I agree with this as well. I will comment my
experience and after that propose my solution.
When I installed ROS in my Archlinux pc, I had several
troubles with python and gcc dependencies and the instructions
in ArchWiki weren't complete. After some internet search and
struggling, I completed the installation and added the process
to ArchWiki.
Currently one of the main problems is around GCC support,
being gcc 4.6 the stable release in Archlinux, but some
packages in ROS don't compile with this version; to fix this,
you must install gcc 4.5 or less from AUR (but this at the
same time posses troubles because from AUR, only an extra gcc
installation can be installed, when installing a third gcc,
for example gcc4.3 for Matlab MEX support, an error occurs).
Also for python2 bindings, although AUR provides the packages,
it troubles in the final implementation for the global
variables and linkers, you have to fix this always manually.
The solution at the long time, that doesn't involve
changing to Ubuntu, is work with the Arch community, first to
create a package that install ROS and handles its dependencies
internally, and latter take this to an official community
package.
If this decision is made, and enough people is willing to
cooperate, we can achieve this. For this an any contribution
to ROS, you can count me in, I am relatively new to ROS, I am
using it in my undergraduate thesis (waiting for the robotino
api2 drivers), but I have experience working in open source
projects and I'm always happy to help.
--
Gracias
Erwin José López Pulgarín
Coordinador General Grupo CEIMTUN
Ingeniería Mecatrónica
Universidad Nacional de Colombia