite quickly. See More

PerseveringPodaga's Experience

doesn't have correct keys in it and will not install, out of date See More

Top Pro

LVM on LUKS encryption of whole disk possible

It works! Whereas neither the calamares installer used by arcolinux or manjaro nor the archlabs installer produces a working result. See More

Anoop Krishnan's Experience

Taking testing and development to next level See More

Top Pro

Looks good by default

Eric Waters's Experience

If what you're looking for is a pure Arch system, but you don't want to amess with the arcane process of building it yourself, this is the way to go. There's very little branding (some wallpapers and the default user Avatar are about it), and the TUI installer is as easy to use as TUI installers can be. You can pick and choose your Desktop Environment and a few other apps during install, but there aren't a lot of other options - which, if all you want is an easier way to get an Arch box going, is exactly perfect. Of course, it's going to have all the issues of an Arch setup, plus a few more since it streamlines the install process, preventing you from heading off a few problems before they become problems, but overall it's a great choice as long as you're CLI competent. See More

Top Pro

Supports 32-bit architecture

Use ArchLinux32 instead of the traditional Arch Linux to support 32-bit architectures. See More

LuckyChimalma's Experience

It has got an automated encrypted installation that is just working as opposed to other Arch based distributions. See More

Top Pro

Friendly community

The community and developers are willing to solve any kind of inconvenience. See More

HelpfulNinurta's Experience

Very easy and intuitive to setup, well mantained See More

Top Pro

Good for gaming

Smooth and cool. Easy to get going. See More

Panda Foss's Experience

Anarchy Linux is an installer that greatly facilitates the installation of Arch Linux. As of the date it is active. Its developers and the community in general is very attentive. There are no obstacles when solving any problem or if you want to collaborate. See More

BrilliantSarpanit's Experience

It is very nice and fast os. Good devloper support! i am using it form 6 mnth See More

MethodicalSarutahikoOkami's Experience

They make it easy to install necessary packages to get started on arch before the first boot. See More

Lawae's Experience

Best Linux, great for everything. I even taught my noob friend how to use it and he’s dum. See More

Unbelievably fast for ArcoLinux with XFCE, Openbox, I3. See More

ArcoLinux

Top Pro

Easy to install

Top Con

A bit bloated

It is a bit bloated to many web browsers, text editors out the box. A simple customize menu's for all 3 desktops would have been nice. See More

MagicalAchelois's Experience

Since Antergos shut down, ArcoLinux has been my go-to installer for Arch. I usually download ArcoLinuxD and install a base system, then run my own scripts to get all the packages I want. But recently, the ArcoLinuxD installer added the capability of installing desktops, NVIDIA drivers, etc., so now all I need to do after install is enable the display manager! See More

Specs

Based On:Arch Linux (Rolling)

Default Desktop Environment:Openbox + Xfce + i3

Package Manager:pacman

Price:FREE

Need to install Discord on cell phone and computer. Fastest way to receive help. Community is mostly European on Discord so getting help at midnight may be a challenge. See More

Top Pro

Community support is great

Top Con

Multiple types makes new user confused

Due to multiple types, new user might get confused and leave this all along. See More

ExpertMorta's Experience

This is a beautifully themed distribution and great fun to work with. See More

Top Pro

Easy to isntall desktop environments

Thanks to the manuals provided by the developers it is really easy to install more than 10 different desktop environments that'll work at the same time! See More

Top Con

No single ISO

SuccessfulPolyphemus's Experience

Out of box. Easy to use. Save your time. See More

Top Pro

XFCE, Openbox and I3

Finished Product with almost every tool a experienced user will use. See More

Top Con

Forums are not very friendly or helpful

NeighborlyAmphiaraus's Experience

Bloated and slow See More

Top Pro

Helps you to become a Arch Linux user

Top Con

Small development team

kevin's Experience

Fast, easy, and it works. For a long time Debian and Ubuntu were my go-to Linux distros. I had tried Arch before but I was too impatient to install it correctly. ArcoLinux provides an easy installer and comes preloaded with a lot of software. ArcoLinux allows you to choose from an impressive number of web browsers out of the box. On the development side, it provides a large selection of IDE's and text editors pre-install (including my favorite Atom). I recommend ArcoLinux for anyone wanting to try Arch Linux. See More

Top Pro

Blazingly fast!

Startup time, shutdown time, everything in between. See More

JoyfulTammuz's Experience

Extremely fast with low memory demands and easy to install. I can get more done with the 8 gigs my machine hosts. Astounding amount of software comes pre-installed with many choices for browsers, text editors (including Atom by default which is my preferred editor), office software, games, and MORE! I came from Debian and Ubuntu wanting to try Arch and I was not disappointed. ArcoLinux makes the transition painless. It has become my preferred Linux distro. See More

Top Pro

Easy to install NVIDIA Drivers

Has option to install NVIDIA proprietary drivers. Runs great. See More

ComposedNjirana's Experience

Fast post setup. Very responsive! Choice of popular apps within the calamares installer. Freedom of choice and learning seems to be a major goal of this project. If you want you can check out the Arcolinux Tweak Tool. You can install desktops at the click of a button! Learn, Enjoy and have fun! Eric would say. :) See More

Top Pro

Learning bash script

The fastest way to reload any Linux desktop is a script that will install all your favorite apps. Keep this file on a USB stick Update for any distro from Ubuntu, Fedora, or even Arch Linux back to your favorite apps in minutes. See More

IntellectualMedusa's Experience

Great distro and sooooo flexible! See More

Top Pro

Easy to install, handles system memory well, and a great way to learn Arch Linux

Incredibly fast, easy to install, tons of software pre-installed and easily installs more. See More

ChattyErebus's Experience

The best arch-baed: it fast and beautiful See More

Top Pro

Efficient use of Memory, Easy to Install, Amazingly Fast

OpenBox on Arco Linux is AWESOME! See More

Arch is mainly aimed at experienced Linux users, there is no hand-holding and not much in a way of UI elements when trying to install or tweak settings. See More

Arch Linux

Top Pro

No restrictive handholding, pure control over everything

Top Con

You have to install everything by hand on a command line

This may be a CON for a lot of people that are new to Linux but a PRO to those who actually want to learn something new. See More

CalmRaediengiedte's Experience

Customizable and lightweight!! See More

Specs

Based On:Independent

Default Desktop Environment:N/A

Release Schedule:Rolling

Package Manager:Pacman

Pacman has performance advantages over apt-get and yum in both database operations (thanks to being written for speed) and download times (by virtue of using better mirrors than other distributions tend to select by default). There are also fewer default repositories to download from, and all package management is combined into one tool instead of being split into dpkg, apt-get, and apt-cache like on Debian distros. See More

Top Pro

Fast and simple package management

Top Con

Highly egotistical community

cosmo's Experience

If you want Arch Linux, your best bet is to use Arch Linux! Don't be intimidated by the manual installation, it's much easier than the rumors would have you believe. See More

Top Pro

Excellent documentation

Arch's goal of simplicity means there's usually one preferred way to get things done - through organized and well documented configuration files. This focus, combined with the community's recognition that configuration files can be intimidating, has resulted in excellent documentation that's accessible to newcomers, and very instructive about how Linux actually works. The documentation is often so thorough that, when searching for solutions to problems while using other distributions, such as with video card drivers, oftentimes you'll find the most effective solution in the Arch Linux wiki or on the forums. See More

Top Con

Not for the faint of heart

You need to be very carefully with updates. See More

DaringBelobog's Experience

Super, fastest and no hectic with less memory usage can make simple desktop environment having powerful and strong comparison with other Linux. See More

Top Pro

It is Linux at the core

This distro is barebones enough to make a new distro from. See More

Top Con

Instability can be an issue

Sometimes you can have a surprise, but in most cases it can be fixed quickly. See More

Eric Waters's Experience

If command line is your jam, you're going to love this. Bleeding edge packages, lots of configuration options, and both the binary package library and the AUR repository are so full of stuff that you'll never run out of things to play with. Even if you do manage to find something that isn't in the AUR, building packages is simple. Just a really great experience - if you have the time and patients to build the system in the first place. You're going to have to make sure your read any wikis or man pages before asking for help, though - the community can be a little RTFM, but if you're comfortable setting up the Arch install in the first place, you're probably comfortable solving most of your problems on your own anyway. Oh, I almost forgot - probably the best documentation for any distro. It's so good, in fact, that you can often find your answers there even if you're not using Arch! See More

Top Pro

Cutting edge rolling release

Arch Linux follows a rolling release model, which allows users to stay on the most up-to-date versions of the software they are using. See More

Top Con

Systemd

Uses systemd which makes it incompatible to the UNIX world. See More

CalmUpelluri's Experience

Did a mess-up while installing it. Broke the entire computer! I couldn't use the BIOS (When trying to enter BIOS, the screen just went blacck), the Windows I had installed before couldn't boot, and even after making a USB-stick with Windows, I couldn't reset the computer (Just gave me an error when I tried to.) Couldn't do anything, as I had no operating system. I returned the computer, and it is currently being fixed. See More

Top Pro

A package for almost everything

If you need to install something, chances are someone in the Arch community has already made a package for it. This makes it incredibly easy for you to install and maintain all of the non-media content on your computer. See More

Top Con

Manual install process

CoolHeimdallr's Experience

Novice users beware ... unless your willing to learn. Its solid, its proven, the true test is in the ability of the user to understand their system and the Linux OS, the great thing is, that once you've mastered it, its an awesome system and you CONTROL IT! See More

Top Pro

Great for low performance hardware

Arch Linux works quite well with low performance hardware like netbooks. See More

Top Con

Multiple Aur helpers

Arch has strict reasoning behind what goes into the official repositories accessible by pacman. As a result, many other projects end up in the Arch User Repository (AUR). Effectively using Arch, and getting easy access to all of the available software, means either manually downloading and installing from the AUR, or installing an AUR helper - these work along side the main package manager (Pacman), but are a bit less standardized or heavily supported. See More

PerseveringPodaga's Experience

if one can't read and follow directions ya it is difficult! See More

Top Pro

Highly customizable

Taylor the system to your needs See More

Top Con

No Graphical Installer

ClassyBunjil's Experience

Arch Linux give you control all the things you installed. With high performance, nice community support, ArchWiki for searching way to do, AUR with lots of supporters, I'd love to recommend you to use Arch Linux. See More

Top Pro

Helpful community

If searching through the wiki or the forums for any problems turns nothing, any question on the official forums, Arch subreddit or the IRC channel will be answered within minutes. There will probably be no hand-holding however, Arch users prefer to point anyone to a resource that may help them instead of trying to outright solve their problem in a forum thread. This is quite helpful for people who want to really learn how their system works but also for other people who may stumble in that thread considering how most problems don’t have a universal solution. See More

Top Con

The original

But this is for the best Arch-based distros. See More

Top Pro

Helpful for understanding how Linux is installed

Arch does not come with an automatic installation process. The user is expected to walk through the installation steps published on the Arch wiki. This is very useful if, later, something happens to the installation as the user will be more familiar with the foundational steps required to get a full blown Arch installation working. See More

Top Con

Uses Systemd

Top Pro

Excellent package management with the AUR

The AUR is a repository with a very extensive catalogue of build/install scripts that are contributed by users. While these scripts are inherently less secure than conventional packages maintained by a distro's authors, it's still way easier to verify the security of install scripts than it would be to write them yourself. It's very usefull. See More

Top Con

Works only on AMD64

It is the only official supported instruction set of CPUs. See More

Top Pro

Good overall system quality

QoL of Arch is generally good. You get something more consistent and doable in Arch then you would get with most other OSes. See More

Top Con

Occasional upstream package bugs

Most package maintainers look for issues that the packages might have ispecifically for arch. Which means if a package has a bug that applies to all linux distros regardless of the flavor, the maintainer may not be able to: A) catch it before pushing a update or B) have to wait for the packages developers to fix it. This is a minor issue because most issues are often patched before the end of the day if many users rely on it, or if its a less used package there will be specific troubleshooting instructions on the arch site. See More

Top Pro

As slim or copious as you want it

Arch keeps its core repositories slim and free of unnecessary dependencies. At first installation only a bare system is set up. You can easily get the other applications through the package manager. The repositories are nearly as full as those of Ubuntu, while they are often more up to date. That way you don't have to waste time with software you don't need or want. See More

Top Con

Not really for desktop

More like for posting screenshots on Reddit. See More

Top Pro

Stripped down to the bone

Since its stripped down, it is fast and you don't have to deal with bloatware. See More

Top Con

Poor Steam support - not based on Debian

Since Steam is made for Debian distros, some hard linked applications have issues due to a different library path. See More

Top Pro

Huge Repositories

Although Arch Linux only comes with around 10,000 packages, you can use the Arch User Repositories (AUR) which will add over 50,000 more packages. See More

Top Con

Requires some background with Linux and the command-line to setup

Going in with zero Linux knowledge is not really recommended when wanting to install Arch, though it can be a good learning experience for those that are dedicated to trial and error as well as reading many faqs. See More

Top Pro

Supports various desktop environments and window managers

Doesn't limit you in terms of desktop environments or graphical servers (X, Wayland). See More

Top Con

Rolling release requires bandwidth

Arch uses a rolling release model for updates. Unlike, for example Ubuntu where a new version is released every six months, packages are updated when they are ready. The advantage is a very up to date system and that the work of upgrading can be spread over a longer span of time to a point where it is hardly noticeably effort. However it can be difficult for people without a high bandwidth connection, or with limits on how many GB can be downloaded imposed by their internet service providers. A GB a month of downloads is quite possible. This can be somewhat offset by Arch being lightweight, besides the relatively small core, the user selects what is installed (and has to be updated). See More

Top Pro

An opportunity to improve

The process of learning to setup and use Arch will improve your skills with Linux and computers in general. See More

Top Con

Documentation only makes sense if you know how to adjust it

While the documentation is a very valuable reference for experts, the recipes often don't actually work on your own computer. Some articles are outdated, incomplete, contradictory or duplicated. Only if you are expert enough to know which steps to skip, to adjust or which other documentation parts to plug in, you can make it work. See More

Top Pro

Simplicity is absolutely the principal objective behind Arch development

The design approach of the development team focuses on elegance, code correctness, minimalism, and simplicity, and expects the user to be willing to make some effort to understand the system's operation. See More

Top Con

Too many package upgrades that require manual intervention

Every year or so there is a update to ArchLinux that will break your system unless you first read the front page of archlinux.org. This happened with SystemD and with a few other updates that require you to do prior steps befor pacman -Syu. See More

Top Pro

Support for a large variety of hardware

From latest wacom pads to obscure wireless cards in laptops Arch's hw support has been and continues to be good. It has worked on laptops where other leading distro's like debian/ mint/ ubuntu failed to detect and work with all hardware. See More

Top Con

Not so good multi arch support

It has a very weird multiarch support. See More

Top Pro

Arch Linux Wiki

The Arch Linux Wiki is very useful not just for Arch Linux users, but for anyone who uses Linux. See More

Top Con

Lost its way

It aimed to be KISS but it has lost iits way and is getting more and more complex, for example it uses systemd which is anything but KISS. It also has now some kind of package post configuration included. See More

Top Pro

Helpful for understanding how Linux is installed

Arch does not come with an automatic installation process. The user is expected to walk through the installation steps published on the Arch wiki. This is very useful if, later, something happens to the installation as the user will be more familiar with the foundational steps required to get a full blown Arch installation working. See More

Top Con

Fragile packages

Updating an Arch system is always a gamble. The problem could be as simple as a package having a bug causing a program to crash on start or it may be something bigger like the WiFi or Bluetooth no longer working. There is also the slight chance the system may not even boot at all after a large update. If the user does not plan to read the forums weekly/daily or update fairly often, things can go wrong very fast. See More

Top Pro

Minimal

If you need something, you should install it. It has nothing as default and you can build your system from zero. See More

Top Con

pacman is a slow package manager

Compared to other distribution packages the extracting of a pacman package archives is taking ages. See More

Top Pro

Ultimate mid-range OS for Tinkering

If you like to tinker with things and see how they work you don't get much better than arch linux unless you commit to building your own kernel and using flags manually when installing your packages. See More

Top Con

Not so great overall

Apart from the ArchBuildSystem/AUR, which brings you very quickly newer package versions, there is not really much where Arch Linux shines. You get better package managers with other systems. The most Linux distributions are far more stable than Arch. You learn more about Linux by using LFS or a source based distribution. You can customize the system much more in LFS or Gentoo. See More

Top Pro

Easier to review the distribitions packages.

Unlike other some distributions its super simple to review the packages you download on the official arch repos or arch user repository. See More

Top Pro

No need for external repos

The default and community repo of Arch Linux are so vast, that there is barely any need for additional software sources. And if there is, the additional software can be added to AUR, which results in the need actually growing the Arch repos. See More

Top Pro

Vanilla

Learn about Arch, learn about Linux. What works for Arch, works for many other distros too. See More

Top Pro

Flexible upgrades

Upgrade once a day, once a week, once a month,... three times a day... automate it, upgrade manually, add packages to the ignore list See More

Top Pro

Rolling updates

Updating will keep the whole OS up to date (unlike Ubuntu/Debian/etc. where occasionally you will need to perform major version updates). See More

Top Pro

Incredible educational value

Arch gives great insight in the inner workings of operating systems, computers and data manipulation. See More

Top Pro

Simple by design

Arch linux is actually incredibly simple. Its really just a partition scheme, package manager, Linux kernel, file system, systemd and the bare minimum of utilities needed to easily set up your hardware. This makes it super simple to build your desired system using binary packages because there no bloat getting in your way when installing or configuring packages. See More

Top Pro

Incredibly easy to manage

Arch is very simple to maintain, backup and in rare cases repair and recover. For example, the manual to recover your boot manager is already in the install guide! See More

Top Pro

Vast variety of use and purpose

With it's vast repos, Arch offers tons of applications for all kinds of use. See More

Top Pro

Low maintenance

To basically keep your Arch setup up and running, it takes very little to barely any maintenance. See More

Top Pro

Good for ricing for r/unixporn

Top Pro

Multilib support is just around the corner

Just uncomment the according entries in the pacman.conf See More

Top Pro

Highly reliable upgrades

Always works. No matter if you upgrade 7 or 700 packages. See More

Top Pro

Experts working on the packages

Providers only provide the basic system and do a great job doing so. While with AUR people who actually use the packages, provide and maintain them. They CARE about making them work. See More

Top Pro

Arch is the best!

#!/bin/sh echo "Arch is the best!" See More

Top Pro

Helpful 3rd-party installers

There are extremely helpful 3rd-party installers such as Anarchy Linux (Formerly Arch Anywhere). See More

Top Pro

Highly reliable and stable build

See experts working on the packages and upgrades. Given Arch splits the load among people who care and have the experience, the overall setup is very stable and reliable, even though very broad too. See More

Top Pro

Great security out of the box

Even a default Arch setup offers great security with the minimum number of open ports and very little information on the system for outsiders. See More

Top Pro

Easier to review the distributions packages

Unlike other some distributions, it's super simple to review the packages you download on the official arch repos or arch user repository. See More

Top Pro

Great hardware support

Out of the box Arch comes with great hardware support See More

Top Pro

You actually learn a LOT of the inner workings of your OS

Since you do everything by hand and a LOT of it, you actually learn very useful things even for other distros. See More

Top Pro

On average only 1 manual intervention needed a year now

The comments about issues with upgrades are over-exaggerated. Those comments assume that : A) They happen often, B) you are using a specific package with an issue, C) that package maintainers can't release a patch to the package that will work around the issue for you, and that D) Manual intervention or system recovery from such issues is hard to fix. On average once or twice a year a user may have to cut and paste some commands in the terminal to fix an issue, but that's about it. Additionally any system recovery required from such missed interventions is easy, just follow the wiki and make a live USB if your using a desktop or laptop. See More

Top Pro

On avarage only 1 manual intervention needed a year now.

The comments about issues with upgrades are over exaggerated. Those comments assume that : A) They happen often, B) you are using a specific package with an issue, C) that package maintainers can't release a patch to the package that will work around the issue for you, and that D) Manual intervention or system recovery from such issues is hard to fix. On average once or twice a year a user may have to cut and paste some commands in the terminal to fix an issue, but that's about it. Additionally any system recovery required from such missed interventions is easy, just follow the wiki and make a live usb if your using a desktop or laptop. See More

Top Pro

Completely signed repos by default

Arch-based distros, or even Arch installers, often use unsigned repositories. See More

Uses vram, and a zen kernel. See More

Garuda Linux

Top Pro

Super-fast

Top Con

Needs a lot of RAM

Minimum is 4GB, for most Linux distributions it's 2GB or less. See More

SophisticatedAmphitrite's Experience

Indian crap See More

Specs

Desktop Environments:x11

Top Pro

Themes

The dr460nized KDE theme is awesome. See More

Top Con

Super

MerryHouyi's Experience

Garuda is not only a beautiful looking distro, but also is tastefully customized. It uses all the cutting edge tech right out of the box like ZRAM and BTRFS to make the heavy OS run fast than lighter ones. Only downside to this system is that it is very difficult to keep this Arch updated in India. You need to run update twice or thrice (up to six times on first install). But that is an issue with most Arch distros in India. See More

Top Pro

Easy entrance to Arch Linux

Filled to the brim with lots of quality-of-life changes and optimizations that are simple enough for long-time Windows, long-time Mac users, and Arch newbies to understand. Though, it also leads to bloat or not necessarily helpful extra software. If you're not into the "bloat" added in, try checking out the barebones version, you'll need to know a lot of things bout Arch to fully use barebones. See More

IntuitiveFortuna's Experience

Great Distro! Really worth installing! It was really worth spending effort by India! Great!! See More

Top Pro

Highly customized interface

You already have most of the customization done for you out of the box. See More

GraciousLampsace's Experience

Unstable, had a few crashes with post-install tool. Also theme is too bright, had to switch to more conservative kde theme. See More

Top Pro

Unused RAM is wasted RAM

It takes just a bit more RAM than Manjaro. Edit: This statement is only true if it helps the user and since this could be running on a low end machine this will not. See More

WittyMelqart's Experience

Very very fast performance. See More

AmbitiousLadon's Experience

Everything works out of the box is super fast. the KDE Dr460nized version is incredible. See More

DeterminedMormo's Experience

Well put together. I like the theming and the icons. So what if they are a bit "over the top". Package manager and the familiar installer worked well. We'll see if an update breaks it like what happened every time I tried a different Arch based distro.. See More

Based on Arch, Endevour OS keeps its core repositories slim and free of unnecessary dependencies. The distro comes with no bloatware, only the necessary packages. The repositories are nearly as full as those of Ubuntu, while they are often more up to date. See More

Endeavour OS

Top Pro

As slim as you want it

Top Con

Same cons that apply for Arch Linux

EnthusiasticOcypete's Experience

Installer is extremely slow... not as slow as it was (glacial) ... but slow. See More

Specs

Default Desktop Environment:Budgie, Cinnamon, Deepin, GNOME, i3, KDE Plasma, LXQt, MATE, Xfce

Release Schedule:LTS

Package Manager:pacman

It's admirable that the developers carry on the legacy of Antergos, the only niggling thing that would be nice is for dismissed notifications to STAY dismissed. And bring Kalu to the foreground just by clicking on the icon. Or have the functionality of turning off the news altogether would be well received. See More

Top Pro

Easy installer

Top Con

Kalu needs a little refinement

ImpartialPan's Experience

good See More

Top Pro

Arch Linux Wiki

Being an "easy to install version of Arch" means it is exactly easy to use the famous Arch Wiki! See More

Top Con

Very new distribution

Due to being new distribution, it emits more errors. Like installation failure on certain type of hardware, getting blank after pacman -Syu. See More

PrivateGelos's Experience

Everythings just works, very nice and modern desktop See More

Top Pro

Helpful community

Great team of developers and excellent forum support on their official website. See More

Top Con

Enabling Bluetooth should be easier

Bluetooth is disabled by default, that is fine and a good security feature for some. For the rest of us that need it, it would be great to have a check box to add it when performing a fresh install. Instead one needs to jump through a few hoops, read a wiki article and hope nothing was missed. See More

CommunicativeWadjWer's Experience

Easy to install, yet flexible in the way you would like the OS to behave or look. See More

Top Pro

Stripped down to the bone

Since its stripped down, it is fast and you don't have to deal with bloatware. See More

Top Con

KDE Desktop

KDE crashes continuously. See More

niingu's Experience

Easy install with Calamares installer and a beautifully themed XFCE desktop. Built for speed! This is THE best Arch distribution - a perfect replacement for Antergos. And it will become even better in short time. See More

Top Pro

Lightweight

It will install only the basic and minimal necessary packages, for example the Xfce desktop, network and Firefox, so it runs very fast and has very low system resources consumption. Good for old computers, with less CPU power and RAM. See More

Top Con

Nvidia Optimus

Hard to install Nvidia driver and Optimus crashes at every update. See More

ThriftyWaramurungundi's Experience

Absolutely been a wonderful experience. No problems what so ever, and the forums are nice and friendly if needed. See More

Top Pro

AUR support

One of the best reasons to use an Arch based distro. You can find almost every package there is in the Linux world! See More

Top Con

Has become a refugee camp for disgruntled manajaro users

Top Pro

Cutting edge rolling release

Exactly as Arch - allows users to stay on the most up-to-date versions of the software they are using. See More

Top Con

NET installer on the way

Top Pro

No restrictive handholding, pure control over everything

The user can do whatever he wishes because the distro IS Arch - with and easy installer and great themes. See More

Top Con

Not for everyone

Top Pro

Good overall system quality and performance

Lean, fast and surprisingly stable. See More

Top Pro

Fast and simple package management

There can only be one Package Manager (pacman) ;) See More

Top Pro

Not based on Ubuntu

Top Pro

Great community

Top Pro

Great hardware support

Top Pro

Supports many desktop environments

You can install it without a desktop environment or select one or multiple during the installation. See More

Top Pro

Support for a large variety of new hardware

Rolling release means newer, up to date, mesa and kernel versions able to handle newer hardware with better performance! See More

Top Pro

Great XFCE implementation

Their use of themes and configuration look great! See More

Top Pro

Great for low performance hardware

Easy on the specs and still blazingly fast. See More

Top Pro

Can't install many DEs from Installer

You can install the following ones from the installer Xfce, Mate, LXQt, Cinnamon, Plasma, Gnome, Budgie, Deepin and Window Manager i3-WM. See More

it's really nice. See More

Archman Linux

Top Pro

Handy, easy to install, effective, has a variety of Sessions.

Top Con

Downloading the iso is terribly slow because it's run from a server based in Turkey.

TrustingCacoch's Experience

Specs

Default Desktop Environment: XFCE

Release Schedule:monthly updated (rolling)

Init-System:SystemD

Easy to install and everything works quietly. very nice and efficient See More

SmartKulla's Experience

damian101's Experience

Very nice look out of the box. See More

ResoluteMazu's Experience

nice distro See More

DedicatedPhrike's Experience

easy ,fast, lightweight See More

Since this is an Arch-based distribution, it has all the same benefits. See More

ArchLabs Linux

Top Pro

All the benefits of Arch Linux

Top Con

The installer has been broken for most of this year

ExcellentAnuket's Experience

INSANE, SIMPLY AMAZING See More

Top Pro

Powerful AL-installer

The ArchLabs installer is very simple and gives users so many choices such as kernels, bootloaders, which extra programs to install, whether you want LVM, etc. See More

Top Con

Systemd

GregariousArke's Experience

Finally an Arch derivative that doesn't miss the basics See More

Top Pro

Lightning Fast

ResponsiveAnnona's Experience

Artix is the best overall (no systemd) but ArchLabs has the best installer. See More

Top Pro

Retains the minimalism of Arch

ArchLabs provides an easy-to-use installer without including unnecessary packages by default, unlike Manjaro. See More

Top Pro

Inspired by BunsenLabs, Powered by Arch

Top Pro

Highly technical and helpful forums

Its really good customized, and the performance was the best of my laptop 2 gb ram 50 Gb ROM. See More

Salient OS

Top Pro

Customized and great performance

Top Con

No torrent downloads

The download from Soundforge takes too long. If there was a torrent, like other Arch based distros, this wouldn't be a problem. See More

FascinatingKakia's Experience

1 and a half of steady use,maybe more. Works fine out of the box. Silent Robot designed a good gaming and media for himself and now is avalible for all. A enjoyable Arch thats easy to use. See More

Specs

Default Desktop Environment:Xfce

Top Pro

Fast, Nvidia versions

No need to install Nvidia, detected out of the box, blazingly fast. See More

Top Con

No sound with spdif output

InfluentialFeronia's Experience

Very nice distro easy configurable..........with AUR pacqets ! See More

Top Pro

Higly customizable to tiny details via KDE settings and preinstalled Kvantum engine

Super fast and stable. Dolphin root restrictions can be solved with yust few clicks. Easy installation via Calamares , and preinstalled packages are awesome. Salient OS is a huge competitor to Manjaro both KDE & XFCE. See More

PerceptiveFascinus's Experience

Great Arch based Linux distro, incredibly fast. Automated install of NVidia drivers. See More

NiceMarzyana's Experience

It uses Arch repositories, but it has Calamares and everything configured out of the box. It comes with Steam, OBS, Discord and Nvidia drivers. Perfect OS for gamers. The UI is light and beautiful. The best XFCE theme I`ve ever seen. See More

CreativeChemosh's Experience

Excelent distribution and its detectec how archlinux, excelent See More

PerceptiveHypnos's Experience

Incredibly easy & fast installation with Calamares. Gives full root privileges with minor tweak. elegant and beautiful Xfce and plasma 5 in the polishing process with a tendency to be superb. both of versions runs super fast, stable and come with lots of preinstalled packages for, multimedia and gaming. the plethora of awesome wallpapers and super customized Xfce out of the box. absolutely fantastic distro. til now for me, this is the best distro of 2019 and i hope it vil be officially pronounced as best distro of 2019, absolutely fantastic distro super user-friendly arch based. unbelievable. more friendl<y than Manjaro See More

Crashes every time when trying to install. Doesn't even install it in virtualbox or VMWare. AVOID. See More

RebornOS

Top Pro

Antergos with more desktops

Top Con

Crashes

PersonableMokoi's Experience

Great options, cool installer, true descendant of Antergos See More

Specs

Default Desktop Environment:KDE, GNOME, Deepin, Budgie, Cinnamon, Apricity, OpenBox, i3, Xfce, Pantheon

Release Schedule:Rolling

Top Pro

Highly and Easily Configurable

You can easily choose from a list of browsers, desktops, office suites, etc, all from the installer. See More

RespectableHouyi's Experience

Very up-to-date, boots incredibly fast (compared to Mint and Manjaro). I have moved several machines over to RebornOS and not looking back. See More

Top Pro

Good Repo

Reborn's dedicated repo has some extra packages that are difficult to find elsewhere, in addition to the official Arch repos, community repos, and the AUR. See More

ExcellentOpochtli's Experience

The installer crashed over and over again with every attempt I did. See More

Lightweight and only the packages you want are installed. See More

ArcoLinuxB

Top Pro

Light

Top Con

Doesn't support various laptops

Even, for instance, the whole HP family for the least, but a very good display distro, only leftwm can rival. See More

PersistentIxpiyacoc's Experience

Smooth installer, fast distro, beautyful interface (I recommend Deepin flavour) See More

Specs

Default Desktop Environment:Xfce, Openbox, i3, GNOME, Deepin Desktop Environment, Cinnamon, Budgie, bspwm, awesome, MATE, KDE Plasma

GraciousLampsace's Experience

Allow selection of different desktops and fast. See More

PerfectBacchus's Experience

I have found this to be my favorite Arch based distro that I have tried....and I have tried most. Easy to install, beautiful customization, fast and everything "just works". See More

Default Desktop Environment:Openbox, Xfce, Mate, Gnome, KDE Plasma, i3

Revenge OS

Liri OS

Default Desktop Environment:Liri

Archcraft

Top Pro

User friendly install guides on site

Easy to follow guides for newbies or those who want a little guidance. See More

IntuitiveTaranis's Experience

Absolutely beautiful by default. Dev has done wonderful work with rofi. Installer is hugely improved. See More

Specs

Based On:Arch Linux (Rolling)

Package Manager:yay, pacman

Price:FREE

Top Pro

Minimal & beautiful

One of the prettiest distros out there IMHO. See More

Top Pro

Well organized

The dev made this one of the best Distros and easy to add/remove deesktops or wm without breaking the system. See More

Top Pro

Active & responsive dev

The dev is very active & is constantly improving the distro. New ISOs released regularly. See More

The distro uses Openbox by default. It's small, fast, and looks cool. It's similar to the BunsenLabs distro. See More

ArchBang

Add Video or Image

ArchLab Linux Minimo

Top Pro

Looks good out of the box

NeighborlyAmphiaraus's Experience

Fast, easy to use and looks good. See More

Specs

Default Desktop Environment:Openbox, Xfce, i3, Bspwm, Awesome

Top Pro

Not only Openbox

It comes out of the box configured to use with wm like i3, bspwm, awesome, xfce. See More

Max's Experience

The installation process is quite easy and looks great out of the box. See More

Top Pro

Installation similar to Anarchy

ArchLabs is using a very similar installer to that of Anarchy's, you can't change as much, but if polished Openbox and/or i3 are what you're after, ArchLabs might be for you. See More

Very nice and easy to use GUI installer. See More

Zen Installer

Top Pro

Nice GUI installer

Top Con

Not great in Virtual

Not so great when trying to setup in a virtual environment, better to just follow the wiki on the Arch Linux site. See More

Zyrac Xavier's Experience

Not so great when trying to setup in a virtual environment, better to just follow the wiki on the Arch Linux site. See More

Specs

Default Desktop Environment:GNOME, KDE Plasma, Xfce, LXDE, LXQt, MATE, Budgie, Cinnamon, Deepin, Enlightenment, JWM, i3, Openbox, Enlightenment E16, Fluxbox, FVWM, IceWM, KWin, Mutter, GNU Screen, xcb-util-wm, Xcompmgr, Xfwm, Twm, Awesome, bbpager, Blackbox, bspwm, deepin-metacity, deepin-mutter, deepin-wm, herbstluftwm, i3-gaps, Keepass, Marco, Metacity, muffin, Notion, ObConf, PekWM, perl-anyevent-i3, PyPanel, python-smmap, python2-smmap, Qtile, ratpoison, spectrwm, Sway, vicious, wmctrl, wmname, xmonad

Top Pro

Good for Linux Newbies

Nice GUI not too much know how needed to use it, but is that not the whole idea behind Arch, to understand and visualize what is happening during an Arch Linux install. See More

InfluentialTheia's Experience

Used it one time, worked perfectly. very easy to use. See More

SincereAhuraMazda's Experience

worked first time to errors See More

Developers are working migrating all packages into their own repositories while ensuring there's no systemd malware. See More

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Artix Linux

Top Pro

No systemd

Top Con

Few Arch packages might not be available yet

ExcitedOzwiena's Experience

Only had one issue after the install where the pacman pgp signature keys were invalid. After I fixed that I had a fully working system in place. Installing KDE Plasma 5 later was no problem either. Wanted to switch to Voidlinux first but didn't due to missing software packages in their repos but here I have access to the entire AUR and still get to enjoy runit as my init system! See More

Specs

Default Desktop Environment:Bash (Unix shell), Cinnamon, KDE Plasma, LXDE, LXQt, MATE and XFCE

Release Schedule:Rolling release

Package Manager:Pacman

Artix actively supports the runit init system known from Void Linux. (Equally besides the OpenRC init system known from Gentoo). See More

Top Pro

Runit

Top Con

No systemd

Some packages flat out won't work because systemd is non existent, sadly pipewire needs systemd to run. Hopefully Pipewire becomes usable soon. Edit: Pipewire does work but you will have to make a startup script. See More

Yoši Yoda's Experience

Artix Linux is very close to Arch Linux, more than Manjaro, but still offers the comfort of the Calamares graphical installer and doesn't use systemd. I tried both spins, OpenRC and runit and sticked with runit, as it has a lot of elegance in its simplicity and needs only a few seconds for a clean shutdown. See More

Top Pro

Rolling distro

Top Con

No tiling WM (i3/sway) out of the box

FerventMaderakka's Experience

Full Arch experience, sans systemd See More

Top Pro

Close to bare Arch Linux

No learning curve if you're coming from Arch or any of its derivatives. See More

AmiableAzimua's Experience

Great experience. It's fast, customizable, flexible. The way Arch would been if they gave the user a choice but they wanted something easy to manage as devs which is understandable. If you're struggling with systemd and whenever you ask for help people would either blame you or your hardware then this distro will feel like home :) Long live for distros that gives you the right to choose See More

Top Pro

Flexibility

You can have a functional system in less than 10 mins using GUI installer OR you can do it "the Arch way". See More

KindCarmanor's Experience

kereen, awesom... easy to install and use See More

Top Pro

Lightweight

Only the software you would need like Terminal emulator, file manager, media player and a browser. See More

PrudentNemain's Experience

Wholly incompatible with my any dkms kernel modules. Partially incompatible with nvidia drivers. Graphical errors (KDE). Can't change default theme at all without breaking everything. I tried three different ISOs (different DE's) and each one had issues. XFCE wouldn't even boot 8/10 times. See More

Top Pro

Compatible with Arch Repositories

It is fully compatible with almost all packages from community, extra, multilib and AUR. See More

AmbitiousAmatsuMikaboshi's Experience

Clean , simple and fast. See More

OptimisticCantzicnal's Experience

I use it for 2 years. perfect. See More

CharmingAphroditus's Experience

Too many things break too easily See More