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Solus 2017.04.18.0 Released
- Thread starter Chuklr
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Monkey God
Mangina Full of Sand
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Interesting. I've been playing alot with Ubuntu MATE recently and its by far the least annoying of the Linux distros I've tried in recent memory. This looks similar. Are you familiar with Solus? What about it stands out from the Mint's, Ubuntu's and others?
I've only run the previous snapshot of the Budgie DE as a Live DVD for an hour or so, but I really liked it. When the stars align properly, and I have the time (I'm retired so my time is preious
), I intend to install it on my "back up" desktop. I really like the Budgie desktop and was seriously considering Ubuntu Budgie. Solus "seems" to run a bit smoother for some reason. Also my main distro is Debian based RoboLinux and I wanted a non-debian based distro and solus is "Independent".Vermillion is the guy to talk to as he dropped Arch for Solus.
Vermillion
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Solus is a distro built from the ground up that's rolling release based on the latest LTS kernel. It's not a derivative of Ubuntu or Debian or anything. The DE Budgie was built for Solus. Last night's update to Budgie (10.3.1 i think) will be the last where Budgie uses the Gnome stack. They're moving Budgie over to QT for Budgie 11. You can read all about that over here: https://budgie-desktop.org/home/
Solus' founder Ikey Doherty is very open about what he wants Solus to do and be. He's actually quite knowledgeable and you can listen to him and his thoughts on a number of podcasts. Linux Unplugged (he's typically a guest) and Late Night Linux (he's a host). He's one of the reasons why I moved to Solus off of Arch (which I never thought I'd leave). It's a very open community and Ikey engages users directly.
I also love Budgie. I think it's a superb DE. As with any DE though it all comes down to personal preference. With Arch I used XFCE for a long time and then had moved to MATE right before I heard about Solus (on the Linux Unplugged podcast no less). They've added such really nice functionality to Solus that other distros just don't have. clr-boot-manager for example is amazing. Makes updating kernels pretty much bulletproof which is welcome. Granted for most in the Linux world if they blow up their computer during a kernel update they can fix it, but Solus wants to be a "it just works" distro and making it easy to rollback and choose a different kernel is a great step in that direction. It will also enable users to pick and choose kernels in the future. Meaning you will be able to choose a mainline kernel instead of LTS if you so desire.
Their software center is also very nice. It's easy to use and again it just works. The only thing that needs work (and they're working on it by moving to flatpaks) is the installation of 3rd party software like Chrome and Flash Player. So installing that through the software center is fluky. Command line (all the commands are on the help pages on the main page) installs work great though.
Solus doesn't use a package manager like APT or Pacman or Yaort. They use one called eopkg (EvolveOS was the original name thus why it's eopkg) which was forked from PiSi. But like any package manager it installs packages and isn't hard to learn.
There are things to consider though. Because it's not a derivative of Ubuntu or Debian you possibly won't have some apps you want in the Solus repos. Again though Ikey and his crew are always open to adding more. All you have to do is follow the process for requesting software to be added to the repos and be patient.
Solus in my opinion is what Ubuntu wanted to be many years ago before corporate dollars took command on design decisions.
Bottom line is I find Solus to be a very fast, lightweight distro that is growing quickly and has a founder and crew that really give a shit and want to make Linux an easy and enjoyable experience for all. So Solus is probably where I'll stay for the foreseeable future unless they head down a path I don't care for.
Monkey God
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Thanks for the info. So far I am pretty happy with Ubuntu MATE, much better UI than Unity, crisp, fast. My only real compliant is that software/package management is cryptic and cumbersome. I will try Solus in a VM when I get a chance.
B00nie
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Care to elaborate a little? To me Ubuntu has the most simple software/package management.
Vermillion
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Yeah Ubuntu was always easy. Sometimes dealing with some of the PPAs could get wonky but still far easier than say using a custom repo in Arch with pacman lol.
Monkey God
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I will when I get a chance and fire up the VM. There are three differently labelled software/package managers under the menu system - all of which do different things. All I wanted to do was to be able to install a RAR utility - took me quite a while to figure it out. Ended up having to do it via command line - which is fine.
Monkey God
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So looking at Ubuntu MATE under System\Administration I have "Software Boutique", "Software Updater" and "Software& Updates" and "Ubuntu Software Center"
Im like OK - which one do I use to do what? LOL
Im like OK - which one do I use to do what? LOL
B00nie
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That's Mate edition specific, in the regular Ubuntu the software center is pushed to you and it's the most user friendly.
Monkey God
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Unfortunately regular Ubuntu is Unity which is terrible. Anyways, its not a big deal, because overall its fast and functional.
DGMurdockIII
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Solus is built from ground up base only on Linux kernel