I'm along the lines of @WetGeek but with the latest post IRT to direction of Budgie vis a vis Gnome, I tried Bohdi Linux on my experimental laptop. Quirky but cool little distro. Still trying to figure it out but super friendly community.

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.

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.

    4 months later

    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.

        opensuse maybe. i cant imagine if solus will be die soon.

        codewizard1975 I'm surprised no one said they'd be totally lost without Solus yet.

        I'm not about to say that I'd be lost without Solus, but I'd miss it. I used Ubuntu 2006-2017 for work, and then, freed of Canonical, went looking for a distro I wanted to use. I found Solus Budgie and I've stuck with it, and will continue to do so. I've looked at any number of distros in Gnome Boxes during the last couple months, and I haven't seen any I'd be willing to adopt for daily use. I'm 75 and not willing to put up with unstable, unintuitive, poorly-designed distros just for the sake of using Linux. If Solus Budgie disappeared, I'd use Windows or buy a MacBook.

          I am free spirit. There is no way that I am willing to suffer under Windows' thumb, or Apple's $$$ price tag. All else fails, I will try some of the light Linux distros, or even FreeBSD/OpenBSD.
          I shall not be assimilated, and resistance is NOT futile! 😀

            I last responded to this question on the cusp of the COVID-19 pandemic, and much has changed since. If not Solus, I would use GeckoLinux. It's a curated and polished version of openSUSE, with out-of-the-box functionality. I've been trying it out, and it gives me Solus vibes, because it offers a rolling-release model, a Budgie desktop environment, and the kind of user-focused experience I want in a daily-driver distro. All that being said, my experience with Solus has been fantastic, so I intend to keep using and supporting it.

              elfprince as a backup linux OS I've been--lately--auditioning all Independents. (distrowatch has a filter you can set for an indy search). If there was no Solus, I'd have to say I would never use a fork.
              I haven't tried them all, but 3 indy's are pretty cool/unique to me. Not solus-level cool...what's unique about you is you could fall back on BSD. that OS takes some brain cells, I tell ya

                  N1X3L All that being said, my experience with Solus has been fantastic, so I intend to keep using and supporting it.

                  I'm glad to see you mention this ... financial contributions are important way to support Solus for those of us who cannot contribute time and talent as a member of the Solus team.

                    codewizard1975 I'm surprised no one said they'd be totally lost without Solus yet.

                    More or less, that is my case, I'd be almost totally lost without Solus. There are other cool rolling release distros, but Solus is the one that gives me less trouble. Antergos was great, but it doesn't exist anymore. Manjaro always ends up exploding in my computers. PCLinuxOS is one of my favorite distros, but I have lots of little problems whenever I have used it. Geckolinux? I couldn't make heads or tails of it. Void Linux looks great, but installing it is a little too difficult for my low Linux skills.

                    I have uninstalled Solus several times to install and try other distros, and I have always regretted it, always came back crying to Solus. Once I used the Anarchy installer to install Arch on my laptop, when I rebooted I had lots of little annoying glitches, whenever I solved one, another one arouse, and a Jiminy Cricket little voice in my head repeated "In Solus this wouldn't happen". One of these little glitches was the final straw, and said to myself "Screw it, I'm going back to Solus"

                    Perhaps, perhaps, some day I will try Openmandriva Rolling, Openmamba, or Void Linux. Perhaps

                      Been using Solus Budgie since November 2016 as my main system.
                      For almost 3 years the OS has been running on a System76 Thelio Desktop.
                      A wonderful daily use platform that is so practical to use.

                      I am also involved in other Linux communities.
                      On my 2 Alienware M15x laptops I am running:
                      a) PCLinuxOS Trinity - a quirky but fun rolling distro. Also have this distro, Plasma version, on a testing PC as I am an official tester.
                      b) PeppermintOS - rejoined the project with the new release, and am a Trusted User in their forum.

                      Unsure at this stage which of these 2 other distros could replace Solus on my main system.
                      I know for sure though it would be a rolling distro.

                        I did a Linux / alternative OS marathon in the last 2 weeks with about 40 of the top 100 linux / BSD distros from distrowatch plus Haiku and OpenIndiana. I stay with Solus because it fits my taste and needs best.

                        I started to use Linux in 1995 with SuSE Linux and since then, i have a soft spot for this distro. openSuSE Tumbleweed is a rock solid rolling release.

                          brent if you're looking for something to mess with, learn, and have some fun....check out Arco Linux. It's Arch step by step basically until you build your own .iso.