Arch Linux – "It is what you make it"

Can you explain to me what's so great about pacman? As of the last time I used Arch (a few years ago), you can't roll back to an old version unless it happens to be cached on your system. For a rolling release system it creates a lot of hassles.

It seems like a very straightforward package manager, what does it have that apt doesn't have, for instance?

I've been using Arch for four or five years now. My current install has been around for three years, x86_64. In my experience, any software carried on i686 that built on x64 has always been in x64, though it's true that i686 used to get new builds first -- that has changed now and x64 usually gets new packages before i686.

Honestly I wouldn't be surprised to see i686 dropped completely in the next 1-2 years.

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.