ArchLinux or Arch for short is one of the uprising new distributions. Well, at least compared to old folks like Debian or Slackware it’s still fresh and shining . Arch is gaining new users and good reviews every day. Let’s find out why this is happening.

The fun starts here
Arch is a rolling-release distro which means that the repositories are updated regularly and not in a few month cycle like Fedora or Ubuntu. New releases just update the install CDs with recent packages, but the distribution is evolving constantly regardless the releases. In order to install ArchLinux we can use three different ISO images

ftp allows a direct install from repositories, so we have to have a good Internet connection,
base contains core packages on the CD allowing a basic install (we get the text mode as a result)
full contains more packages, including X.org a some lighter window managers.
I personally recommend ftp or base options as full becomes outdated very fast.

Arch installation is performed by a text/curses based installer which is divided into few parts: partitioning and partitions selection, selecting and installing packages and the kernel and, at the end, configuring the system and installing Grub (the boot manager). The installer requires that you read the docs before the actual installation (unless you are Linus or alike ).

Complete Review

~LC