Here is why I use Arch Linux: (0) I'm somewhere at the middle in the spectrum between a noob and a power user. My parents think of me as the latter, but most t

Here is why I use Arch Linux: (0) I'm somewhere at the middle in the spectrum between a noob and a power user. My parents think of me as the latter, but most technically competent people I've met think of me as the former. (1) I'm lazy when it comes to computer stuff: If I'm given a bare-bones system, I won't bother installing and configuring more than is strictly necessary to start getting work done (not necessarily in the most efficient way). And conversely, if I'm given a bloated system, I won't bother removing what I don't need to use. Even worse, I often end up rationalizing that “I might need it someday”. (2) I want stuff to both just work and be easy to understand. Alas, software that works automagically is usually complex, so a compromise is needed. The compromise I've settled for is that I'm willing to put just enough effort into learning from online guides and fora, so long as I'm not confronted with too much complexity. If I can't learn how to configure your software in 30 minutes, I won't use it. (The only exception is Emacs.) Arch fits my needs pretty nicely: It provides good defaults for the low-level system stuff that I don't want to bother learning, and it provides no defaults whatsoever for the user-facing stuff that I do want to control.