I wonder what you will answer the question in the title.
What I like about EOS is that it is pretty much identical to vanilla Arch, apart from having an additional repo with a handful of useful scripts and utilities, and a much nicer live ISO image than Arch. And it has a nice forum.
That means that, unlike Manjaro, the default installation of EOS comes free of much of the bloat and āmalwareā like snapd. Though, to be fair, itās pretty easy to debloat Manjaro, and Manjaro also has a nice install, live ISO images, user friendly tools and scripts, and a nice, very active forum.* So in that regard, EOS does not have many objective advantages over Manjaro**.
However, the most attractive thing about EOS over Manjaro, and the reason I use it instead of Manjaro, is that it has no aspirations to be a corporate distro: it is entirely community based. I think that choosing vanilla Arch, or something close to it, like EOS, over Manjaro, is a choice that increases oneās independence in the long run.
*EDIT: Not anymore, it doesnāt.
**EDIT 2: This great, friendly forum with a sense of community is a huge advantage over Manjaro. When I wrote the post originally, Manjaroās forum was still a friendly place worth visiting.
FWIW. I have a fairly finicky laptop and went from manjaro to arch (vanilla). EOS is not very happy on my Intel Gen10 i5.
Thatās odd. There really should be no difference between vanilla Arch and EOS on your laptop. EOS uses the same repos as vanilla Arch.
There is a lot of new hardware that Arch does not work or does with problems.
But if it works on Manjaro and Arch, it should work on EOS tooā¦
I prefer EOS because itās essentially Vanilla Arch with a bit of flavour and convenience built in.
I loved Manjaro, but over the past year theyāve gone from being a curated and more stable version of Arch to attempting to be something somewhat different, some of which havenāt sat well with me, like the FreeOffice debacle, snaps, and then the obvious most recent kerfuffle.
EOS has none of that, and has a much more straight up Arch nature and feel, with just as great a community behind it.
Maybe I misunderstood @manyroads, but it seems that vanilla Arch works on his laptop, while EOS does not, which is why I said I found it odd.
KDE Plasma works great in EOS ( for me )
and something about this forum is special , dunno what
Maybe I got more badges than on manjaro forum in 10 days
In fairness, it might be an issue with the WM is live on most of the timeā¦ dwm.
sorry, I misunderstood
Ditto. 11 days in, still completely smooth sailing, no issues whatsoever (to knock on wood).
Same for me. I can sign every word of @Sar . I loved M*** for almost 3 years. I still love it. My wife still has it on her computer. But it fills me with the deepest sorrow when I imagine where it will take the journey. EOS does not have all the things that give me an oppressive gut feeling with M***. At this point I canāt say if I can handle bleeding edge in the long run. I really hope so!
Well , I really feel sad when people donāt say the word Manjaro . Itās not a bad word
Use Mj if you canāt help it
The first things I look for in a good distro are their automated tools, such as the kernel installer (AKM) app, the āfind a new repo mirrorā app, etc. It tells me the developers/maintainers are invested and want to make the experience as simplified as possible for the user. As a side though, I would like to see an app by EOS for installing graphic drivers, much like Manjaro created, where you can see what version of the driver is installed, and or change it. (wish list)
EOS has a great customized installer. I love that instead (like Manjaro) of having 10 different download OS versions, EOSās single installer can do this with one click. That was impressive, and probably the first time I have seen this. It also installs a very minimum OSā¦and THAT is a blessing. I would imagine this was my reaction when KDE Plasma started for the first time without the bloat.
Lastly, like stated above, there is no corporate shadow that looms over the community and distro, allowing the users to come first, not the corporation. As long as EOS remains devoted to its community, I will stand beside it. It has been a beautiful experience, and I thank all those involved. Muchoā¦
thatās why I moved from Manjaro to EOS
Community-based, and Arch through and through. There is no buffer zone, which leaves the user with complete responsibility. Itās nice not being dictated to & the reason why Iāll keep making donations.
EOS started out last year with the goal of being a distro that is relatively closer to the Arch. I think he managed to meet this expectation he set himself. I like it mainly because itās simple and flexible.
I couldnāt have said it better myself; These are my reasons as well.