Linux

Any reasons why you'd do it from it in a host? I'd advise to just use a VM installation with a guest Arch.

That'd be far too easy! ;)

I've been using various flavours of Linux in VMs for a while but now I'd like to wean myself off of OS X. Dual booting Arch and using it as my primary OS seems like a good way to achieve that.

I've done it on an old Mac Mini but the amount of farting about with rEFIt ( http://refit.sourceforge.net/ ) and keeping a partition for OS X just in case the machine's firmware needs an update, and fiddling to get the sound to work, means that I wouldn't do it again.

It works properly, and doesn't need any special treatment once it's set up, but the OS X-specific firmware makes installing anything but OS X a misery.

Thanks for this. I'm happy to partake in some initial faffing and keeping a small OS X partition. I'm not sure what resources you had available when you set up your Mac Mini, but the Arch wiki now contains lots of information with regards to setting up everything on a MBP.