Design and Principles
Arch is largely based around binary packages. Packages are targeted for i686 and x86-64 microprocessors to assist performance on modern hardware. A ports/ebuild-like system is also provided for automated source compilation, known as the Arch Build System.
Arch Linux focuses on simplicity and developers meaning that the main effort in assisting the user is not to provide a graphical interface to work with — the package manager, for example, does not have an official graphical front-end — but making well-annotated configuration files and extensive use of shell scripts. This has earned it a reputation as a distribution for "intermediate and advanced Linux users who aren't afraid of the command line".
Relying on complex tools to manage and build your system is going to hurt the end users. "If you try to hide the complexity of the system, you'll end up with a more complex system". Layers of abstraction that serve to hide internals are never a good thing. Instead, the internals should be designed in a way such that they NEED no hiding. —Aaron GriffinRead more about this topic: Arch Linux
Famous quotes containing the words design and/or principles:
“Nowadays the host does not admit you to his hearth, but has got the mason to build one for yourself somewhere in his alley, and hospitality is the art of keeping you at the greatest distance. There is as much secrecy about the cooking as if he had a design to poison you.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The mode of founding a college is, commonly, to get up a subscription of dollars and cents, and then, following blindly the principles of a division of labor to its extreme,—a principle which should never be followed but with circumspection,—to call in a contractor who makes this a subject of speculation,... and for these oversights successive generations have to pay.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)