Arch Linux. What is Arch Linux? The best way I can think to describe it is a comparison to Slackware. A lot of people have used Slackware so it makes for a good comparison. In that case imagine that Pat built a bare bones package manager for Slackware. That basically did nothing but install and uninstall software. That would be Arch Linux. I either crashed my Gentoo setup or somehow broke it upgrading. Either way I took it as an opportunity to try out Arch. I was recommended Arch several times on TuxForums.org that’s why I’m trying it out now. As far as binary distributions go its great. I still don’t really consider myself a binary man though. If I had to recommend a binary distribution at this point though I would definitely recommend Arch.
Enjoy the Penguins!
As for souce-based packages you should definitely try the ABS (makepkg) system. Have a look http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ABS . It’s very similar to portage except that writing pkgbuilds seems a lot easier than writing ebuilds. Also have a look at http://aur.archlinux.org for a lot of ready-made pkgbuilds.