Solus is a Linux distribution built from the ground up. It uses a forked version of the PiSi package manager, referred to as “eopkg” within Solus, and a custom desktop environment called “Budgie”, originally developed just for the distribution.
The Budgie desktop mimics the look and feel of the GNOME 2 desktop. The distribution is only available for 64-bit computers. Overall, the distribution has impressive graphics and according to other reviews, the Budgie desktop is particularly beautiful and functional.
I tried the Gnome flavor of the distribution, as previously when I tried Budgie it was impossible to change language in the traditional way using Alt+Shift. Searching the internet I discovered that a lot of people had this problem, and the project developer wasn't that interested in this particular change.
So since you can't teach an old dog new tricks, I decided that distribution wasn't for me.
But yesterday I saw the Gnome version and decided to try again, since with Gnome I never had a problem with shortcuts. I didn't install the distribution, but I transferred the ISO to a USB and tried the Live version. Yes, the shortcut was there..
As for the Live environment, it wasn't stable. There were a lot of crashes, Firefox closed by itself as I was writing this post, and then it wouldn't open. I tried opening the terminal to stop the ghost process, but the terminal wouldn't open. I tried opening the System Monitor GUI to stop the process from there, again with no luck.
I don't want to discredit the distribution, as I didn't install it, but the Live version was crap.
Package management is handled by a Solus application called eopkg, as I mentioned earlier, which has its own software repository. It is similar to Debian's dpkg with apt and seems pretty easy to use. You can easily install applications with the command sudo eopkg install application-name. The Solus repository is full of popular applications that are always up to date.
The distribution also has a graphical Software Center that is similar to the Ubuntu Software Center or GNOME Software.
As I mentioned before, I don't want to do the distribution any injustice, because despite the difficulties I encountered with the Live version, all the reviews I have read about Solus present it as a very impressive and reliable project.
But I'm thinking of waiting a few more years before I install it properly. If you want to do it sooner, below is the link for the ISOs:
The distribution will be available in Budgie, GNOME and MATE flavors
https://solus-project.com/download/
