Linux users tend to become fan boys of their favorite flavor ofLinux. [[Ubuntu]], openSUSE [[OpenSUSE]] and [[Fedora ]] tend to lead the distributions lists([http://www.distrowatch.com/ Distro Watch]),because of their ease of installation and use. The other type ofdistribution targets users who desire a highly customized andfine-tuned system, an example of which would be [[Gentoo]]. While bothextremes have their pros and cons in terms of customizability and easeof use, neither group targets users who desire easily customizedsystems that expose the lower-level workings of Linux. Arch Linux fills this void with a distribution that uses thebare-bones approach of Gentoo, but without requiring every package becompiled from source. It also shies away from GUI-based configurationtools in favor of directly editing text files, although GUI-basedconfiguration tools do exist. This makes Arch an excellent distributionfor older or low-end hardware. Although the installation lacks theglitz of Ubuntu or OpenSUSE, it still detects nearly all modernhardware and automatically installs drivers. [[Mirrors|Virginia Tech's mirroring]] of the Arch repositories also benefits VT Arch users, because itensures fast installs and updates.<br />