Solus was previously known as Evolve OS and SolusOS

May 26, 2015 10:15 GMT  ·  By

Every time a new, promising GNU/Linux distribution is announced, the community is on fire testing, helping, and contributing to make it the best ever, the next-gen, everything they've ever dreamed of.

Solus is not new, but its concept kind of is. The story of Solus starts a few years ago, back in 2012, when Intel employee Ikey Doherty announced the first ever version of his distro, called SolusOS, based on Debian GNU/Linux and built around the GNOME 2 desktop environment.

Very quickly the Linux technologies advanced, and two years later SolusOS became Evolve OS, this time built from scratch, with its flagship Budgie Desktop and a unique package management system, promising a first-class desktop experience for the Linux newbie.

Then, because of some legal issues, Evolve OS changed its name back to Solus, but just Solus, not SolusOS. In all this time, the distribution mostly lost users. Why? Because of its instability. I saw many SolusOS users moving to another distro when the work on Evolve OS began, which failed to become a final product.

Installing and using Solus is fun, and Budgie Desktop looks like Chrome OS

Solus is beautiful, no doubt about it, and this is one of the main things I like about Solus. Why beauty? Because beauty always attracts new users. The beauty of the Mandrake 8.2 artwork I discovered in a magazine article (CDs included) more than a decade ago made me want to install Linux. Beauty also attracted many users to elementary OS.

The Budgie Desktop is the second thing I like about Solus. It's fun, fully customizable and offers an out-of-the-box desktop experience where you can easily switch between a white and dark theme (check the attached screenshots), change the icon and desktop theme, fonts, the size of the icons, the position and size of the panel, and play with many other useful settings without having to install additional software.

The default look of the Budgie Desktop, which is built from scratch and uses some apps from the GNOME Stack, aims to be a clone of the Chrome OS desktop used in Chromebook computers. On the more technical side of the distribution, I like the intuitive and easy-to-use installer, as well as the package manager, which offers a new, different package management experience to users.

Let's talk Solus

So, let's talk Solus. I want you to share your thoughts on the Solus Linux distribution. Do you think it will change the game when the final version arrives? Is Solus the next-generation distro that we've all be waiting for, the distribution that will threaten the existence of projects like elementary OS? Will you switch over from another distro to Solus?

I think that Solus, if the final version arrives (fingers crossed), will win over many users, especially those who seek a Chrome OS-like operating system that runs all the latest GNU/Linux technologies and includes the best open-source applications, and with time, if the project releases regular updates and doesn't die after a couple of years of activity, its community will grow very fast.

If you haven't installed Solus until today, I suggest you grab the latest Beta version, which was released last week, and take it for a test drive. Yes, I know, it's a Beta, so bugs and glitches might be present. Then return here and drop a comment below to share you Solus experience with others. What do you think?

Solus Beta 2 (4 Images)

Solus' Budgie Desktop
The login screenThe terminal window
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