I ended up using Manjaro mainly because the arch installer was just a bit too much to figure out for me. Recent installer improvements make things much easier a

I ended up using Manjaro mainly because the arch installer was just a bit too much to figure out for me. Recent installer improvements make things much easier and I might consider switching from Manjaro to Arch at some point. But Manjaro got me up and running quickly. Things I like about arch: it's stable and up to date. It's stable because fixes by upstream developers are not being blocked by package maintainers that second guess what they are doing. I never understood this being a thing. Mostly all the experts for any software are exactly those people involved with producing the upstream source code. If they say something is stable and ready for use, it generally is. Arch mostly just ships software as is. Nothing more nothing less. Unless the upstream developers release broken and untested software, it generally is the best version of that software available. Basically, Arch does most of the due diligence on ensuring things at least compile, install, and run fine. So generally, it's fine. And if it's not, you just wait and it will be fixed. You always have the option to downgrade. I've never had to do that actually. Arch is mainstream enough that all the mainstream stuff just works. Docker, snap, steam, etc. Between those, I can run just about anything I need to and get the best experience possible. Hardware support is constantly improving and with Arch you have early access to kernel releases. I generally am within a few patch releases of the latest stable linux kernel. So, I get the most out of my GPU, CPU, wifi, and other stuff I have. Mostly chances of hardware working decrease with the age of the kernel. Best case, stuff works but with more stability issues and less performance on an older kernel. Worst case, you have stuff that doesn't work at all that you can't get working until your distribution finally updates the kernel. I've updated the kernel mostly without issues. On 1 occasion I went back to the previous version for a week while they sorted out some issues with touchpad support. Not a big deal.