14 DAY TRIAL // Joshua Strobl from the Solus Project has managed to publish a new weekly newsletter to inform users of the independently-developed Solus operating system about the latest developments.
It would appear that Solus' development team is still working hard these days to improve the upcoming Linux Driver Management (LDM) tool, which is now capable of detecting multiple system configurations, including hybrid Intel and AMD Radeon or Intel and Nvidia GPUs, but also computers with AMD APUs by automatically configuring the graphics stack.
"Ikey has spent considerable amount of time this week dedicated to shaping up our Linux Driver Management tool, which will be responsible for our switchable graphics solution. The initial version of LDM will enable always-on Optimus, as that is the highest priority item, before moving on to switchable graphics itself," reveals Joshua Strobl, Solus Project Communications Manager.
On-demand Nvidia Optimus support is coming soon
The first development releases of the Linux Driver Management tool are now available on GitHub if you want to take them for a test drive, especially if you're using Solus with an Nvidia graphics card. It enables "always on" Nvidia Optimus support by default, but future releases should also come with on-demand Nvidia Optimus support and out-of-the-box support for AMD Radeon GPUs.
It also looks like the Solus devs are planning to deprecate the gl-driver-switch utility from the operating system and seamlessly roll out Linux Driver Management to existing users, when the tool will be mature enough for production use. Upcoming Solus ISO snapshots will also include LDM by default. Other than that, they managed to release a new Help Center and improve the contributor experience.
Up next for Solus, there will be a new maintenance update to the Budgie 10.x desktop environment, namely version 10.3, which should be out at the end of Q1, along with a new ISO snapshot for those who plan on reinstalling or deploying the operating system on more PCs. As expected, Q2 will kick off with the development of the long-anticipated Budgie 11 desktop, which will be rewritten in Qt5 and C++.