I've been a GNU/Linux user for a bit over a year now, I think. Started out with Ubuntu 10.04 dual booted with Windows, then completely ditched Microsoft in favor of the better operating system some when in January. A bit later, after getting bugged by a good friend and fellow hacker on IRC for a while, I finally set out to install Arch, and got hooked.
Arch Linux can, in my experience, best be described as a journey. A journey to the top of a mountain. It starts steep, sometimes gets hazardous, and I fell down more then once and had to start climbing from the start. But with every time, it became easier as I got to know the mountain, and set out with new knowledge about the steps and stones, as they were aligned perfectly for climbing once you knew how to climb them.
Then finally, I reached the first peak - a custom, running and stable install - and just as you might hold your breath at the sight presented to you when you look down from the top of the mountain you just climbed, I felt kind of serene - I learned so much about my system during the installation, how it worked and how elegantly simple it was once you understood it's philosophy, it was overwhelming.
I knew I arrived at a place where I wanted to stay. Or rather, a place from where I could climb even higher mountains - because the Arch journey is probably never at its end. There's always something more to learn about the system - my system. Something to tweak, somewhere to hack around or some configuration to customize for my needs.
I won't say I'll stay with it forever, as in the world of GNU/Linux, one might always discover something new. I will say, however, that installing (and subsequently running) Arch was (and still is) one of the best and most rewarding things I've done in my life.
To anyone who is interested in learning new stuff and doing things on his or her own, I warmly recommend trying out Arch. You shall not be disappointed.
I started with Archbang, then CTKArch, and then finally installed my own from scratch. Archbang and CTKArch are excellent liveCD versions of Arch but in the end I found I did not like the personal choices made by the creators of those releases. My system is now truly mine. I am in love with it.
My system is stable, and bleeding edge - an oxymoron.
Intellij is in the damn repositories... MondoDB 2.0 - the day it was released was in the damned repositores.
Anything else can't compete.
After installing Arch, and failing at least 3 times and being successful 2 other times, I found an appreciation for the way in which Arch did things. My first version was a Mac OSx clone with some personal touches. It was beautiful; but I was too ambitious and went with BTRFS which was a mistake. So I reinstalled and now I'm on XFS and things purr.
I can setup a development environment in less than 10 minutes using pacman and then keep it updated easily.
To setup the equivalent environment on Ubuntu would take much longer for me.
I am not a linux newb nor a guru, but after using Arch I feel like I can hold my own.
Arch Linux can, in my experience, best be described as a journey. A journey to the top of a mountain. It starts steep, sometimes gets hazardous, and I fell down more then once and had to start climbing from the start. But with every time, it became easier as I got to know the mountain, and set out with new knowledge about the steps and stones, as they were aligned perfectly for climbing once you knew how to climb them.
Then finally, I reached the first peak - a custom, running and stable install - and just as you might hold your breath at the sight presented to you when you look down from the top of the mountain you just climbed, I felt kind of serene - I learned so much about my system during the installation, how it worked and how elegantly simple it was once you understood it's philosophy, it was overwhelming.
I knew I arrived at a place where I wanted to stay. Or rather, a place from where I could climb even higher mountains - because the Arch journey is probably never at its end. There's always something more to learn about the system - my system. Something to tweak, somewhere to hack around or some configuration to customize for my needs.
I won't say I'll stay with it forever, as in the world of GNU/Linux, one might always discover something new. I will say, however, that installing (and subsequently running) Arch was (and still is) one of the best and most rewarding things I've done in my life.
To anyone who is interested in learning new stuff and doing things on his or her own, I warmly recommend trying out Arch. You shall not be disappointed.