Author here. I think we're talking about two different things. By "nothing works out of the box" I mean that you need to set it up yourself. For example, the Beginner's Guide leads you through setup of your video driver [1], ALSA [2], Xorg [3], and wifi [4]. These are all things that require manual work. Maybe there's a more appropriate term for this than "doesn't work out of the box" (?) but it's the first term that came to mind.
That's the beautiful thing about arch. While figuring out configurations, tweaks, or problems for yourself may seem daunting Arch has fantastic documentation through the web on tons of issues, ranging from software- to hardware-specific. It is one of the best documented linux distros I've had the pleasure of using.
Absolutely correct on the wm comment. However, I am an organized, messy person and prefer stacking wm. Currently in favor of openbox, but it may be something else tomorrow.(Note: not archbang, but I am not entirely opposed to archbang as some are. Archbang turned out to be really great for my old laptop that I use primarily as a browser, but nothing beats the real deal when it comes to my everyday-everything machine)
That nixos looks interesting, possibly something to consider for one of my personal machines.
Arch has kinda blossomed into a nano-debian status, people start to build stuff upon it, archbang, archhurd, it's great.
The former has filled the 'out of the box' niche sort of, now you have a minimalist yet ready to use system.
# note aside, about nixos, I can't tell how it's gonna turn out, but for once it's a linux system with a real paradigm shift. Funny how non-mutable ideas are spreading these days, btrfs, nix, even git.
# second note, have you seen this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jULGE0rq8M ? makes me wanna say 'tiling' is the only 'management' right now, stacking doesn't do sh*t.
You may be right. I have only recently made the switch to wm, mostly because of the problems with gnome 3. Originally gnome was the only de that I liked, absolutely hated KDE for no real reason other than something about it bothered me. Then gnome 3 just ruined it.
Then I discovered wms. I'm probably more attracted to openbox because the stacking is closer to the sort of window management that you would get in any de.
However, I so very rarely have a bunch of windows open at once that I need to see all at once. And I can also easily open, close, move, resize, switch screens, etc. with the keyboard. I'll give it a try before I say that it's not for me though. Who knows, maybe I'll use one for when I'm working on projects.
Xmonad mainly, look at the video you'll see some usages where tiling shines ( chat , monitor ), only drawback, it requires haskell which is a large bundle. When space is limited , dwm6, less fancy tile modes but super tiny.
I found those peaceful to use, you just forget they're here even though they lay things for you.
For some reason (there must be a limit on the number of subthread levels) there was no reply link under your last message so I'm replying to my own in the hopes that you're reading it.
I'm sure there are quite a few wm/de threads on the arch forums. They get a little repetitive though. Maybe a thread about the less obvious subtleties and tricks for your favorite wm.
For wifi it's much easier to install networkmanager, add it to DAEMONS (after dbus) and then configure your network with one of the KDE/GNOME networkmanager applets. It pretty much just works after that. For example I plugged in a USB wifi adaptor and it automatically appeared in the applet and found various SSIDs.
For sound, the best solution that worked for me was ALSA + esd. I could never get PulseAudio to work properly.
I've had a great experience with pulseaudio + gnome 3. Some people consider gnome 3's tight integration with pulse a downside, but so far its given me the best sound experience on linux.
On arch after installing gnome 3 my sound just works flawlessly, even my usb headphones.
I did have issues with pulse when I used XFCE though.
[1] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners_Guide#Install...
[2] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners_Guide#Sound
[3] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners_Guide#Install...
[4] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Wireless_Setup