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.
NixOS has NUR, but it’s not necessary because they take everyone’s pull requests in the official repo. I’ve been maintaining the software I use myself on the official nixpkgs, so I don’t need to use the NUR.
dconf can also be configured with text files (with a format similar to ‘.ini’ files), although enabling this support isn’t trivial, and it’s not the most well documented feature.
I also used to run a ”lobotomized” Gnome, but TBH I found it easier in the long run to start from a minimal base.
I want good text rendering and windows and buttons with rounded corners. I want my laptop to work correctly when connecting it to external displays or projectors without a lot of futzing around. I want vsync to work with my monitor out of the box, I want to be able to watch video without tearing, and I want a desktop that has first class support for high-DPI displays. I also want to have some basic integration with the other system features provided by my distro, which increasingly means high-quality integration with NetworkManager and different systemd components. I want to get integrated notifications when a program segfaults on my computer or in case there’s an SELinux AVC denial.
The majority of other distros value package managers that allow for complex graph evaluation of dependencies, and the ability to roll back. This is granted with rpm and Deb, but not for pkgsource, which is a pretty lightweight format compared to those.
As for AUR, the major distros (Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora) support 3p repositories as well. The main concern is security. IIRC one of major complaints for AUR in the past was that it didn’t foresee a strongly secure distribution system.
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