I’ve been using Debian for many years now. The hardest part about switching my desktop to arch (partly to try something different, partly for later kernel / tools) was not that arch is difficult, but that I need to type ‘sudo pacman -S’ instead of ‘sudo apt install’ to install new packages. It is functionally the same in my day to day use which is fantastic.

I really like Arch because it’s bare metal but not too much => it’s very easy to choose the components you need for your installation and exactly fine-tune your experience without spending too much time with something like Nix/LFS/Slackware.

• it’s community supported, lightweight, fast, and easy to use when you know what you’re doing (wow this sentence is dumb but you get me right?)

I can only use Arch, because I know how I set it up.

Preinstalled distros, even arch based seem overwhelming to me nowadays. I just prefer to set up Arch Linux myself so I know what minimal steps I did and what package I have

Now use Gentoo

Ya, its just some people over exaggerated a bit. As long as you don't do stuff that obviously tries to mess with core system stuff it should be fine.

Uhh, I thought this was just a meme

Yes

I have used a number of distros over the last 15 years. Once I found one I liked, I stuck with it. I understand the package manager, some of the special features of the distro I use and I don't really have time to relearn this every couple of months on new distros.

If I want a different "feel", I change my DE. But that's about it.

You have reached the pinnacle of Linux, every other distro you try from now on will seem bland. 🧗🏼

What do you mean by people being obsessed over Arch?

Archlinux is Linux, it's just a minimal distro that allows you to only use whatever you want to use. I have no idea what's with being obsessed over it other than «use arch btw» which became a local meme recently.

The one benefit Arch has for me (even though I no longer use it as I found I'm not too fond of rolling releases), is that the AUR with an AUR helper takes care of getting any Linux packages installed. No need to copy commands off a github repo or something like that.

Did you use arch-install or manual classic install

That's like seeing the Otaku gang, deciding to give this Anime a go, watching Dragon Ball and asking "what's so special about this?".

Some people make some random thing their personality, others enjoy the same thing without making a big fuzz about it. Arch is great because of the wiki and the AUR, other distros have their own pros and cons.

I'm using Arch because you start with nothing and you can make any system you want. I have disk encryption, btrfs as a filesystem, secure boot with my own custom keys, I'm running self-build kernel, I'm using apparmor and I can use any program from AUR, etc. Thats my personality. Things that you can't see but are important to me.

On other distros some of these things would be very hard to do. Especially without Arch Wiki.

I just wanted a distro built to my specs, up to date, uses pacman, not run by a for-profit company, with good documentation. The hype is mostly Reddit elitism and gatekeeping. I like that nobody has slipped branding and extra bookmarks into my browser.