For most my life with computers I have used Linux. Windows was great but I decided to use Ubuntu. I tried out all sorts of Linux distros (ie. Elementary OS, Linux Mint, etc) but none of them seemed right for me. After doing some searching around and I came to the conclusion that I had to attempt to use a minimal linux distro that is Arch Linux.
About My Computer
Hardware: The PC I mainly use is a laptop that I got a few years back with a Intel Core i3 3rd Gen, and 10 GB of RAM.
Usage: On my computer I mainly write code using a text-editor (i.e. vim or somethings for quick use nano) and browse the web.
The Installation
Getting Arch Linux up and running on your computer really isn’t that bad. Arch has great documentation and the beginner’s guide makes everything very straight forward. It took me around a hour to get a stable desktop environment (it’s very easy installation) once I got all the basic stuff taken care of I was finally able to begin making the operating system I really wanted.
So Why use Arch?
I prefer Arch over other Linux distros or any operating system for that matter:
- All I needs is a terminal with some GUI applications
- The best performance
- I choose what’s installed
- Fully customizable (almost)
- Always the latest software
- Installing software is easy with pacman
- Very intelligent community
- Teaches you about how Linux works
Conclusion
I really do see myself sticking with Arch for quite some time. With its rolling releases there will be no need to ever have to install any major updates and I have everything I really need in a computer.
What’s on my PC
Here’s a short list of things I have installed on my main Arch Linux computer.