Farewell Ubuntu, Hello Arch!
During my first steps with linux, I’ve tried several linux distributions going from Fedora to Suse to Ubuntu but the latter one is the primary reason why I switched to linux-only computers. Ubuntu kept me going for a year. I was eagerly learning about linux and Ubuntu in particular, but today it can’t give me a new challenge any longer. Because I wanted to learn more about linux, I decided to leave Ubuntu and switch to Arch Linux.
Arch Linux has several advantages over Ubuntu, at least to me. First of all, there’s no easy to use graphical installer. It uses a ncurse-based console installer where you have to configure everything yourself – allowing me to learn more about how linux works under the hood (although Arch uses more of a BSD-style of configuration files). It forces you to think about every step in the installation process. Second, Arch is a lot faster than Ubuntu. Because you have to install it from scratch and configure it yourself, you install what you need to make Arch work on your computer only and optimize it to suit your needs. That way you’re not fed up with unused packages and libraries like Ubuntu. Third, Arch is a rolling release distribution. This means you have to install it only once and from then on you can use the package manager (pacman) to keep your system updated. This is opposed to Ubuntu, where there is a 6 month release cycle. And last but not least, Arch has a great package manager. I’m very picky about package managers. They have to be fast, resolve dependencies and easy to use. I’ve been used to apt, my favorite package manager that comes with Ubuntu. Luckily pacman does the job in a similar, even faster way as apt.
One ‘downside’ of Arch is that the documentation, support and community isn’t as big as Ubuntu. Now don’t get me wrong. Arch has a great, but limited documentation wiki. The community is small but friendly and willing to help. Luckily linux is linux. Instructions given for one distribution, say Ubuntu, can easily be adapted for Arch if you’re experienced enough.
Hopefully my Arch system will last even longer than Ubuntu. Next in line is my Sony Vaio SZ61/XNC. May the installation of Arch on my laptop be as smooth as on my desktop.