Recs.
Updated
SpecsUpdate
Pros
Pro You make your box what you want it to be
Arch is extremely customizable so you can make it look and work pretty much as u want. Be it Desktop Environment, Window Manager, Boot manager, or anything. Customizability is one of Arch's greatest strengths.
It's like a piano, it have a beginning and an end, but possibilities are endless.
Pro Rolling release system
Updates are continuously delivered and installed as needed. There are no numbered releases of Arch, so you get updates as soon as developers publish them.
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.
Pro Very stable
By default, only the bare necessities are installed, so there is very little running that can crash. Also, pacman gives you full control of what packages are updated and when.
Pro Great learning experience
Arch provides top insight into the operating system and how everything works together. Thus providing a great option to go from beginner to advanced with little hassle. Also without too much waste of time (for example compared to Gentoo, where everything has to be compiled from scratch). As a matter of fact it provides a lot of insight on the way operating systems work and are stored in general. Not only Arch or Linux.
Pro Fast and simple package management
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.
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.
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 you're using a desktop or laptop.
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.
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.
Pro Very versatile
You can use Arch on your PC, notebook, Raspberries, bay tail devices, as daily operating system, as server operating system, as operating system for your media player, your firewall, your router, you can install it natively on your tablet, security experts can add BlackArch functionality,...
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.
Pro Simple by design
Arch Linux is actually incredibly simple. It's 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.
Pro Arch Linux Archive lets you choose your own update schedule
Despite being rolling release Arch Linux lets you be flexible about your update policy. If distro repos moved forward, but you don't want to update, you can temporarily switch to Arch Linux Archive, which stores repo snapshots across time. Later, when you're ready to update, you switch back to bleeding edge.
Cons
Con Difficult to install
You need to read the Arch Wiki and determine how you want your system to work. There is no one-size-fits-all graphical installer.
Con Not for the faint of heart
Arch only holds your hand a little bit of the way. While documentation is great, you are expected to know what you're doing. The result is that when you find the solution for a problem on a forum or elsewhere, the response may be completely over your head. If you're not well-versed in Linux, what would be a minor issue on another distribution can become a drawn-out research project on Arch, as you learn all the inner workings of the operating system, until you understand it well enough to solve your problems yourself.
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.
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.
Con Configurations are required to make it work like you want it to
Arch comes in a very barebones form ( literally just console at first ). You are required to install everything that you want. Some packages are also required to be configured by yourself to make them as you would like them to be. Arch Wiki does help a lot with this though.
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.
Con No support for multiple versions of the same package
In development sometimes there is a need to switch between different versions of the same package. In mainstream distributions such as this this is often solved ad hoc by each package. However there are systems that support such use case at the first place.
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.
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).
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.
Con Pacman is a slow package manager
Compared to other distribution packages the extracting of a pacman package archives is taking ages.
Recommendations
Comments
Flagged Pros + Cons
Pro Vanilla
Learn about Arch, learn about Linux. What works for Arch, works for many other distros too.
Pro Incredible educational value
Arch gives great insight in the inner workings of operating systems, computers and data manipulation.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Con No graphical installer
Although some derivatives such as Manjaro and ArcoLinux exist.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Con Package manager is so naive
For example, it doesn't allow you to purge (remove package and it's configuration files).
Pro Helpful 3rd-party installers
There are extremely helpful 3rd-party installers such as Anarchy Linux (Formerly Arch Anywhere).
Out of Date Pros + Cons
Con pacman is a slow package manager
Compared to other distribution packages the extracting of a pacman package archives is taking ages.