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:
“Westerners inherit
A design for living
Deeper into matter—
Not without due patter
Of a great misgiving.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“It is not impossible, of course, after such an administration as Roosevelt’s and after the change in method that I could not but adapt in view of my different way of looking at things, that questions should arise as to whether I should go back on the principles of the Roosevelt administration.... I have a government of limited power under a Constitution, and we have got to work out our problems on the basis of law. Now, if that is reactionary, then I am a reactionary.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)