olivir when spring distro hopping I tried MassOS. It exists as a live .iso so I flashed it and explored it. Brought nothing new to the table IMHO and forgettable. 2 cents.

      brent when spring distro hopping I tried MassOS

      It sounded interesting, and XFCE is one of the DEs I used for a while on openSUSE, so I thought I'd give it a try in a VM. I created one, providing at least twice the recommended resources. The installer program seems a little primitive, but it's functional.

      At the end of installation, it reminds you to remove the installation media and reboot. I did that, and it rebooted to a black screen. After waiting a reasonable time, I did a reset, which usually closes and launches a VM, but this one just generated a critical error.

      I reinstalled the .ISO file into the virtual CD drive, and did another installation. The results were the same as the first time. Two installations, followed by two failures to launch exceeds my upper enthusiasm limit for a VM, so I deleted it with prejudice.

      Your mileage may vary. I assume that some users have successfully installed it and got it to run.

          My choice of a non-Solus* distro has changed over the years, and currently it's Ultramarine Budgie. After experimenting with it in a VM, I was impressed enough to install it on a spare laptop and configure it as a daily driver.

          My only complaint is that, as a Fedora descendant, it enables 156 unit files at startup (compared with 3 for Solus), so startup is very slow. So is shutdown. But while it's up and running, it's beautiful. Using .rpm for package management, just about every interesting software is available. And dnf is as convenient to use in a terminal as eopkg is for Solus.

          * I sincerely hope I never hava a need for a non-Solus distro, but this thread starts with "If not Solus".

          WetGeek so I deleted it with prejudice.

          That is what i call a righteous delete. I didn't bother installing it. Now I have openly criticized online reviewers of Solus for wasting 5000 word critiques without ever having to install and use it....so I feel hypocritical dissing the MassOS iso...but it just wasn't interesting, subjectively speaking; you missed nothing imho.

          Ultramarine is a beautiful non-Solus distro. Glad that has been a good #2 for you. I read the owner had to abandon the project so hopefully someone steps up.

              brent I read the owner had to abandon the project so hopefully someone steps up.

              I heard the same thing, but since then, there's been a constant stream of updates. At least as often as Solus updates, because every time I do a Solus update, packages need upgrades for Ultramariine as well. So, apparently someone (if not several someones) stepped up to the challenge.

              They're still on Budgie 10.5.3, I think, but that hardly seems to matter in actual usability. I'm pretty sure that will be updted when there's more of a reason to do so ... like when Budgie 10.7 is released.

                  WetGeek Well, the same for me, I failed to install it in a qemu virtual machine. 😢

                    WetGeek So, apparently someone (if not several someones) stepped up to the challenge.

                    There is at least one contributor to Ultramarine Linux active in the BuddiesOfBudgie chat. So, it seems like the project is still at least somewhat active.

                        Staudey So, it seems like the project is still at least somewhat active.

                        Indeed. After installing today's sync, I fired up Ultramarine, and did an update there. Lots of new package upgrades were done, including the latest Vivaldi. Apparently the reports of its demise are very premature.

                        Still no threat to Solus, of course. It still takes forever to boot and shutdown, due to its Fedora base.

                          WetGeek For those who like to explore interesting distros, Pisi is certainly one you'd enjoy taking a look at.

                          Just a followup ...

                          A couple days ago I got a couple of emails telling me that the Pisi bugs I'd reported there had been resolved. I figured it was worth another look, so I downloaded a new .ISO file and created a new Pisi VM. Or, I should say, I tried to.

                          After selecting US English as my working language (their default is Turkish, of course), I noticed that the installer has been improved significantly. At the end, though, I couldn't actually launch the VM. It just booted to a CLI login. And after logging on and running startx, the screen became trash.

                          I always offer a second chance, so I reinstalled the new Pisi .ISO file and tried again. I left that .ISO in place as I rebooted at the end of installation, planning to let the installer start again before I tried to reboot and launch Pisi. That's sometimes worked with other VM installations, but not this time. Pisi simply doesn't start with a GUI that works.

                          That's the end of my interest in Pisi for now. Maybe I'll try again in a few months. Surely this kind of persormance won't escape the team's attention.

                            6 months later

                            just Solus actually convinced me to leave Void behind, funny enough. The boot times and runit are just unmatched, but it really did feel like a server and not a laptop for those many years I was on it.

                                teep The boot times and runit are just unmatched

                                Would you say that Void boots faster than Solus? Solus is not bad in this regard.

                                    If the total unfortunate happened and Solus was no more I would use PCLinuxOS.
                                    It is also a rolling release.
                                    As for DE I would probably go with Darkstar, which is a reduced app KDE.
                                    BTW: Have been running Solus Budgie as my main distro since November 2016, so now over 6 years.

                                      Closest thing I can find is to spin up an Arch.

                                      MintSpider BTW: Have been running Solus Budgie as my main distro since November 2016, so now over 6 years.

                                      yep. we were in a land far from flarum no doubt. question I always wanted to know but unable to answer...maybe you can answer it. I was around for the 3.999999 upgrade....so what came before that? were we initially on some obscure 3.7X version?

                                          MintSpider As for DE I would probably go with Darkstar, which is a reduced app KDE.

                                          Being a KDE fan, and having never explored DarkStar, you got my curiosity going, so I created a VM using the latest .ISO file. "Reduced" hardly describes it. When I could do nothing with the initial VM window, I tried to resize it. Apparently this is the only resolution available:

                                          The display is driven by VirtualBox's VBoxSVGA video support, which has provided a very long list of resolutions for other distros' KDE implementations that I've examined, including 1920x1080, which is the full-screen resolution of the host laptop.

                                          Am I doing something wrong, or is this really the maximum resolution that PCLinuxOS KDE Darkstar supports?

                                              WetGeek I never use VirtualBox so unable to answer that direct question.
                                              On the Alienware M15x laptop I have PCLinuxOS Darkstar running at 1600x900.

                                                  MintSpider On the Alienware M15x laptop I have PCLinuxOS Darkstar running at 1600x900.

                                                  Thanks for your answer. It encouraged me to try the second (older) option, the VMSVGA support, and that indeed worked. This distro is now full-screen on my laptop, and exhibits none of the problems that occurred with the previous version.

                                                  I have a feelling I'm gonna enjoy working with this version of KDE!

                                                    MintSpider If the total unfortunate happened and Solus was no more I would use PCLinuxOS.

                                                    For me it was the other way around 😁 . Solus was my fallback for PCLinuxOS

                                                      brent I was around for the 3.999999 upgrade....so what came before that?

                                                      A few years of kicking tires, getting all the pieces in place. I think that 3.0 (2017) was the first version to get traction in the Linux market.