[aroman]

Flexibility is definitely something we try to be opinionated about. We don't offer a lot of easy GUI customization out of the box, but you'll find that there's quite a bit hidden beneath the surface or is easy to code up yourself.

If you're really interested in a completely customizable and hand-tailored OS, I'd honestly suggest you look into something like ArchLinux or Gentoo[2]. Both platforms have made available most of our applications and components, so you can pick and choose to build the desktop you personally want :)

[1]: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/?O=0&C=0&SeB=nd&K=element... [2]: http://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Pantheon

[munchor]

Pantheon's Arch Linux support is not finished - I'm pretty sure you can't run Pantheon on it. However, on Gentoo I'm sure you can.

Besides that, we do offer some customization, you just have to use dconf-editor to change the configuration keys and not a GUI for several things. And there's also "elementary Tweak" which adds even more configuration.