Should I switch to Arch Linux?

[ved]

Up till now I've been using Linux Mint on my laptop. I've heard a lot of great things about Arch and I'm considering making the switch. I just want to know if it's worth the time and effort and if there is another distribution I should try out.

[Weak1ings]

I'd recommend that you try it on some drive you don't care much about first, (or a partition) As a sort of trial run before making anything permanent.

[Kiyuubi]

What Weak1ngs said.  You can fuck up an Arch installation quite easily.  If you want Arch, but without the hassle, then I suggest Antergos.  It is basically a pre-compiled, pre-configured Arch installation with the choice of GNOME, KDE, XFCE, and LXDE.

[ved]

What Weak1ngs said.  You can fuck up an Arch installation quite easily.  If you want Arch, but without the hassle, then I suggest Antergos.  It is basically a pre-compiled, pre-configured Arch installation with the choice of GNOME, KDE, XFCE, and LXDE.

Then what does it offer over Mint. I though the selling point for Arch was the freedom you had with it? I'm tempted to go with Antergos but I don't know what it has to offer over Mint

[Kiyuubi]

Then what does it offer over Mint. I though the selling point for Arch was the freedom you had with it? I'm tempted to go with Antergos but I don't know what it has to offer over Mint

All distributions are roughly the same.  What differentiates them is the support, from developers and the community, and the package manager.  Arch uses Pacman, while Linux Mint uses aptitude.  Arch has a community repostiry, called AUR, and is absolutely amazing.  It has thousands of packages to easily install.  Antergos has AUR, and a visual package manager as well. 

 

Arch, and Antergos, are rolling-release distros.  Meaning that they do not have normal releases like Ubuntu (14.04, 14.10, 15.04, 15.10)  Arch, and Antergos, are being continuously updated, with no "versions".