Arch Anywhere is Dead – Long Live Anarchy

Arch Linux is one of the mainstream Linux distros of the world. To make it widely popular among the community, Arch Anywhere was launched. Arch Anywhere was a distribution that got down from the crown when there was a trademark infringement. Now, it’s completely rebranded to Anarchy Linux. If you’ve been an Arch user or looking for having the best Arch Linux experience, Anarchy Linux is the best choice.

This distro is exceptional what it sets out and what it achieves. If you had the fear of Arch Linux, put your fear aside and get a grab on the Anarchy Linux. It’s a bitter truth that Arch Linux isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s very scary for new Linux users, even to some intermediate users. The installation of it alone is scary enough. Here, distros like Anarchy come in to help out general users with a user-friendly environment.

Installation

The installation process of Arch Linux is very challenging. However, Anarchy isn’t that much of a difficulty, but not an easy one either. Comparing to other mainstream Linux distros like Ubuntu, Linux Mint, openSUSE etc., Anarchy Linux installation takes a good focus and understanding.

The default installer uses the Xfce4 graphical interface but doesn’t make thing easy for others. You have to have an experience and understanding to go through the text-based installer. For example, the very first step of installer asks you to update the list of mirror servers. Many experienced users will stumble a bit, let alone the newbies.

Let’s go a bit deeper. Select “Download & Rank New Mirrors”, tab down to “OK” and hit Enter. You can choose the nearest mirror to your location and it’s done. The next few screens are normal and simple (language, time zone, keyboard layout etc.).

The next part is overwhelming for many Arch users. Anarchy Linux comes up with an option to “Auto Partition Drive”.

Here, I’m choosing the “Auto Partition Drive” option. Next option will allow you to choose the drive to install the OS. If you have only one drive, it’s just a matter to hit Enter. Otherwise, select the drive, choose the file system (ext2/3/4, xfs, btrfs etc.), tab down to OK, hit Enter. Then, you can choose whether you want the SWAP space. If you want to have (recommended to have), specify the size (recommended 2GB minimum). The choice between GPT and MBR is available as well.

Installation types

Now, you’ll have to choose the desired installation of Anarchy Linux. 5 options are available here:

• Anarchy-Desktop
• Anarchy-Desktop-LTS
• Anarchy-Server
• Anarchy-Server-LTS
• Anarchy-Advanced

The LTS stands for Long Term Support. If you’re a general user, use the Anarchy-Desktop (the default choice).

The installation will also guide to install various software packages to install. Don’t worry; if you miss anything, you can install it later.

There’re two desktop environments I like – GNOME and Budgie. Although the home interface doesn’t look so distinct, the “Apps” page surely looks different.

Here, GNOME is on the left and Budgie on the right.

Why use Arch Linux without the “Arch”?

It’s a nice question but revealing. Arch Linux, being optimized for an advanced user, promotes the feeling of “elitism”, like Gentoo. However, the complexity of Arch is below Gentoo. Anarchy Linux, making everything as simpler as possible, targets to reach more users. If you’re looking for something not that challenging, Anarchy is your right choice. It’s well-maintained, extremely stable and most of all, based on a highly regarded Linux arch.

If Anarchy doesn’t ring the bell of your heart, don’t worry. We have listed the best Linux distros of 2018. Choose what you love the most!