[splatterdash]

FTA:"...it is based on Arch Linux, which is probably the least friendly Linux around..."

With a remark like that, I was hoping that the author provide the raw scores. Even so, on what grounds is Arch Linux not friendly? Their wiki is very easy to follow and understand for a new user. Not to mention their forum.

[hni]

It is not friendly in the sense that you as the user are expected to extensively configure your system before you are able to use it. It does not work out of the box (unless you have very basic needs). What makes Arch Linux great in my opinion (I use it myself) is that if you are the type of person who is willing to spend some time customising your desktop to achieve a perfect, tailored work environment, Arch gives you all the flexibility you need without imposing unnecessary complexity.

[lnteveryday]

I have to agree with splatterdash. IMHO I've only started using Arch recently and the greatest part about it so far is the amount of things I've learned to manually do while setting up and configure my system. There are many things that I had taken for granted with other distributions because they are "user friendly."

Also, risking my neck here, Archbang is a neat little distro that's pretty much arch + openbox with a few pieces of bloat. A dedicated arch user might ask "why?," but it is extremely easy to use and install (and it is arch). Just something to take a look at if you decided you're too lazy to look at the arch wiki and take 10 minutes to do the real install. Archbang is polished enough and more of a "complete" preassembled distro that I thought would have done a lot better.

Plus, who doesn't love to tinker.

[cgag]

I started using arch recently and it was certainly intimidating working through the installer, my first install attempt led to me not being able to boot into arch or my windows partition and it took a fair amount of googling to figure out how to get windows back. I think it took me like 3 days to really get it to the point of being productive.

That said I think the arch wiki is truly amazing. I never expected such great documentation from a linux distro. I learned a ton while installing it and I'm still learning constantly. It may be unfriendly in that you'll need to generally configure things yourself before you use them, but the documentation is incredibly friendly.

[DanBC]

There are many less friendly Linux distributions around than Arch.

Maybe the article author meant "popular" or "well known"? But even then the Arch community is friendly and they've produced some nice documentation.

[Jach]

Arch occupies the sweet spot between Gentoo and Ubuntu, favoring the Gentoo side I think. (I'm a long-time Gentoo user though a few friends love Arch.) You skipped the rest of the quote: ". . . , save for Gentoo." (And there is a number of OSes less user-friendly than Gentoo.) The reason for Arch's "unfriendliness" here is that it has a wiki at all--people don't want to read. (Somewhat related, this has also seemed to result in a decline in toy quality since people don't want to put stuff together...)

[Intermediate]

I think this is because installation and most of configuration steps of Arch Linux requires work in console which is considered unfriendly for an average user nowadays. Personally, I have nothing against console, but many newbies are scared of it.