Antergos

Antergos in key points:

• Arch-based rolling distro
• Excellent installer allows browser choice, libre office (if desired), proprietary or free graphics drivers, firewall and other options.
• Installer allows you to choose different desktop environments (KDE, Gnome, XFCE, Cinnamon or just a base install)
• The installer updates before install (very nice!)
• Growing and vibrant forum/community
• Very similar (but not the same) in philosophy/functionality to Manjaro

Should you choose Manjaro or Antergos? Manjaro and Antergos are both superb Arch-based distros.* (I have spent about 6 months with each.) If you know you want to choose one of them, but don't know which to go for, here are some points that might help you along. But it really comes down to tiny details, so if you flip a coin, you won't lose out much. For example, you can in 99.9% of occassions use advice from the Manjaro forum for solving Antergos problems and vice-versa. Note also that, ultimately, Manjaro and Antergos have the same guts and that, in the overwhelming majority of cases, you could overcome any particular perceived shortcoming of one to make it more like the other.

Go for Manjaro if...

• you prefer KDE Plasma or XFCE desktops over Gnome or Cinnamon (Manjaro have optimized Plasma brilliantly, inc. font rendering for GTK apps).
• you like the idea of a rolling distro where the maintainers test the newest packages for 2 weeks for stability before giving them out. (Note: I have never seen any advantage to this. Antergos packages seem as stable for everything I've used.)
• you don't mind downloading a separate installer for the desktop environment of your choice
• you don't mind installing ufw separately (it's two lines in the terminal)
• you would make use of Manjaro's excellent kernel switcher (multiple Linux kernels are supported and easy to switch between in settings)
• you prefer Octopi as the front end for package management on Plasma and Pamac as the front end for XFCE and Gnome. (In my opinion Pamac is easier-to-use than Octopi.)

Go for Antergos if...

• you prefer Gnome or Cinnamon deskops over XFCE or KDE's Plasma. (Gnome runs super smoothly on Antergos; Plasma has a couple of things that need work on (e.g. font rendering for GTK apps, occasional crashes of the settings window, problems with resizing windows with customized windows decorations).
• you want updates the moment they come out (Manjaro, by contrast, has a 2 week buffer to test for stability). Note: I have never seen any advantage to this. Antergos packages seem as stable for everything I've used.
• it's important for you that all your desktop environments are available from the same installer
• you want ufw firewall out-of-the box
• you don't mind not having Manjaro's kernel switcher (most people won't mind)
• you don't mind a slightly smaller forum community (although you can easily use the Manjaro one too to get relevant advice)
• you prefer Pamac as the package manager front end, irrespective of the desktop environment. (In my opinion Pamac is easier-to-use than Octopi.)

• Some have said Antergos isn't a real distro, but rather "an installer for Arch". This is only partially true: Yes, it installs what is essentially Arch. But that's a big deal for relative novices, and relative novices can use Antergos with relatively little effort (though Manjaro too). Antergos maintain their own repositories, in addition to supporting Arch repos and the AUR. Antergos (though Manjaro also) have put in considerable effort to iron out some details related to the GUI, ufw settings, and a whole bunch of other stuff.

Last edited: 2017-06-25

[Edited by JohnFastman, June 25]