Solus Linux

After reading the responses in this thread I've downloaded Solus 3 Budgie. My 2TB Seagate storage drive was dying a slow death so I borrowed a friend's WD Red 3TB NAS drive and copied over the data to it. I actually only needed 2TB room so that leaves me with another 1TB (actually 780GB) of space to play with. Why not install Linux? As soon as I can find a blank DVD R/W I'll get to installing and report back here. Looks to be an interesting release.
 
cybereality said:
Cheaper, sure, for each one. But you can reuse the same USB stick tons of times. Plus USB 3.0 drives are loads faster than using a DVD.

Also, right now only 1 computer I have even has an optical drive. Pretty much all the new cases (well at least the nice looking ones) omit the drive bay these days.
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As a tech I use a number of ISO's as well as DMG's to repair machines, USB sticks are just too expensive to waste on ISO's.
 
cybereality said:
Yeah, that makes sense. I used to do the same when I was doing IT work but I guess I'm just over the days of having a fat book of DVDs to deal with.
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I 'need' a fat book of DVD's! I've got shit all over the place!
 
I just keep the ISOs on the hard drive and flash whatever image is needed to the USB. Besides a 8Gb usb stick is 4-8 bucks in the discount bin.
 
B00nie said:
I just keep the ISOs on the hard drive and flash whatever image is needed to the USB. Besides a 8Gb usb stick is 4-8 bucks in the discount bin.
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I've thought of that, but most days I don't get time for lunch, so I defiantly don't have time to keep transferring ISO's. I just go through the DVD's on the spindle, find the ISO I need, set the machine to install and go on working on something else altogether.
 
Either I'm missing something or am just a dumbass but I've been working on trying to get Solus to install to a loaner, good, 3TB drive and have the Linux boot show-up in the Windows 10 boot menu.

Anyone got any ideas on how to do this? Or, is it not possible?
 
AceGoober said:
Either I'm missing something or am just a dumbass but I've been working on trying to get Solus to install to a loaner, good, 3TB drive and have the Linux boot show-up in the Windows 10 boot menu.

Anyone got any ideas on how to do this? Or, is it not possible?
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It's possible, but I believe only if using MBR boot. Although, if you already have separate drives, I'd recommend disconnecting the Windows drive, install Linux along with it's bootloader to the other drive, reconnect the Windows drive, and use your bios to select the linux drive as the primary boot drive. Then, once that is done and you are booted into Linux, you should be able to run the following command to update grub to show both linux and windows.
sudo update-grub
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That will leave the Windows bootloader intact on the Windows drive, and keep grub isolated to the other drive. Then, if you decide to not use Linux anymore, all you have to do is change a bios setting, and things will be just as they are today.

EDIT: To further explain what is happening here, most linux distros include os-prober which when update-grub is run, it will automatically look for supported operating systems, which includes Windows.
 
Lunar Or anyone else for that matter

Are there any ramifications for keeping the Windows drive connected while installing Linux on to a separate drive? It has been awhile since I played with Linux variants and even though my Google Fu is great there are instances where something could be missed.
 
AceGoober said:
Lunar Or anyone else for that matter

Are there any ramifications for keeping the Windows drive connected while installing Linux on to a separate drive? It has been awhile since I played with Linux variants and even though my Google Fu is great there are instances where something could be missed.
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There shouldn't be any issue depending on what type of installer options are available regarding boot device. I personally remove drives as an extra measure, but most Linux GUI installers allow you to select which drive you want to install the bootloader to. Also, if you don't want to deal with manual partitioning I've found that most, if not all, Linux GUI installers handle multiple drives pretty terribly when it comes to automatic partitioning.

For example, Ubuntu lets you install alongside Windows, erase and install, etc, but it won't let you point at a secondary drive and apply a use the entire disk option. That's one gripe I have with these GUI installers. They seem to assume that any given machine will only ever have one drive installed. And to me it'd be fairly easy to just provide a dropdown that allows one to select explicitly which drive to apply changes to for the automatic options. If you are comfortable with manual partitioning, then the installers should handle things fine. Although, I will say that Solus' installer has HORRIBLE partitioning options and control.
 
AceGoober said:
Lunar Or anyone else for that matter

Are there any ramifications for keeping the Windows drive connected while installing Linux on to a separate drive? It has been awhile since I played with Linux variants and even though my Google Fu is great there are instances where something could be missed.
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If running Windows 10, the best thing to do is remove the Windows drive completely when installing Linux. Once installed, install both drives and use your UEFI boot manager to select boot devices as opposed to using GRUB. Windows 10 doesn't play well with dual boots of Linux unfortunately.
 
BulletDust said:
If running Windows 10, the best thing to do is remove the Windows drive completely when installing Linux. Once installed, install both drives and use your UEFI boot manager to select boot devices as opposed to using GRUB. Windows 10 doesn't play well with dual boots of Linux unfortunately.
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This is literally why I built a second machine, just for Linux on metal.
 
IdiotInCharge said:
This is literally why I built a second machine, just for Linux on metal.
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Same here, that coupled with the fact that my Windows machine used to be the gamer so it's overclocked to the crapper, is noisy and cranks out the heat!

My Dell T5500 with Xeon X5675 and Nvidia GPU is a far more suitable daily driver running Linux and still plays games pretty damn well - Love this machine.
 
BulletDust said:
Windows 10 doesn't play well with dual boots of Linux unfortunately.
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I can't disagree with this statement more. I've been dual booting Windows 10 and Linux for almost a year now without issue using grub as my bootloader. No issues whatsoever on both my desktop and my laptop. I would like to know exactly how 10 doesn't behave well in a dual boot scenario.
 
Lunar said:
I can't disagree with this statement more. I've been dual booting Windows 10 and Linux for almost a year now without issue using grub as my bootloader. No issues whatsoever on both my desktop and my laptop. I would like to know exactly how 10 doesn't behave well in a dual boot scenario.
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Look Lunar, if that's your experience I respect that.

In the early days of Windows 10 there were issues with Windows messing with the GRUB bootloader, they were fairly well documented and I actually experienced it myself on my work laptop (which now runs Linux only) - Based on your comments I assume the issues have since been resolved.

Merry Christmas my friend. ;)
 
Is there any real customization options for Budgie? I'd really like a menu like Arc Menu as opposed to the standard menu, but while Budgie actually looks a lot like Gnome, obviously none of the Gnome extensions are compatible.

Any suggestions?
 
BulletDust said:
Is there any real customization options for Budgie? I'd really like a menu like Arc Menu as opposed to the standard menu, but while Budgie actually looks a lot like Gnome, obviously none of the Gnome extensions are compatible.

Any suggestions?
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For right now Budgie is Budige and it comes as is. If you want the customization you're better off installing Solus Gnome.
 
So I got my hands on the pre-release Solus Plasma ISO via being a Patreon. Impressive to say the least. I find it to be more fluid than KDE Neon and less bloated since it isn't Ubuntu based.

The HiDPI support in KDE Plasma is top notch. As much as I like Budgie I think I'll be sticking with Plasma for awhile. At least until Budgie 11 based on QT with HiDPI support. :p
 
Vermillion said:
So I got my hands on the pre-release Solus Plasma ISO via being a Patreon. Impressive to say the least. I find it to be more fluid than KDE Neon and less bloated since it isn't Ubuntu based.

The HiDPI support in KDE Plasma is top notch. As much as I like Budgie I think I'll be sticking with Plasma for awhile. At least until Budgie 11 based on QT with HiDPI support. :p
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This is pretty cool. I had no idea Solus was working on a KDE spin. Might have to check it out once it releases to the general public as I'm starting to get tired of GNOME 3 being an unstable mess, and hearing that KDE is actually pretty rock solid these days.
 
Lunar said:
This is pretty cool. I had no idea Solus was working on a KDE spin. Might have to check it out once it releases to the general public as I'm starting to get tired of GNOME 3 being an unstable mess, and hearing that KDE is actually pretty rock solid these days.
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It is a fun DE. I haven't actually tried it in a long time as older versions of KDE really turned me off. But Plasma is talked about highly and KWin is a great Window Manager so I figured what the hell I'll give a shot and I haven't regretted it one bit.

Screenshot_20180213_143119.png
 
DGMurdockIII said:
This linux distro just keeps getting better and better can't see why people would hate on it
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Every time I upgrade my computer none of the linux distros work with one or 2 hardware devices though.... pain in the ass....
 
So I did end going back to Budgie after awhile. KDE was a tad flaky for my workflow especially at work. I wasn't surprised since it was a beta version of KDE Solus. However, two weeks ago I re-installed after the update to KDE 5.13. My workflow issues have been solved and man KDE is as fluid as ever. It really is a great DE.

On the Dell Precision 5510 it's really a joy to use. I even installed the Steam snap and the Linux Steam Integration snap. Runs DOTA2 beautifully. I'm rebuilding my E7470 with KDE Solus tomorrow so very interested to see if the experience is the same with KDE.
 
heatlesssun said:
Question if I may. Does your 5510 have a 4k display? And if so how's the scaling? TIA.
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Just 1080p on the 5510 and scaling works well on that. There is of course the app here and there that doesn't scale properly but that's most likely the apps fault. I do however have a 4K screen I tested at work and the scaling seems pretty good. I didn't do anything extensive though to test the 4K scaling but I would assume it works more less the same as it does on the 1080p at least for the KDE apps and apps that are HiDPI ready. I can't be 100% certain though.
 
So I loaded Solus Plasma on my E7470. It runs great but the problem is the screen on the 7470. It's a garbage 1366x768. Plasma just doesn't feel right like that because the colors are washed out on that shitty screen and resolution. That resolution is far better suited for Budgie. So I instead swapped out my 7470 for a 7270 which has a 1080p screen. Much better. Every bit as nice as the Precision 5510 in terms of how Plasma handles. I'm really digging Plasma right now.

Ubuntu should ditch Gnome and make KDE the default DE especially after all the half assed decisions the Gnome.org group is making.
 
Vermillion said:
So I loaded Solus Plasma on my E7470. It runs great but the problem is the screen on the 7470. It's a garbage 1366x768. Plasma just doesn't feel right like that because the colors are washed out on that shitty screen and resolution. That resolution is far better suited for Budgie. So I instead swapped out my 7470 for a 7270 which has a 1080p screen. Much better. Every bit as nice as the Precision 5510 in terms of how Plasma handles. I'm really digging Plasma right now.

Ubuntu should ditch Gnome and make KDE the default DE especially after all the half assed decisions the Gnome.org group is making.
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I'm so used to the Retina displays that sometimes I forget what sort of junk a cheap laptop has for hardware.
 
B00nie said:
I'm so used to the Retina displays that sometimes I forget what sort of junk a cheap laptop has for hardware.
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Yep and it really does make a HUGE difference. Time to swap the 32GB RAM from the 7470 to the 7270. ;)
 
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