Arch Linux

Arch Linux does a good job of being “lean” while offering pre-compiled (binary) packages so you don't have to build them yourself, as with Gentoo. Arch Linux is a great compromise for people who would like the benefits of Gentoo but don't want to spend the time or gain the expertise to build and maintain packages from source.

Arch uses a “rolling” upgrade model. By contrast, the commercially-oriented distributions—largely IBM/Red Hat, Oracle, and Ubuntu—offer minor and major updates on a schedule. Their major updates can (and often do) break the O/S or result in major unexpected changes in applications or methods of operation. In contrast, Arch (like Gentoo) incrementally updates what you have. Ten years later your server can still be working like it always has.

The Arch main-line is very basic and leaves all the configuration to the end user, and each of these off-shoots of Arch focus on providing a pre-configured desktop environment. This is different from Ubuntu and Red Hat, which offer a complete desktop solution that others have modified, and I think this is the reason why Arch is so stable and why it is possible to shift from one of the branch distributions back to the mainline Arch distribution.

For dedicated high-end servers I feel that Gentoo is the king and nothing tops its technological benefits, but Arch is a close second, and for use on a lower-powered server such as a Virtual Machine (VM) Arch is the better choice.