Yes, I think the author misses the point, which is that Arch is a mentality not a distro. I built my system from scratch and configured it that way, without any

Yes, I think the author misses the point, which is that Arch is a mentality not a distro. I built my system from scratch and configured it that way, without any scripts to guide my install or anything else, and now I know Linux and its ecosystem better than ever. The only "Arch" things about my Arch anymore are Pacman and a handful of other tiny things which make life on the bleeding edge more convenient. The idea is to stay as close to upstream as possible while being nearly pure GNU/Linux without the duct tape and bailing wire which holds most distros together shoddily. About every day I'm glad I went this way and I thank myself for doing it every time an otherwise aggrivating experience becomes pleasant by virtue of ironically not using the 'convenience' methods usually provided by inflexible GUIs and scripts which attempt to predict every possible configuration. It's hard to develop for the world when you live in Beverly Hills, I think. I wouldn't call it a community either, so much as a hackerspace.