Solus is a rather new Linux distro which had the first stable version released in last December. Even before its first stable release, Solus gathered a dedicated fan following which is growing by each passing day. In an earlier article, we even judged is as one of the most beautiful Linux.
Solus has announced that they are becoming a rolling distro. This is big news for present and future users.
Who
For those of you who have never heard of Solus, it is a newer Linux distro. It first appeared in the Linux scene in 2011, when it was named SolusOS and based on Debian. It was positioned as a custom build of Debian with Gnome. After several releases, SolusOS was shuttered in 2013 by creator Ikey Doherty after several attempts to forcibly take the project away from him.
In 2014, Ikey decided to restart the project as EvolveOS but was barred from using that name by the UK government. Turns out, they were afraid that someone would confuse the OS in the title with the Ordnance Survey. In the face of legal action, Ikey and the team decided to change the name again to the Solus Project.
Now, Solus is a Linux distro written from scratch with its own desktop environment named Budgie (shorter version of Budgerigar, a specific kind of parrot). Budgie is designed to be lightweight and integrates into the GNOME stack.
What
In this week’s Solus newsletter (This Week in Solus), Joshua Strobl announced that Solus would become a rolling release.
“We’re really good at keeping things stable and really bad at not being a rolling release. So effective immediately, Solus now follows a rolling release model.”
Ikey told Softpedia in an interview that this decision was made because it gives them a way to deliver updates to users quickly.
“Yeah, we gave in eventually. We’ve been in denial about it for a long time but you know, we’re more rolling than static, so now we’re embracing it fully.”
Thoughts
Biases out of the way first. I really like rolling releases over scheduled releases. My favorite distro (Manjaro) is a rolling release. I’ve also installed and tried Budgie. I really like it.
I think this is a good idea because Solus is a small project. This gives Ikey and his team the ability to release updates and fixes in their own time. They doesn’t have to worry about getting everything done by a certain day. I think it will be easier for him to manage this distro.
What do you think? Have you tried Solus or Budgie?
Solus is the best distro I've used in recent years. It's replaced my prior favorites of Elementary and Fedora. Unlike many distros, Solus "just works". It's great for newcomers to linux too - I've yet to use the terminal. This may turn some off, but I think it shows how well a distro can work and how user friendly Linux can be. Well done Solus Project!
Does that mean Solus will become bleeding edge like Manjaro or Arch linux?
If that's the case, then I'll surely try Solus again.
I've tried out Solus and really like the approach and Budgie. My fear is that one-developer projects are just too prone to dips and drops, and something really sweet today can get old fast.
I think there are more than one devs now. And the project is going quite smooth,