> Maybe it's time for distributions to slim down considerably to the point where they really only contain everything that's needed for the system to run on its

> Maybe it's time for distributions to slim down considerably to the point where they really only contain everything that's needed for the system to run on its own. This is why I love Arch Linux. The core installation is super slim, it's just the console, a few utilities, the package manager and you. From there, you can choose exactly which software you want and always get the absolute latest stable version. Arch doesn't have the concept of OS versions and upgrades - packages are updated all the time and you can choose exactly how often you update as well as whether you want to update just a few packages or all of them. It might not be a great choice where rock-solid stability and thoroughly tested software is required - this is where distros like Debian shine. For everything else, Arch serves perfectly.