> how's the install experience these days? It really depends on how you define "experience". For me, I like the manual installation procedure like everything e

> how's the install experience these days? It really depends on how you define "experience". For me, I like the manual installation procedure like everything else on Arch. Sure, it is not "easy". But the point is that you are taught to do things with standard Linux tools, save the package manager and a few straightforward shell scripts. Arch doesn't give you all sorts of fancy, "automated", distro-specific tools to make your life easier, because easy life is a temporary illusion in the fast-changing -- and by consequence, always broken -- world that is Linux desktop. Automated tools that made you life easier yesterday will likely make your life harder tomorrow, due to all the changes in upstream software these tools try to hide. Keeping such tools up to date will require continued interest in the development, something Linux desktop community never really succeeded to deliver. Arch just puts you in the real, wild landscape of Linux desktop. It may not be comfortable at first, but that's how Linux desktop is.