Arch Linux
(commonly referred to simply as Arch) is a Linux distribution inspired by CRUX and intended to be lightweight and simple. The design approach of the development team focuses on "simplicity", elegance, code correctness and minimalism "Simplicity", according to Arch, is defined as "without unnecessary additions, modifications, or complications" and is defined from a developer standpoint, rather than a user standpoint.
The slim default install provides only a simple base GNU/Linux environment including the GNU toolchain, Linux kernel, a meagre extra modules and libraries, and a bash shell[7] Further system customization and expansion (adding additional software such as a window manager, desktop environment, etc) is accomplished by utilizing pacman to pull in additional packages via internet.
All packages are managed using the Pacman package manager, which handles package installation, upgrades, removal, downgrades, database queries and features automatic dependency resolution Pacman is written in the C programming language The packages for Arch Linux are obtained from the Arch Linux package tree and are optimized for either i686 or x86-64 architectures Arch Linux is primarily based on binary packages in the targz format for the sake of installation expedience, though a ports-like source packaging system (ABS) is also included, which compiles source tarballs into pkgtargz packages, that are installed via Pacman.
Debian is a much larger project and community and features stable, testing, and unstable branches, offering over 18,000 binary packages. Arch does not 'split' their packages into -dev and -common as Debian does, therefore, Arch repositories will seem much smaller. Arch is more lenient when it comes to 'non-free' packages as defined by GNU. Debian's design approach focuses more on stability and stringent testing. Arch is focused more on the philosophy of simplicity and offering bleeding edge software. Arch packages are more current than Debian Stable and Testing, being about equal with Debian unstable.
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