The most fun aspect in Linux world is there are a lot of choices. Windows and Mac might have more commercial apps support, but there are only few rooms left to customize. With Linux, you can't really being bored. There are more than 500 hundreds active Linux distributions today you can try on your machine. Also, there are plenty of desktops, window managers, and themes you can pick to beautify your desktop. What a wonderful choices.
This rich reality tempts most Linux users to try newly released Linux distro, almost everyday. This temptation leads to an endless adventure to try different Linux distro called distro hopping. Even if you have been settled in a professional circumstance, distro hopping is still common to happen --and always fun.
I as a Linux user, without exception, is still often to spend my spare time to try a freshly released Linux distro, just to feel the freshness and the joy of computing. This time, I am really curious to try the new Solus 4.5, an independent Linux distibution.
What Is Solus?
Solus actually is not a new distribution. It has started long time ago as a debian based distro called SolusOS. Long story short, SolusOS evolved to become today Solus. Unlike other distributions, Solus comes with its custom desktop called Budgie. Budgie later becomes popular among Linux users because of the speed and usability that delivers traditional experience with modern interface. The popularity of Budgie reached its peak when Ubuntu Budgie born and recognized as one of the official Ubuntu flavors.
The Solus 4.5
In January 2024, Solus 4.5 released. It now offers 4 versions: Budgie, GNOME, KDE Plasma and XFCE. As a loyal KDE user, this time I pick Solus 4.5 Plasma to have fun. The ISO size is relatively small, compared to other KDE distro like Kubuntu. It is only 2.7 GB.
Installation
Like most today Linux distros, Solus uses Calamares Installer. The installer went fine without any issue, except you have to allocate 1 GB of your storage to use as FAT32 EFI Grub Bootloader. Unlike other distros, you have to mount the partition to /boot and not /boot/efi.
Installation process ran very fast for just approximately 5 minutes. Superb.
First Impression
Surprisingly, Solus boots very fast on my nvme SSD. The Plasma desktop also very responsive and stable. There is no error message and the overall system is very stable. Also, all my hardwares work out of the box without any issue. Solus 4.5 comes with Linux kernel 6.6 and KDE Plasma 5.27.10.
Solus OS 4.5 KDE Plasma
Default Software
There are nice software curation by default. Firefox, LibreOffice, Kate, Haruna Media Player and Elisa. Every app installed runs fast without any error.
Software Center And Package Manager
Solus comes with its own Software Center. It comes with a very simple interface with straightforward categories: Updates, Installed, Third Party and Search. If you are a Google Chrome user, you could install it easily from Third Party section. However, the Google Chrome installation took a quite while to wait.
Solus Software Center
Unfortunately, after quite some time, the Google Chrome installation looked stuck and never been completed so I close the software center. Oddly, the Google Chrome has already been successfully installed. If you want to install Google Chrome, flatpak channel seems to be better option.
Solus Google Chrome Installation
Solus has its own package manager called eopkg. Like apt, you could install an app by using simple command sudo eopkg install pkg_name. I am really surprised by how fast eopkg is. App installation runs fast, even faster than debian's apt. The default repository is decent. I can find almost all my favorite apps in the Solus repository.
Here are some basic eopkg commands:
- Search a package: sudo eopkg search package-name
- Install a package: sudo eopkg install package-name
- Remove a package: sudo eopkg remove package-name
- Upgrade a package: sudo eopkg upgrade package-name
- Upgrade the whole system: sudo eopkg upgrade
Along with eopkg, Solus 4.5 also comes with Flatpak and Snap by default which gives you a huge number of applications. I tried to install Chromium from flatpak repo and the app runs perfectly. Sadly, when I try to install SMPlayer from snap repository, it didn't work as expected. It seems snaps is still behind flatpak, especially in non-Ubuntu system.
Solus Snap App
Screen Flickering Issue
I found a minor bug with Solus on my AMD laptop. Whenever I wake up from lock screen's suspend mode, my laptop's screen flickers for a few seconds. After googling around the forums, I've found a solution:
1. Create a configuration file:
sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-amdgpu.conf
2. Put this parameter:
Section "OutputClass"
Identifier "AMD"
MatchDriver "amdgpu"
Driver "amdgpu"
Option "EnablePageFlip" "Off"
Option "TearFree" "false"
EndSection
3. Save the file and reboot the system.
Conclusion
There is no much to say except the good things. Solus is by far a very stable and fast, independent Linux distribution I have ever tried. If you are now feel bored with your current Linux distro, Solus is really a good stuff to try. I myself will keep this beautiful distro for some time ahead, to test the stability and robustness. I gave this gem 9 of 10. Very well job for Solus team.
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