So, after about 2 weeks of using Solus as my daily driver, I think I am going to be moving on from the distro. It's extremely impressive, and I believe it is an great distro (granted it's only my second one, but the first one only made it 2 days) however there are some serious issues that I am having that I can't ignore.
The elephant in the room is the NVIDIA driver situation. Doflicky installs them, I reset, the boot-up fails when the X-server is initialized. I drop into tty, uninstall them, reboot, and I'm back. Do some research, make a few changes, rinse wash and repeat. I STILL haven't gotten them to work. It seems like the general vibe is "well you used Doflicky, it should be working" but it's not. Without my NVIDIA drivers I don't have my HDMI slot, so no second monitor, especially with no Miracast support,. I've tried everything I can think of and everything that everyone online has suggested to no avail. Part of the problem is that things in Solus just aren't where they are supposed to be. From big things like eopkg and the distro's VERY strange relationship with old JAVA, to configuration files to log files, it's like the distro prides itself on being non-standard. I STILL haven't figured out how to kill the X-server. I even tried to compile the drivers myself, but again, things just weren't working right. I'm not going to even consider what a nightmare it would be to get both my GPU's up and running, and with no NVIDIA Optimus support, I loose a lot of functionality as well.
This leads me into the next point, the lack of support for eopkg. I think in my time here I've found one or two pieces of software, usually niche, that supported eopkg or Solus. Yes, we have a lot of great programs in the repository, but support could be a lot better. 1Password is a great example. Installing it through Flatpak or Snap causes you to lose some functionality, and it's not acceptable. Then there's the issue with compiling things. Libraries in Solus are another of those things that's just enough off that it's a pain to try to figure out what the name of that is. You can eventually figure it out with enough trial and error, but I've run into the issue where it's just not available so I can't compile what I need. A lot of people like to say that Flatpak or Snap make up for the eopkg issues, but it doesn't. Not when you expect us to use it, but don't even support it through your software center.
The final issue is, it seems like with Solus, things change in the blink of an eye or something won't work as intended on other Linux systems. Exhibit A:
That's my application launcher. The default one from KDE Plasma, Kickoff i think it's called. You'll notice how huge it is, and the fact that it's inc the center of my screen. Why? I have absolutely no clue. It was just like that after the update the other day and I have absolutely no clue how to get it back to normal. This is a great microcosum for Solus. A bit off, a bit weird, but honestly not that bad.
There's some other things that I really would like to see fixed, like the ability to use higher versions of Python (I need 3.12 dang it!) but ultimately you get the gist. It feels like... someone has done a fantastic job of rebuilding a home after a disaster, but they did it very quickly while also doing a lot of improvements that are shoehorned in, and from what I've learned about Solus, that may have been exactly what happened after the Re-Emergence.
Thank you for being a fantastic community. I've been negative in this post, but my experience with Solus has really been an amazing one. I have learned SO MUCH in these past 2 weeks about Linux in general, and I've enjoyed almost every moment of it. Ditching Windows and coming to Linux has made me love my computer again, and I have spent hours just tinkering, learning, and enjoying myself like I did when I was a kid and first learning MS-DOS. In regards to the community and presentation of Solus itself, stop touting the simplicity. It isn't there. From Doflicky, to the guess-a-lib game with compiling, to the sadly lacking documentation. Solus si for the person that loves puzzles, not those who like a simplicity. Sometimes you can simplify something so much, it becomes more complicated than it needs to be. I think that's where Solus is headed, if not there already.
I'll definitely be back for Solus 5. I want to see what Serpent OS brings to the table. There's a lot of good old bones here that can be brought back to life, and I wish you all the best. In the immortal words of the Dolphins (I promise i'm not making a crack at the file manager!) So Long and Thanks for all the Fish!
