Arch is amazing if you love control and rolling releases, it's worth learning. I picked it up in 2003 and was close twice to switching but I can't give it up as my primary distro. Once was when the devs switched to systemd; it was a huge annoying change, but tolerable for awhile now. The install got rough a couple years back (devs switched to chroot / bootstrap method), however the reason for this is that it's very minimal; albeit I'd argue not as simple (minimal does not always = increased simplicity). After doing a couple of installs it gets much smoother, IMO. And, you gain a fully customizable, performance driven, rolling distro :-) Also, Manjora Linux is an Arch derivative with a gui installer and overall, an Ubuntu like simplicity to it. I'd recommend that if you don't have the time for a standard Arch install, it uses the same package management, pacman, therefore affording a rolling release model so one always has the option for the most part up-to-date browsers, plug-ins, etc. Regarding the thumb drive vs. standard ISO vs. bootstrap installs, they aren't all that different once you start installing the base to your target. -- Jeremy MountainJohnson Jeremy.MountainJohnson at gmail.com On Sat, Feb 22, 2014 at 11:58 AM, Brian Wood <woodbrian77 at gmail.com> wrote: >> I've always thought Arch was interesting, and a bit ago decided to give it >>.a try. So I set up a VM, pointed it at the Arch installaiton medium and > >> watched it not even be able to get past it's own setup. > > Arch is great. I did an install of it yesterday and after 3 hours > was relieved to have it working. I know 3 hours is a lot, but I'd > had problems with Debian, Slackware and also Fedora so it > was kind of my next choice. Debian seemed to mess up my > root password during the install. I don't remember what the > problem was with Slackware. > Fedora installed fine, but I ran into a problem building clang 3.4 > on it and it seemed like a difficult problem. So I went with > Arch. It was a little bit of a pain, but I did get it working and > it has clang 3.4 as it's default version. Anyway, I also agree with > David Wagle's point about Arch being efficient. It doesn't start > junk that other distros do. I don't want to have to stop a bunch > of stuff whenever I reinstall. > > I'm still a little fearful of Arch installs. I also tried Archbang. > Don't remember what the problem with that was either. > Arch is a little bit tough, but also pays you back if you hang > in there. That sounds like C++. Maybe it's no coincidence > Arch is one of the few distros that understands the need for > clang 3.4. > > I was installing from a thumb drive. My guess from what > you wrote is you were doing a different kind of install. > > -- > Brian > Ebenezer Enterprises - In G-d we trust.. > http://webEbenezer.net > > > > > _______________________________________________ > TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > tclug-list at mn-linux.org > http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list >