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Solus RSS Feed DistroWatch.com: Solus

Solus

Last Update: 2019-04-11 06:22 UTC

Solus is a Linux distribution built from scratch. It uses a forked version of the PiSi package manager, maintained as "eopkg" within Solus, and a custom desktop environment called "Budgie", developed in-house. The Budgie desktop, which can be set to emulate the look and feel of the GNOME 2 desktop, is tightly integrated with the GNOME stack. The distribution is available for 64-bit computers only.

Popularity (hits per day): 12 months: 8 (892), 6 months: 7 (1,071), 3 months: 8 (1,079), 4 weeks: 8 (1,140), 1 week: 8 (1,230)

Average visitor rating: 8.6/10 from 420 review(s).


Solus Summary
Distribution Solus
Home Page https://getsol.us/
Mailing Lists --
User Forums https://discuss.getsol.us/
Alternative User Forums
Documentation https://getsol.us/help-center/home/
Screenshots DistroWatch Gallery
Screencasts
Download Mirrors https://getsol.us/download/ •
Bug Tracker https://dev.getsol.us/maniphest/
Related Websites  
Reviews 4.x: Average Linux User • CMS Critic • Heise (German) • Dedoimedo • DistroWatch
3: Ordinatechnic • DistroWatch • CMS Critic • Linux.com • Pro-Linux (German)
2017.x: Dedoimedo • DarkDuck • DistroWatch
1.x: Dedoimedo • DistroWatch • Freedom Penguin • LWN • HecticGeek • Everyday Linux User
Where To Buy OSDisc.com (sponsored link)

Recent Related News and Releases
  Releases, download links and checksums:
 • 2019-03-18: Distribution Release: Solus 4.0
 • 2017-08-15: Distribution Release: Solus 3
 • 2017-04-18: Distribution Release: Solus 2017.04.18.0
 • 2017-01-02: Distribution Release: Solus 2017.01.01.0
 • 2016-10-19: Distribution Release: Solus 1.2.1
 • 2016-09-07: Distribution Release: Solus 1.2.0.5
 • 2016-06-20: Distribution Release: Solus 1.2
 • 2016-03-02: Distribution Release: Solus 1.1
 • 2015-12-27: Distribution Release: Solus 1.0
 • 2015-10-30: Development Release: Solus 1.0 RC1
 • 2015-05-17: Development Release: Solus 1.0 Beta 2
 • 2015-03-16: Development Release: Evolve OS Beta 1.1
 • More Solus releases...

  Headlines:
 •2019-03-21 Budgie 10.5 shipped with Solus 4.0
 •2019-01-15 Solus roadmap for 2019
 •2018-11-02 Solus team regaining account access
 •2018-10-27 Solus founder out of contact
 •2018-09-21 Solus updates install media
 •2018-06-27 Solus polishes desktop tools
 •2018-05-23 Budgie returns to Solus
 •2018-03-09 Solus redesigns Software Centre
 •2018-02-15 Solus to offer optional Wayland session
 •2017-11-01 Wayland and snapd coming to Solus 4
 • More Solus headlines...

Table Notes and Explanations

(Please refer to the table below.)
  • Select view: Major packages only (52) All tracked packages (226)
  • To compare the software in this project to the software available in other distributions, please see our Compare Packages page.
  • Notes: In case where multiple versions of a package are shipped with a distribution, only the default version appears in the table. For indication about the GNOME version, please check the "nautilus" and "gnome-shell" packages. The Apache web server is listed as "httpd" and the Linux kernel is listed as "linux". The KDE desktop is represented by the "plasma-desktop" package and the Xfce desktop by the "xfdesktop" package.
  • Colour scheme: green text = latest stable version, red text = development or beta version. The function determining beta versions is not 100% reliable due to a wide variety of versioning schemes.
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Feature 4.0 3.9999 3 2017.04.18.0 1.2.1
Release Date 2019-03-17 2018-09-20 2017-08-15 2017-04-18 2016-10-19
End Of Life          
Price (US$) Free Free Free Free Free
Image Size (MB) 1400-1500 1400-1500 1100-1200    
Free Download ISO ISO ISO ISO ISO
Installation Graphical Graphical Graphical Graphical Graphical
Default Desktop Budgie, GNOME, MATE Budgie, GNOME, MATE Budgie, GNOME, MATE Budgie, GNOME, MATE Budgie, MATE
Package Management Flatpak, eopkg (pisi fork), Snap Flatpak, eopkg (pisi fork), Snap Flatpak, eopkg (pisi fork), Snap Flatpak, eopkg (pisi fork) eopkg (pisi fork)
Release Model Rolling Rolling Rolling Rolling Rolling
Office Suite LibreOffice LibreOffice LibreOffice LibreOffice --
Processor Architecture x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64
Init Software systemd systemd systemd systemd systemd
Journaled File Systems          
Multilingual Yes        
Asian Language Support Yes        
Full Package List 4.0 3.9999 3 2017.04.18.0 1.2.1
Package 4.0 3.9999 3 2017.04.18.0 1.2.1
abiword (3.0.2) -- -- -- -- --
alsa-lib (1.1.9) 1.1.5 1.1.5 1.1.4.1 1.1.3 1.1.1
ati-driver (18.30) -- -- -- -- --
bash (5.0) 4.4 4.4 4.3 4.3 4.3
bind (9.15.1) -- -- -- -- --
chromium (75.0.3770.100) -- -- -- -- --
cups (2.2.11) 2.2.8 2.2.8 2.2.3 2.2.3 2.1.0
dhcp (4.4.1) 4.4.1 4.4.1 4.3.2 4.3.2 4.3.2
e2fsprogs (1.45.2) 1.44.6 1.44.4 1.43.4 1.43.4 1.42.13
firefox (67.0.4) 65.0.1 62.0 55.0.1 52.0.2 49.0.1
freetype (2.10.0) 2.8 2.8 2.8 2.7 2.6.1
gcc (9.1.0) -- -- -- -- --
gimp (2.10.12) -- -- -- -- --
glibc (2.29) 2.29 2.27 2.25 2.25 2.24
gnome-shell (3.32.2) 3.28.3 3.28.3 3.24.3 3.24.1 --
gnucash (3.5) -- -- -- -- --
gnumeric (1.12.45) -- -- -- -- --
grub (2.02) 2.02 2.02 2.02beta2 2.02beta2 2.00beta2
gtk (3.24.9) 3.22.30 3.22.30 3.22.18 3.22.12 3.18.9
httpd (2.4.39) -- -- -- -- --
inkscape (0.92.4) -- -- -- -- --
k3b (19.04.2) -- -- -- -- --
kmod (26) 25 25 24 17 17
krita (4.2.2) -- -- -- 3.1.0 --
libreoffice (6.2.4) 6.2.1 6.1.0 5.4.0 5.3.2 --
linux (5.1.15) 4.20.16 4.18.5 4.12.7 4.9.22 4.8.2
Package 4.0 3.9999 3 2017.04.18.0 1.2.1
lxpanel (0.10.0) -- -- -- -- --
mariadb (10.4.6) -- -- -- -- --
mate-desktop (1.22.0) 1.20.4 1.20.3 1.18.0 1.18.0 --
mesa (19.1.0) 19.0.0 18.1.6 17.1.6 17.0.4 12.1.0
mysql (8.0.16) -- -- -- -- --
nautilus (3.32.1) 3.26.4 3.26.4 3.24.2 3.24.0 3.20.3
NVIDIA (430.26) 418.43 390.87 384.59 375.39 370.28
openbox (3.6.1) -- -- -- -- --
openjdk (12.0.1) -- -- -- -- --
openssh (8.0p1) 7.7p1 7.7p1 7.5p1 7.5p1 7.3p1
openssl (1.1.1c) 1.0.2r 1.0.2p 1.0.2l 1.0.2k 1.0.2j
perl (5.30.0) 5.28.1 5.26.2 5.24.1 5.24.1 5.22.1
php (7.3.6) -- -- -- -- --
plasma-desktop (5.16.1) -- -- -- -- --
postfix (3.4.5) -- -- -- -- --
postgresql (11.4) -- 10.5 -- -- --
Python (3.7.3) 2.7.16 2.7.15 2.7.13 2.7.13 2.7.12
qt (5.13.0) 5.12.1 5.11.1 5.9.1 5.6.2 5.6.1
samba (4.10.5) 4.8.8 4.7.9 4.6.6 4.3.13 4.3.11
systemd (242) 239 239 218 218 218
thunderbird (60.7.2) 60.5.2 60.0 52.2.1 52.0.1 45.4.0
vim (8.1) -- -- -- -- --
vlc (3.0.7.1) 3.0.6 3.0.3 2.2.6 2.2.4 2.2.4
xfdesktop (4.12.5) -- -- -- -- --
xorg-server (1.20.5) 1.20.3 1.19.6 1.18.4 1.18.4 1.18.4

Reader Ratings
Reader supplied reviews for Solus

Average rating
8.6
from 420 review(s)


What are your thoughts on Solus?
Please include a few pros and a few cons, along with your overall impression of the operating system.
Our FAQ page has tips on writing a good mini-review.

Version:

Rating:    out of 10

Comments (maximum 2,040 characters):



Past reviews - sort by:

Version: 4.0
Rating: 10
Date: 2019-06-21
Votes: 5


 It is highly likely that my distro hopping days are over. The itch may set in again in the future but I am fagged out. I tried about 70 distros in about 10 years giving each one at the very minimum of 2 weeks. Of the lot, the one I feel most at home is with Solus Mate version 4 and Kanotix. I had a few issues with Solus Budgie and Devuan. The last one I tried was Devuan. It was rock solid but there were issues with "/dev waiting to populate" which is confirmed issue with many distros but the poison has not affected Solus Mate. The most important aspect was flawless install of the HP Deskjet printer.

I hope the developers have a net install version in the future since after installing it I had to update 790MB worth of software. Praying IKEA the lead developer gets well sooner than later and the others contribute in lieu of IKEA.

Congratulations to all concerned. Startup times to desktop is about 9 seconds on a 2-year-old Samsung SSD and 22 seconds on an 8-year-old Hitachi HDD, Shut down times are 0.5 seconds on the SSD and 2 seconds on the HDD. Need I say more.


Was this review helpful? Yes No
Version: 4.0
Rating: 10
Date: 2019-06-19
Votes: 2


 Awesome overall experience.
- Great package manager
- Fast and reliable rolling release distro
- Excellent compatibility and performance for gaming via Steam/Proton
- Hardware (including printers) worked out of the box for me
- Well-sorted and expansive software repostitory

Keep up the good work!




Was this review helpful? Yes No
Version: 4.0
Rating: 2
Date: 2019-06-16
Votes: 0


 I tried to install Solus 4 on my old macbook from 2009 like many other linux distros before. Befor this I had on this macbook Zorin, Linux Mint 18.3 und fedora 30 without any problem. The live session of Solus 4.0 showed no problems, so I decided to install ist on the computer. Then came up an error message about the hdd while the installer partioned or formatted the hdd and I thought I had interrupted this process. When I tried to reboot the macbook with the fedora, which was on the macbook before or with any other distribution on usb-flah-drive, I couldn't see any effort any more. I noticed, that the bios-like-system on the old macbook was damaged and I can't install anything on this macbook any more. This is a sad result.


Was this review helpful? Yes No

See all 420 reader reviews of Solus...

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