@scottslowe If this is your first go at Linux, installing it and making it a useable system will take more effort than other distros, and it is easier to mess up things if you aren't careful. For many it is quite frustrating and an immediate turnoff from Linux.

It is however also a valuable learning experience, and if you can survive Arch Manual Installation, then you will be generally very well equipped to troubleshoot issues. Make sure to carefully read the instructions on the wiki and look up things you don't understand immediately. And don't be afraid to ask questions!

The cool thing about Arch is, that because every install starts out at the bare minimum, it is very easy to set up things just the way that you want to without any extra fluff. Nothing is installed without you explicitly telling it to (outside of dependencies). This also means however that you will have to manually install things like wifi/bluetooth functionality, printer support and anything else that may come just out of the box with other distros. It's not exactly an insurmountable effort, but it's more work that needs doing. Fortunately you only need to set it up once.