back to article Solus: A welcome ground-up break from the Linux herd

The Linux world is full of spin-offs, clones and branded distros. The most famous lineage is Mint, based on Ubuntu, which is in turn based on Debian. What's less common is entirely new distros, starting from zero and building their own stack. That's exactly what Solus has done. That's not to say Solus doesn't, like any …

  1. handle

    "One thing that's less clear, is who Solus is really for."

    Quite. Especially a new package management system. Package management has lots of subtleties and I'd be interested to know what's wrong with the highly mature Debian or RPM systems.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "One thing that's less clear, is who Solus is really for."

      There's plenty wrong with the old package systems, starting the old Unix everything-commingled-in-five-places dir structure, piled higher and deeper in the Linux FSSTND, compounded by Debian's we-might-need-it-someday symlink indirection, Debian's complex yet hellish dependency system, Debian's 30,000+ useless unmaintained packages, and the Debian/Ubuntu divide.

      I doubt Solus is radically different. GoboLinux and NixOS are the only ones I know of that really tried to address the fundamental problems.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        FAIL

        Re: "One thing that's less clear, is who Solus is really for."

        Solus uses the PiSi package system from Pardus Linux. It's written in slow-ass Python... that's all I need to know!

        1. Jon 37

          Re: "One thing that's less clear, is who Solus is really for."

          Why do you care about the CPU usage of your package manager? You're probably just using it when you first set up the system, or to install updates from the Internet. Surely the time it takes is going to be mostly disk and network I/O time?

          Surely it's more important for the package manager to be correct and have all the features you need, which is easier in a higher-level language?

          1. Unicornpiss
            Meh

            Re: "One thing that's less clear, is who Solus is really for."

            One thing for sure, is it couldn't be as slow as Microsoft Windows' update system, even if they tried. I suspect if it was written in BASIC it wouldn't be any slower...

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: "One thing that's less clear, is who Solus is really for."

            Newbie question, as I just installed Mint on a laptop.

            While the package manager and Software Center function just fine, don't expect to find them stocked as full of apps as veteran distros. Solus is new and its packaging system is just getting started.

            If all Linux is compatible, can someone tell me why can't I install the same apps from other Linux distros in Solus?

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: "One thing that's less clear, is who Solus is really for."

              If all Linux is compatible, can someone tell me why can't I install the same apps from other Linux distros in Solus?

              You can; Solus's package manager just won't know about them. Some apps (like Palemoon) are available as generic binary packages. You can also download an app's source code and compile it yourself. Worst case (for a big GUI app like Ardour) you'd have to install 20 or 30 libraries first.

            2. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: "One thing that's less clear, is who Solus is really for."

              If all Linux is compatible, can someone tell me why can't I install the same apps from other Linux distros in Solus?

              Well, it depends on application binary interfaces (ABIs) with respect to libraries. New libraries, sometimes unwittingly, move around fields in data structures. By the time a program gets to be executed, those data structures are little more than byte address offsets, get those wrong and you're in for a world of pain.

              Most common libraries try to keep their ABIs stable, particularly core ones like libc. (µClibc being a notable exception.) Anything built on C++ though, you're at the mercy of the compiler, and you'll note even on Windows, you'll typically find applications will distribute a copy of the Visual C++ Runtime library that the application was built with. gcc makes no guarantees regarding ABI stability of its C++ runtime between major releases, and so you can get problems mixing libraries and code compiled with different versions of gcc.

              Keep the correct version libraries around for the application, and you'll likely find you can use even very old software (some software written for Linux kernel 0.0.1 is still reported to work in kernel 4.4). If you play mix-and-match with userland libraries though, all bets are off.

        2. Shadow Systems

          @tnovelli, Re: Python.

          It could be worse, it could be written in BASIC with a zillion GOTO's, GOSUB's, nested FOR NEXT Looped bits, & variables with names like $ZYXCBA321BecauseIcan...

          Now stop whining or I'll make you code up an OS using nothing but the Logo "Turtle" style commands.

          =-)p

          1. keithpeter Silver badge
            Coat

            Re: @tnovelli, Python.

            "[...] code up an OS using nothing but the Logo "Turtle" style commands."

            @Shadow Systems: nice idea. The LOGO I used ages ago used to have the same functionality as LISP and so the project would probably be feasible.

            Downloading the 780Mb iso for Solus to try it. The trade-off for no Office package in the live .iso is probably the smaller download size. 64 bit only apparently.

            1. keithpeter Silver badge
              Coat

              Re: @tnovelli, Python.

              Boots in about 20 seconds on a core duo laptop, windows key bound to main menu so hitting windows key and typing 'firefox' and enter loads the browser, wifi just works with Intel wifi so not fsf compliant but useful.

              Around 500Mb RAM use on a 2Gb machine with firefox running on this site. Top shows Xorg hitting around 30% cpu and load averages in the 0.5 range which is a bit noisy for a core-duo (my normal Slackware and/or Debian installs run around 3% and 0.01 when not doing much). So so.

        3. Crazy Operations Guy

          Re: "It's written in slow-ass Python"

          If your Python code is running slowly, you must've seriously fucked something up.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: "It's written in slow-ass Python"

            If you think Python is fast, you don't know C.

            If you don't think speed matters for a package manager, you haven't used Gentoo. YUM used to be pretty slow too. Debian's, at least, is pretty fast.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: "It's written in slow-ass Python"

              If you don't think speed matters for a package manager, you haven't used Gentoo.

              You might want to have a look at their list of retired developers. ;-)

            2. JLV

              Re: "It's written in slow-ass Python"

              >If you don't think speed matters for a package manager, you haven't used Gentoo.

              I haven't, true. But are you willing to eat crow? Its package manager is in Python ;-)

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentoo_Linux#Portage

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portage_%28software%29

              Portage is written in the Python programming language, and is the main utility that defines Gentoo.

              Look, the main things I want from a package manager is cleverness, robustness, flexibility and ubitquity. Sheer speed isn't high on the list.

              Clever programming can make even slow languages fast in appropriate contexts. Bittorrent, for example also originated in Python. Because upload-slicing was clever and easier to implement in a high level language. Think of it in C first? Sure, but not too many people will have the programming chops to carry it to fruition.

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: "It's written in slow-ass Python"

                "I haven't, true. But are you willing to eat crow? Its package manager is in Python ;-)"

                I think that was exactly the point, I don't believe Gentoo install is renowned for it's speed. It might be very clever, but it isn't fast. It builds everything from source, slowly.

                1. Rob Gr

                  Re: "It's written in slow-ass Python"

                  "t builds everything from source, slowly."

                  It's unlikely to be Python acting as the bottleneck then.

                  1. Anonymous Coward
                    Anonymous Coward

                    Re: "It's written in slow-ass Python"

                    It's unlikely to be Python acting as the bottleneck then.

                    The nice thing about Gentoo is that if having a C++-based package manager is important, Ciaran McCreesh has you covered in the form of Paludis.

                    The fact that this is not the default package manager should be a hint as to how much this matters.

                2. JLV

                  Re: "It's written in slow-ass Python"

                  Ah, yes. I get what you mean. I responded that way because Gentoo itself prides itself on its speed so I assumed OP was citing Gentoo as good practices.

                  Taking that tack instead, if Gentoo packages install slowly, via Portage, there are several possibilities off the top of my head:

                  - repositories searching and downloading is slow

                  - due to Python Portage is slow and causing the bottlenecks

                  - Portage and Gentoo compiles from source, rather than installing binaries (which is well known since it is also a matter of pride for Gentoo folk)

                  Of course, OP jumps on #2, doesn't think about #3 and wants it done in C instead. Ummm....

                3. Rob Gr

                  Re: "It's written in slow-ass Python"

                  "I think that was exactly the point, I don't believe Gentoo install is renowned for it's speed. It might be very clever, but it isn't fast. It builds everything from source, slowly."

                  In that case, the reason for its speed is nothing to do with Python, it is the strategy of building from source.

        4. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: "One thing that's less clear, is who Solus is really for."

          Solus uses the PiSi package system from Pardus Linux. It's written in slow-ass Python... that's all I need to know!

          Did you post that in a web browser you hand-coded in assembly language then?

          Python's no speed demon, but having written real-time systems in it, I can assure you it is not "slow".

        5. JLV

          Re: "One thing that's less clear, is who Solus is really for."

          Don't be an idiot. The language doesn't really matter, because the package manager should shell out to the system for any build/make activity and will be bound by network i/o on the query/downloading bit as well. I.e. Python is mosty really slow when you do a lot of things in Python itself (which you should avoid) or if you have a truly CPU-bound program.

          On the other hand, is this package manager, whether written in C++ or Python, ready for prime time? How good is the support for scripted/config-managed installs via Chef/Puppet/Fabric/Docker? Heck, just finding troubleshooting tips online for package xyz won't be fun. And how good are the repos?

          The wiki entry doesn't inspire confidence:

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardus_%28operating_system%29#PiSi_package_management

          PiSi (/ˈpiːsiː/; Packages Installed Successfully as Intended; also a Turkish word meaning "kitty", intended as a pun on the distribution's name, which is derived from pardus, the species name of the leopard.) is a package management system that was developed for Pardus. It was used in the initial versions of the distribution, but abandoned in favor of APT since the project moved to Debian base. Pardus 2011.2, released on September 19, 2011, was the last Pardus release that used PiSi.

      2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: "One thing that's less clear, is who Solus is really for."

        "the old Unix everything-commingled-in-five-places dir structure"

        The really old Unix structure was pretty rational although it was designed, in part, to deal with the likelihood that it would have really small disks so everything needed to boot or run single user was in a special set of directories on account of /bin might be on a separate disk and you had to get to the point where the system could mount disks. OTOH root's home directory really shouldn't have been / so adding /root was a distinct improvement.

        /usr was for user's home directories. Why on Earth did somebody put bin and lib directories there? The home directories eventually moved to /u and then to /home leaving /usr sadly misnamed. /usr/spool eventually became implemented by a mess of symlinks so you'd cd into it, cd .. and come up somewhere completely different. No wonder that got replaced by /var.

        Another thing that got changed was separation of roles. Consider the system binaries and libraries; they used to be owned by a user ID bin. bin could install software without needing the root password. lpadmin could manage printers without needing the root password. Then to appease the great God Convenience everything was handled by root followed eventually by the notion that this wasn't a good idea and so we had sudo to repartition the agglomerated root functions and get in the way of every admin task unless you negate it and sudo /bin/sh. And then, to re-appease the great God Convenience we have the arrangement whereby sudoers can sudo by using their own password instead of having to know a second password. In effect Unix-like systems are typically being run by local administrators just like so many Windows boxes.

        So, yes, a lot of Unix has become a tangle but don't go calling it "old". To us oldies it's all newfangled tinkering.

        1. joshimitsu

          Re: "One thing that's less clear, is who Solus is really for."

          the directory system still confuses me even after a few years of lightweight experience of it. Seems like binaries, libraries, logs, and config files are scattered around at random sometimes.

  2. Mage Silver badge

    Flat is bad

    It sounds interesting except for the word "Flat"

    Flat may look pretty but usability is poor compared to Windows 3.1 3D look, it's a throw back to Win 2.x and Win 3.0, if not worse as the clues as to where to click or drag are poor.

    1. bombastic bob Silver badge

      Re: Flat is bad

      ACK - my hatred of Unity, Windows "Ape" (8.x), and Win-10-nic, is based *MOSTLY* on "the flat look" tiles, and other allegedly "modern" things.

      It is *NOT* __*MODERN*__ . That's just a market-manipulation word used by ELITISTS to justify their Windows 1.0 1985 look.

      CLEARLY "the masses" *PREFER* 3D skeumorphic over 2D *FLUGLY* [flat-ugly], at least 2:1. That's the approximate ratio of people still using Windows 7 (and earlier) and refusing to DOWNgrade to 10 (or even "Ape").

      As for Linux, Mint has OPTIONS for "flat look" vs "3D Skeumorphic" with glassy effects [aka "the eye candy"].

      But saying a FLAT LOOK is a GOOD THING? Yeah, maybe for the choir you're preaching to, but that's about it. MOST PEOPLE *WILL* *NOT* *WANT* *THAT*.

      'Minimalist' *CAN* include a 3D skeumorphic appearance. You know, like fluxbox maybe? [I started up a fluxbox desktop just to make sure, and yep, it's minimalist _and_ 3D skeumorphic!]

      I *REALLY* hate the auto-pejorative term "modern" describing 2D FLUGLY.

      1. Sandtitz Silver badge
        Mushroom

        Re: Flat is bad @bombastic

        CLEARLY "the masses" *PREFER* 3D skeumorphic over 2D *FLUGLY* [flat-ugly], at least 2:1. That's the approximate ratio of people still using Windows 7 (and earlier) and refusing to DOWNgrade to 10 (or even "Ape").

        Ah, so people are not upgrading to Windows 10 just because of the flatty look? O-kay...

        IOS 7 with its flat look had reached 90% coverage of all compatible devices in one year. Please explain.

        1. P. Lee

          Re: Flat is bad @bombastic

          >IOS 7 with its flat look had reached 90% coverage of all compatible devices in one year. Please explain.

          Bundling of the OS with apps, click-happy users and a demographic obsessed with "new."

          The benefit of flat as far as I can see is that it is fast to render and compresses well for download speed. It might actually be a good thing for remote program execution - but it is pretty ugly.

        2. pewpie

          Re: Flat is bad @bombastic

          Simple - they are some of the most easily herded creatures on the planet.

      2. Mage Silver badge

        Re: Flat vs 3D vs skeumorphic

        Skeumorphic is distracting and bling. We don't need it either.

        3D only need left and top light grey line with right and bottom dark grey line to give the cue that it's something you drag or click. We don't need almost photos of real objects.

        1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Re: Flat vs 3D vs skeumorphic

          "Skeumorphic is distracting and bling... 3D only need left and top light grey line with right and bottom dark grey line to give the cue that it's something you drag or click. We don't need almost photos of real objects."

          3D might only need that. Working out what to drag or click needs a bit more. It needs something to give a bit of a clue. The vast majority of users now might never have seen a real floppy disk so to them they're no longer skeumorphic but the use of icons based on them will be sufficiently ubiquitous that they're instantly recognisable as the place to click to save work. An unfamiliar application will present a steep learning curve but the presence of familiar icons and menus with familiar functions will ease that.

          Whether those icons are still skeumorphic or not they're far from being a distraction, they're valuable signposts.

      3. Rob Gr

        Re: Flat is bad

        As well as being very shouty, you are also ill-informed. "Modern Design" is a design school, in the same way as "Modern Art" and "Post-Modern" are artistic schools.

        Here is Microsoft's summary of their influences: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/stories/design/

        I love the irony of someone who uses so many CAPS in a post criticising Modern Design for being ugly. I'm just glad you're not the considered the gold standard for communication.

      4. Tommy Pock

        Re: Flat is bad

        Bob, if every word you use is important, you don't need to emphasise any.

    2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: Flat is bad

      "as the clues as to where to click or drag are poor."

      Oh $diety yes! The first time I had to use a flat GUI in anger was when our head office "upgraded" the Outlook web app.(I'm a remote user). It took significantly longer to find the log-out "button" and I think I clicked it four of five times before I realised the "pop-up" windows to log out had actually appeared and I just wasn't seeing it. The new look did absolutely nothing for usability, in fact it hindered it for a while because, as you and others have said, they took away the visual cues.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Flat is bad

        Who cares? I use terminals.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Who cares? I use terminals.

          Why not a terminal app that play different sounds for each keystroke, shake from left to right when you mistype a command, show some nifty animations when processes are running, and Clippy instead of tab completion?

          Not that I want it, it's just that it could be a cool exercise in Evil Development (tm).

          1. Teiwaz

            Re: Who cares? I use terminals.

            "Why not a terminal app that play different sounds for each keystroke,"

            There used to be a program on DOS called 'popcorn' which allowed you to listen to 'popcorn' played note by note as you typed. Great fun for five minutes, annoying as hell after that.

    3. Shadow Systems

      @Mage, Re: Flat is bad.

      Keeping in mind that I'm totally blind & can't see such visual elements anymore to know from first hand experience, why is a flat (non eye candy bloated & animations fubar'ed) UI a bad thing?

      Wouldn't a simple list of plain text links presented as standard hyperlinks, separated by a vertical line ("|") be sufficient to differentiate where each command resides & the area from which to trigger it?

      A traditional Alt+F opened File Menu that uses the arrow keys to scroll through the Headings (Edit, View, Tools, Options, etc) or the Menus (New, Open, Save, Save As, etc) be as basic & intuitive as it gets, saving as much computational resources from rendering the eye candy to process the important stuff instead?

      I vaguely remember the visual appearance of Windows 1.x, 2.x, & 3.x days, and while they weren't great from a purely asthetic POV, they were intuitively functional otherwise. Keyboard shortcuts that just worked, menus you could navigate with ease, & very little bloat to fubar the UI.

      So how is a "flat" UI a bad thing exactly?

      I agree that the Win8.x & "modern" UI concepts were absolute FusterClucks no matter how you interacted with them (or couldn't interact with them as the case turned out to be), but those still have 3D eye candy elements to them...

      Just wondering.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: @Mage, Flat is bad.

        Keeping in mind that I'm totally blind & can't see such visual elements anymore to know from first hand experience, why is a flat (non eye candy bloated & animations fubar'ed) UI a bad thing?

        Wouldn't a simple list of plain text links presented as standard hyperlinks, separated by a vertical line ("|") be sufficient to differentiate where each command resides & the area from which to trigger it?

        Well, it's helpful to differentiate something clickable from something that's just underlined text, although the advent of the world wide web has more or less trained people that something underlined is possibly clickable.

        A button metaphore, drawn in faux-3D, is helpful as people are used to real-world buttons, and so know instinctively that they can click on it, and it'll perform an action. Underlined text? Not so obvious. We've gotten used to it, but that doesn't make it a good UI choice. The only clue to the user is often that the cursor changes shape.

        Adaptive computing though raises an interesting problem though. There, it's not so much differentiating something visually but either aurally or in the case of Braille terminals, I guess there's some kind of marker they use around the text. Flat or 3D, a button "sounds" and "feels" the same there. The trick seems to be in how to present what's there in a manner that makes logical sense and doesn't flood the user. Having not been on the receiving end of such systems though, it's difficult to comment further.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Flat is bad

      Windows 3.1 3D look

      Windows 3.1 only had 3D push-buttons, radio buttons and checkboxes were still flat.

      We didn't get a full compliment of 3D controls until applications started shipping with the 3D common controls library (comctl3d.dll if I remember correctly).

  3. tony72

    As the saying goes...

    The road to hell is paved with good distros.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Oh good

    There aren't enough Linux distros, package managers and Linux GUIs out there, so glad people are still taking the time to reinvent the wheel.

    1. Anonymous Bullard

      Re: Oh good

      I'm just glad that people are free to do it.

      1. Gene Cash Silver badge

        Re: Oh good

        Would be nice if all these people with all this time on their hands did something *useful* like fix bugs in Firefox, or at least stop them from dropping important features.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Oh good

          Would be nice if all these people with all this time on their hands did something *useful* like fix bugs in Firefox

          Why don't you go out side and pick up some litter, instead of using your spare time posting on here?

          1. Preston Munchensonton
            Mushroom

            Re: Oh good

            Why don't you go out side and pick up some litter, instead of using your spare time posting on here?

            I'll do @Gene Cash one better: how's about you spend your time doing what you think other people should do for you out of some altruist obligation that you think they owe you and the rest of us will do what interests us regardless of whether it interests anyone else.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Oh good

          Would be nice if all these people with all this time on their hands did something *useful* like fix bugs in Firefox, or at least stop them from dropping important features.

          Have you ever tried submitting a patch to Mozilla?

          They're very precious about their code base. I can't locate the bug quickly, but I remember us (Gentoo/MIPS team) joining forces with the Debian/MIPS team to try and get a major bug fixed in Firefox. The bug was around some assembly that assumed the PlayStation II as a host platform, which has a rather oddball MIPS chip that was quite foreign compared to more conventional chips like the R4000 and R5000 chips used in SGI systems or the Chinese-built Loongson CPUs.

          I do remember taking the patch we were trying to get included, and the stock code, and trying to come up with a compromise that would allow both implementations to be catered for, not even that was accepted, and without patching, Firefox simply didn't build.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Linux

    Is it Nan friendly?

    Interested migrating my Nan to this, now Mint is totally bloated

    1. Pompous Git Silver badge

      Re: Is it Nan friendly?

      Interested migrating my Nan to this, now Mint is totally bloated

      Probably better than migrating to w10. My friend Fran left an old Toshiba laptop with me "because it won't connect to the Internet anymore". Booting up w7 ResMon shows svchost is consuming up to 98% of the cpu cycles dropping very occasionally below 90%. It's currently useless for anything. That's real bloat for you!

      I showed Fran Cinnamon Mint running from a DVD and he agreed that was the best option to get past the MS shenanigans.[*] Just for fun, I accepted the "free upgrade" to W10 that presumably will fix the "problem"; eight hours ago.

      Regardless, it will be upgraded to Mint tomorrow morning. I'm just wondering if the w10 install will still be running.

      * The offending DLLs all appear to be from MS's w7 updates and therefore for Fran's "convenience".

    2. Kurt Meyer

      Re: Is it Nan friendly?

      J J, take a look at Q4OS, for your Nan's computer. Our fellow commentater Palpy mentioned it in another thread, I've been using it on one of my machines, and so far, so good. It is lightweight, yet fully featured.

      You can get it here: http://q4os.org/

      Or Distrowatch, if you prefer.

  6. frank ly

    Free to try, worth a try

    From the article, it doesn't sound like a beginners distro but it should be worth looking at just to see what it's like. If eopkg is like apt-get then installing from user added repositories should be familiar to many and you can always do an unmanaged install from the developer's binary packages. (Does it handle .deb packages or similar?)

    I'd be interested to know how much RAM it needs to idle and how responsive it is when you're waiting for a shedload of files to finish being copied and you decide to click the browser icon to do some light reading while you're waiting, etc. Only one way to find out ........

  7. Jim-234

    Modern Interface --- AKA Touchscreen Garbage

    It's so funny to see how various reviewers like to fawn over stupid ugly design choices and say how they are so wonderful and "Modern"

    The whole reason Mint has done so well is they dropped that "Modern" junk & gave people what they really wanted which was a nice looking fully functional interface designed for a normal screen, mouse & keyboard which is what the bulk of "producers" use.

    If I'm going to stare at a screen all day, I don't want to look at stupid windows 3.1 level graphic options on ugly menus.

    It's not a bad sounding start to a new distro, but they should do themselves a favour and rip off that interface and put something like Cinnamon on it & then maybe they would have a chance.

    Tablets are going to turn out to be a lot less in the total sum of things than evangelists make it out to be, Desktops / Laptops and phones are the bulk of your users & phones need a different type of OS interface than your desktop / laptop.

  8. wolfetone Silver badge

    This looks interesting, especially as it's standing on it's own. I'm fairly fed up with "new" distro's coming out based on Ubuntu etc etc. This seems like a new direction, a true new distro compared to respins and rehashes of other distributions.

    Once I've finished the project I'm working on I will definitely be replacing my Fedora 23/XFCE set up with this. Even for a month. But it looks better so far than most distro's (barring Linux Mint), and it's something that's truly new. I haven't had this sort of excitement since I first installed Linux in 2005, so I can't wait to give it a spin.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Just what the world needed...

    ...another distro to bring clarity and consistency to the Linux desktop environment.

    This is the one chaps!

    I'm calling 2016 the year of Linux on the desktop.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Just what the world needed...

      You're missing the point.

      I know you'd prefer it if every single monitor displayed the "rolling hills" back-drop, but one size doesn't fit all.

      If someone is compelled to create their own version of an operating system, learn a great deal along the way and perhaps have some fun and put their mark on the world, then who the fuck are you to complain?

      Leave them to it.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Just what the world needed...

        I'm not missing the point at all.

        I couldn't care less how people spend their time - everyone needs a hobby.

        But FFS, wise up and look at the sprawling mess that is Linux desktop distros through the eyes of business and "non-hobbyist" users, and stop being surprised that the endless forking and competing with each other does nothing for the cause.

        1. Martin an gof Silver badge

          Re: Just what the world needed...

          wise up and look at the sprawling mess that is Linux desktop distros through the eyes of business and "non-hobbyist" users

          Disclosure - there isn't a single Windows-based machine at home. We have OSX, OpenSuse, Mint, Raspbian, FreeBSD (ok, well FreeNAS) and even RiscOS...

          ...but for some reason, the aparent "fragmentation" of Linux doesn't half remind me of the holy grail of computing 30-odd years ago, the MSX system.

          Nothing really to be frightened of, but yer "average user" is scared witless by the apparent anarchy and retreats to something much more controlled.

          M.

        2. nkuk

          Re: Just what the world needed...

          I think its a benefit rather than a problem, in the same way that you can choose a type of car, house, etc, etc, etc, from a multitude of options, you can choose a desktop that suits your requirements rather than have to use the one-style-suits-all UI that Windows has. I don't like the flat style of Windows >7 but I've got no choice but to use it if I want to use a version of Windows newer than 7.

          People don't tend freak out about having the choice of colour, engine size, etc for cars, or the range of choices in a supermarket, I don't see why OS's should be any different.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Just what the world needed...

            >> I don't see why OS's should be any different.

            Seriously?

            We're not just talking about different icons and color schemes. Distro owners make choices on the dependencies they take on, which has a major impact on your OS environment. You choose a distro that meets your needs, and hope that it continues in a direction that you want it to go. When the devs make a choice that you don't agree with or lose interest, you are forced to make do or jump ship. This is great if you like that sort of thing, and you support a small number of machines.

            If all you want is a 'puter to browse the interwebs or you are a business that wants to use IT rather than constantly tend to it, this is a non-starter.

            Horses for courses I guess, but the uptake numbers suggest that there aren't too many people interested in keeping up with all this.

    2. Tom 7

      Re: Just what the world needed...

      "I'm calling 2016 the year of Linux on the desktop."

      I'd go as far as to 2016 is the year of Raspbian on the desktop - it does seem to be catching on.

  10. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    Another interface that seems to be based on "a clear desk is a sign of a clear mind" or, as I think of it "an empty desk is the sign of an empty head".

    Where do you put all the documents you're working on? And, no, the "recent files" option on a file menu isn't nearly enough if you need to consult a lot of reference material. These empty desktop styles just cut out a whole mode of operation and in order to provide....well, nothing really.

    1. systemd_virosa

      Do you know how GNOME based desktops like Unity 7 draw the desktop? Nautilus! Just enable it in the tweak tool or dconf editor, if you need it.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    But...

    The important question is, does it include that virus systemd?

    1. MattPi

      Re: But...

      Considering it looks GNOME3-ish, I'd almost count on it.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: But...

      Have you even used systemd, or just read about it in forum posts by idiots?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: But...

        'Have you even used systemd, or just read about it in forum posts by idiots?'

        Are you Poettering? Thats the sort of language and sentiment I would expect from him.

        To answer your question I have many years experience with Linux. In all those years, I have had about 8 instances where Linux fell over due to bad code. 6 Of these disasters were directly to do with systemd.

        By the way you don't 'use' systemd, it uses you.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: But...

          Hmm.. systemd hasn't made any of our servers "fall over".

          Today, just about every mainstream distro has systemd. That's a lot of servers it's running on - yet the internet is still available.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: But...

            Hmm.. systemd hasn't made any of our servers "fall over".

            Have you tried rebooting them lately?

            I had a server that had some vital components updated to fix an application bug, 6 months later that server was rebooted and would not restart.

            It was traced to a non-systemd component that had been modified to work with systemd.

            That is one of the problems with systemd, its feature creep that creeps me out.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Joke

            Re: But...

            Get a load of all the down votes from the microTrolls :)

      2. Adair Silver badge

        Re: But...

        Systemd clearly has a point, but ISTM, putting aside the rabid frothings of the flamers, the fundamental gripe of many complainers is a worthy one: that the systemd devs operate on a 'our way or fuck off' principle.

        They have taken what was clearly a rats nest that anyone who needed to could ferret their way around and set up to suit themselves, and replaced it with something 'everybody can use', but which few actually understand or have any meaningful way of understanding --- we're talking about the great unwashed of Linux users here, folk who can knock up a script, maybe even do a bit of coding, like to be able to poke around and get to grips with the finer points if they need to, but mostly probably don't.

        Now they pretty much can't, even of they want to. That heavy responsibility has been lifted from their poor aching shoulders, and hidden away.

        Yes, systemd works, in the way that a self-appointed group who are clearly serving the interests of corporate users, want it to work---a ubiquitous service layer which is largely opaque and outside the control of the majority of users. Does it 'work' in a way that really serves the long term interests of 'free' computing. At the moment an affirmative answer is highly questionable.

        Thankfully systemd's most cancerous qualities are likely to be mitigated over time by the real world needs of users, and if it becomes too oppressive it'll get forked or replaced.

      3. hplasm
        Flame

        Re: But...

        "Have you even used systemd, or just read about it in forum posts by idiots?"

        Why, have you written about systemd in forum posts?

      4. nijam Silver badge

        Re: But...

        > Have you even used systemd, or just read about it in forum posts by idiots?

        Yes, I've read lots of of forum posts by idiots who think systemd is a good idea.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: But...

      'The important question is, does it include that virus systemd?'

      One quick check of Distrowatch....yup...so that's another one off the list of possibles then.

  12. Bc1609
    Headmaster

    Solus stands on a few less shoulders than others

    FEWER!

    Anyway, thanks for the review. I'm currently flitting between distros so I might give it a try.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Solus stands on a few less shoulders than others

      Arguably less is correct. It stands on the shoulders of the very many who put together the individual libraries and programs but not on the mighty shoulders of one of the great Debian/Red Hat/SuSE triumvirate. OK, it's getting late...

    2. nijam Silver badge

      Re: Solus stands on a few less shoulders than others

      > Solus stands on a few less shoulders than others

      The way the article reads suggests to me that the headline should be "... fewer and lesser shoulders ..."

  13. Shadow Systems

    I'd be interested...

    I've just sent them an email asking if the distro has a Screen Reader Environment (SRE) for use by the blind & visually impaired, or if it can accept running a SRE from another distro.

    I'd love to give this a try but need to know if there's a SRE in there somewhere that'll talk to me from the get-go.

    I know there are distros like Vinux & Sonar, but I've not had any luck with them thus far.

    If this one has a SRE that works, then maybe I can finally ween myself off Windows!

    *Comical swoon*

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: I'd be interested...

      Have you tried Ariadne - http://www.knopper.net/knoppix-adriane/index-en.html ?

      1. Shadow Systems

        Re: I'd be interested...

        Yes I've tried adriane before but it blew a gasket when trying to use the on-board sound chip from my last system.

        I'll have to give it a try on this machine (Intel NUC, i5, 8GiB RAM, 240GiB SSD, no WiFi) to find out if it plays nice this time.

        Thanks for the reminder!

        *Hands you a pint & lifts a tankard in toast*

  14. MS Rocks

    With the launch of Solus, 2016 could be the year of.......

    (It has been said earlier in the comments section, but I thought it was worthy of a title in its own right!!)

    1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

      Re: With the launch of Solus, 2016 could be the year of.......

      Nope. But there's always next year...

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Picky

    The Solus web site says "Copyright (c) 2015 Solus Project"..........

    ......but I thought it was 2016 already.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Solus stands on a few less shoulders than others"

    fewer shoulders!

    on the other hand, well done to devs for trying something new, just because they can? :)

  17. yossarianuk

    Screen locking broken in v1.1

    There is a lot of good things about Solus.

    Its fast/ low bloat, boots quickly, desktop responds quickly and looks nice, I am usually a KDE user though and I found myself missing various feature i'm used to.

    The package manager is NOT slow whoever said that, it seems faster than apt/dnf/zypper.

    One issue however is screen locking is currently broken and there is no pre setup screen lock combo...

    Also (and its not their fault) I cannot use sonicwall VPN client on it due to missing route command (in favour of the ip command) - this is the issue with non opensource VPN clients really.

    Overall I would say its a nice desktop, that actually (as they state) focuses on desktops, not mutant tablet nightmare systems (like Gnome + Unity).

    KDE is still going to be my main work driver, however I am going to run this @ home for the next few months at least and so far really liking it.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I wonder if it's possible for a new distro to have a build system that pulls in something like Gentoo's portage to build a collection of packages for their own repository?

    Obviously a lot of things would need tweaking ( such as build flags ) initially, but I think this could theoretically make for an extremely competitive "software centre" with minimal effort.

  19. Ken 16 Silver badge

    A lovely desktop but no apps

    It's great having a package manager but if it can't provide packages...

  20. Erlang Lacod

    Comments here seem to have veered off into the wondrous realms of comparing command speeds between Python and C. Very clever stuff but this sort of stuff probably isnt the first thing on the minds of the majority of potential users.

    What I'd like to know before I point people towards it is what are it's hardware requirements. Is it lighter weight than Mint or Ubuntu. Is it sufficiently light weight to be used on older PCs, cascaded from the front line ?

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