Latest stable software (this is such a massive deal), it's as lean as you want it to be, and you have the AUR where you can install pretty much any piece of sof

Latest stable software (this is such a massive deal), it's as lean as you want it to be, and you have the AUR where you can install pretty much any piece of software on the internet in one command. Once you get it running (which doesn't take long once you know what you're doing), it does exactly what you want it to do, is always running the latest and greatest, and in my experience lets me get what I want done faster than anything else. Slackware and Debian are nowhere near as current as Arch, and don't have anything near comparable to the AUR. The main downside of Arch is that you want to be updating somewhat regularly (every couple months at max). This isn't an issue for desktops/laptop I regularly use, and I run Arch on my home server that gets updated around monthly, but it's not a "set and (almost) forget" like Debian stable or CentOS. EDIT: I run Arch on my work laptop and my home server (which runs my blog and some services) and it's never fallen over in several years. Occasionally updates will require me to do something, but if there's an update that requires manual intervention they post about it on archlinux.org.