There’s also archinstall which comes with the latest os image which is just like any other installer and holds your hand through the process.

It’s really very simple to get arch installed

I have a simple bash script that manages folders and files with a way to route them to whatever location. Then I run the script and it does all the symlinking for me. This is what I do for systemd unit files and my own dotfiles

It seems like there might be exceptions to the “no partial upgrades” which has not been discussed: you can pin your version of the kernel primarily to give time for packages like zfs to catch up to the latest kernel

I’ve never used bcachefs and only recently read about some of the drama. I wish the project the best but at this point it is hard to beat zfs

Here’s my journey from arch to proxmox back to arch: https://bower.sh/homelab

I was in your shoes and decided to simplify my system. It’s really hard to beat arch and I missed having full control over the system. Proxmox is awesome but it felt overkill for my use cases. If I want to experiment with new distros I would probably just run distrobox or qemu directly. Proxmox does a lot but it ended up just being a gui on top of qemu with some built in backup systems. But if you end up using zfs anyway … what’s the benefit?

I didn’t use any of the terms you used in your post. I’m not using those products in part for the reasons I discussed but also I don’t see it particularly useful beyond a cult of personality building it.

I’m of mixed views about this. Omarchy is popular purely because of DHH. I don’t see anything of benefit beyond the notoriety of a famous dev.

There’s also some dissenting opinion about DHH in general that taints the project: https://drewdevault.com/2025/09/24/2025-09-24-Cloudflare-and-fascists.html

Being based on hyprland also has some potential social issues.

I don’t get why cloudflare didn’t donate to arch instead.