It takes advantage of some native mount functionality, and just generally behaves well.

My experience is mainly with 1.7.1, but I just recently upgraded to 1.7.5, and have a little learning to do. Stellarmate OS, along with Kstars and Ekos, took me from sitting next to the scope all night using Nebulosity, to sitting in my office long enough to get it started, then off to doing other things while it does all the work. It isn't an overnight thing, but is one of those things that ends up making life easier and more fun. One complaint. It comes up with a WiFi hotspot, which I can't figure out how to remove without turning off WiFi. I use ethernet, so I can turn off WiFi without consequence. I recommend Stellarmate OS to anyone wanting to turn a Raspberry Pi into a very workable remote observatory controller.