this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2023
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Linux
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Arch
Thanks to Pacman and the AUR there is an extensive list of apps to install very easily.
And you don't have to keep the build dependencies on your system, so you have more disk space.
It's lightweight and efficient
Arch is also not more lightweight than other distributions.
With Arch, unlike other distributions, there are no extra dev packages. Thus, everything is present in a single package, so they require more storage space.
Arch's packages also have fixed dependencies on other packages, which in turn have other dependencies. So you can't only install what you actually want, which is often claimed. For example, I would like to uninstall various Bluetooth packages, but I can't because they are dependencies for packages I use.
The basic installation including base-devel requires more than 1 GB of storage space without the GUI. Some distributions need less including the GUI.
There are indeed more lightweight distros. But if you want something that "works out of the box", contrary to, say, PuppyLinux or Gentoo, then Arch is interesting.
It is however harder to configure than Fedora, Manjaro, SuSE, etc. It's a great inbetween.