What makes Arch Linux different from all other distributions?

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I’ve been using EOS for three years, and before that I was lucky enough to work with Antergos and Manjaro, but I used Debian-based distributions, openSUSE (Suse), Fedora (Red Hat), for much longer.
So what makes Arch different from all the other distributions out there? The completely different, not included in any other distribution, package management? Is it that all Linux operations are much simpler here? Etc. etc. Anyone who is interested in the topic, feel free to comment, especially those who, like me, have been using other distros for a long time and didn’t know the “Arch way” before.

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There is no one thing that Arch does better than other distros that makes it different. It is the sum of all the things that make it unique.

  • Rolling model with aggressively updated packages
  • Large software selection in the repos which becomes comprehensive when adding the AUR
  • Easy access to both free and non-free software
  • Simple package structure that makes packaging fast and easy
  • The documentation in the Arch wiki
  • The focus on letting you build your system your way
  • A fairly large group of contributors that isn’t mired in governance
  • Etc, etc, etc

There are actually other non Arch-based distros using pacman as well.

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  • Internet bragging rights of “using Arch, btw” :rofl:
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the one true reason to use Arch

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I guess you mean deb-pacman for example.

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To me, Arch Linux - once we get the hang of setting it up to our liking - is the fastest, most lean distro out there!
With leanness in mind, it is the best, especially for any user of older, legacy hardware!

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No, there are other distros that use actual pacman as their primary package manager. There are 2-3 of them. One of them off the top of my head is kaos.

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So is it still trendy to use Arch, or is it becoming more cool these days?

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I thought KaOS was an independently developed Linux distribution, but now I see you wrote that its development was inspired by Arch. What are the other two Linux distributions that use the pacman package manager? You are always learning. :slight_smile:

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It is. It just uses pacman for it’s package manager.

I don’t remember off the top of my head. Chakra did but I think it is dead now. I believe Frugalware does as well but I have never tried that one.

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Those are all arch-based except for the two I already mentioned.

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I am aware of that, already. Glad you are, too. :wink:

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Yes, Frugalware is a Hungarian development, based on Slackware, but uses pacman as a package manager. It has no new releases since 2016. I’ve never used it either. The end of Chakra as an Arch-based distribution using KDE was announced by the project’s lead developer at the end of last year. It was a promising initiative, I read about it on a Hungarian forum years ago, when Manjaro didn’t even exist, but I didn’t try it either, because I didn’t really like KDE at that time. For now, it doesn’t look like there will be any continuation of the Chakra project, as was the case with Antergos.

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I tried Chakra quite a bit over the years. It was an interesting project. I never could get to the point where I liked it more than Arch though.

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Obviously only cool kids use it :upside_down_face:

On a serious note pacman/pkgbuilds alone are a reason. Pacman & Pkgbuilds are my favorite things about Arch

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Except llvm which seems to take ages

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I think Ubuntu and Clear actually take this crown. Arch can be decent but ootb its not the fastest

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That says it all
…

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Maybe you didn’t like KDE in Chakra either.