[arch-general] What jobs/tasks is arch the best at?

[Guus Snijders]

Op 14 apr. 2016 22:21 schreef <theodore.preuninger at lycos.com>:
>
> For example non OS:
>
> A hammer is the best to get in a nail. Could use a screw driver, but
> that is not the best tool for the job/task.
>
> Comparing ARCH to other distros in the SAME CATEGORY (not for example
> against pfSense - one of many distros designed for connection sharing),
> what jobs/task is it the best at?

IMHO Arch is very good at:
- Educating users who want to know how Linux really works
- pleasing power users in letting them have control over the system
- being nice to users who don't want to reinstall every few months, just
because there's a new release
- people who like to use (b)leading edge software

Or in short: for those who like to stay in control of their systems.

It's less suited for those that have little interest in the O.S. and/or
reading documentation.

I guess the old UNIX adage can be applied here:
It is very user friendly. It's just picky who it's friends are.

For me personally, Arch is very good for my home systems. Keeping
everything up2date is just one command away and rarely breaks stuff. Even
when something breaks, it's usually a simple fix.
I myself wouldn't use it @work, mainly because of 3rd party (commercial)
applications that have a hard time keeping up with the pace of OSS
development.

My info on other distros is a bit dated. I used debian before switching to
Arch. In those days Gentoo and LFS were mostly named as options for power
users, besides freebsd/netbsd.
Arch looked a bit like Gentoo without the long waits for compiling, with a
very enthusiastic community and a very nice package manager. ~10 years
later I'm still using the same installation  (though only the pacman log
proves it ;) ).

Mvg,
    Guus Snijders