Funny, because I've been using Arch Linux now almost 5 years on my work computer without any problems. Same desktop (xmonad), same editor (emacs) and same terminal (xterm) with the most awesome configuration stored in Github. The only problems I've heard here are coming from the OSX users, who face difficulties when upgrading the OS into a new version, which breaks homebrew or something...

Perhaps Servercobra was talking about the barrier for entry. I haven't yet set up an Arch distro, but I can say that getting started with OSX is beyond simple. Based on what I have heard, setting up Arch can be rather difficult.

I really like the idea of Arch but I am intimidated to jump in. What was your experience like when you first booted up Arch?

Installing Arch Linux requires seems to require both knowledge and time. I haven't installed myself, but I've seen friends and people in the Internet describing it that way.

If you want to quickly try something similar, I'd suggest Manjaro Linux, which is based on Arch. It really feels like Arch but with non-minimal defaults for those who don't want to set up everything themselves.

Well, I have experience with Linux for the last 20 years, since I was 12 years old, so it was not that strange to setup Arch for the first time, way easier than the early Red Hats back in the days. I also have long history with OSX, including the early 10.0 builds until 10.6. I honestly think that having a nicely configured computer build with a simple distribution, like Arch, is much easier for day-to-day work than an OSX installation, that can break lots of things when there's a new version out.