If not solus, what distro would you be using
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I am trying to stick with "original" distros and not spins (Debian, Fedora/CentOS, Arch, openSUSE, Solus etc.). That decreases the selection a lot but makes it easier to choose a distro without the need of endless distro hopping 
Currently, I am looking into openSUSE Tumbleweed. The syntax of zypper is intuitive just as in Solus. I am still not certain, if I really want to go with rolling release or static release model (e.g. openSUSE Leap). Arch is nice too by the cryptic syntax really bothered me.
So, instead of Solus I would go with openSUSE
brent I've updated my pick a couple times since I originally posted in this thread. While I still think Elementary is beautiful and love what they are trying to accomplish, I'm going to have to say, it's not for me right now. Pop! is amazing, but I've really grown to love KDE and the Qt frameworks. It would probably be Lubuntu or a rolling Plasma DE.
GermanTux I keep trying SUSE in VMs and while I do like their package manager, it's just not as fast or intuitive to me as Solus. That said, having run both Tumbleweed and Leap for extended periods, I think I'd go with Tumbleweed as I prefer the rolling model over the LTS model. Tumbleweed is still pretty solid and stable from my experience. Leap is okay for a production machine that you absolutely need stability on, you just have to learn to deal with some outdated things, kind of like Debian.
Brucehankins Pop and MX were the longest running auditions I held at weeks...but not really there. When I was brand new, a linux newborn, I did my research and fancied myself a red hat/rhel-type user. Seemed to agree with me. But I was not smart enough to get it installed at all after several attempts! Then a light bulb went off: "why don't I look for a distro that isn't forked from anything? just independent w/their own philosphy?".....
People have their favorite non-Solus distros -- for whatever reasons -- but I personally classify Linux distros into two categories: Solus and Non-Solus. It's hard for me to say what I'd be using if not for Solus, because I can't imagine not using Solus.
At 74, most of the folks who create and maintain Solus are considerably younger than I am, so I'm pretty sure that I'll be able to use Solus on all my computers for the rest of my days! And I find that comforting.
i think id dive in the the arch world now, probably endeavour. liked opensuse tumbleweed a lot but i just dont trust the packman repos
Lucien_Lachance What do you mean with not trusting packman repos? I am just curious 
GermanTux just that i had 2 very odd experiences. i dont know for what caused it though. but i would feel uncomfortable doing online banking etc.
it was probably nothing, but as i said, you gotta feel comfortable and im not
Distros I am currently using:
Arch/Garuda
Arch/Manjaro
Arch/Salient
Debian
Debian/KDE Neon
Debian/Kubuntu
Debian/Kubuntu on ZFS
Debian/Linux Mint
Debian/Ubuntu Unity
Debian/Zorin
Fedora
Fedora/CentOS Stream
Gentoo
openSuSE
Slackware/Salix
Void
GhostBSD
You know what they all have in common? They support advanced filesystems with compression, de-duplication, and snapshots; cron; and generally support stateful configuration so hardware quirks only have to be compensated-for a single time.
It might be tempting to write off my complaint as being that of an advanced long-time Linux user who likes things to work the way they did back in the day, but I'm absolutely not. I've only been using Linux on a daily basis for 2 months. The distros I listed above are the ones that didn't fight me while I was setting them up to work the way I want them to. (okay, Gentoo was a pain in the ass, but only because it doesn't do anything by itself, not because it tries to prevent the user from doing things.)
Anyway, if you're looking for recommendations, I recommend Kubuntu, Manjaro, or KDE Neon. Those are near the top of the list on DistroWatch for a reason, as I discovered firsthand over the past couple months.
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brent : Solus looks the same as any other distribution with KDE 5 Plasma installed. Just select the Breeze Twilight theme and install a wallpaper of a misty forest, and you'll have the same look. Done and done.
Likely Mint or Puppy, and only be using them for checking emails and doing online chores once every day or two. I am currently still using Mint for streaming foreign videos in the living room; it's so rarely used now that I haven't bothered changing anything. Manjaro used to work okay for streaming videos (I also installed Manjaro on my customers' computers who couldn't afford the cost of Windows), but Manjaro got buggy after some updates, and I haven't invested the time to see how the latest version is doing.
My current setup includes 3 computers: Solus, a tweaked Windows 8.1 that was an online business computer (rarely used now), and an offline security PC with Office 2010, (plus an XP hdd for when I want to play old games).
At present it is looking like I may soon have only 2 computers: an online Solus and an offline Solus. If I go Solus offline and could no longer use Solus online, then I'd likely choose Puppy for online use.
I would probably run Void. It's an little close to what Solus is, so i would stick to it. Maybe Arch too.
I'm surprised no one said they'd be totally lost without Solus yet.
I know I'd wander back to the Ubuntu arena myself for work and Manjaro for personal play.
If not EndeavourOS, then probably Fedora would be my next backup distro.