If not solus, what distro would you be using

tomscharbach

WetGeek How is it going with your 11-3120?

I love that little computer. It is from the Latitude line developed for the education market, built kid-tough, solid as a rock and with a good non-touch non-reflective display. The retail price reflects the build quality (my 11-3120 retails for $669 but I got it Dell-refurbished much, much cheaper), noticably better built than the Inspiron 11-3180. The specs are good -- 8 GB RAM, 128 GB NVMe SSD, 53 WHr battery -- and the Pentium N6000 is more than adequate to run Windows 11. I don't sit and think "come on, already" like I used to do running Windows 10 on the 11-3180. The 11-3120 is obviously not for gaming or serious multitasking, but I have had 10-12 tabs open in Edge without a noticeable effect on performance.

WetGeek

tomscharbach I love that little computer. It is from the Latitude line developed for the education market

When you wrote that it was time to "move on," I thought you were referring to installing PCLinuxOS on it in place of Windows. That's what I was wondering about.

Axios

You can just about pick your poison with all the community builds to.
I just dont do grub anymore.
https://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/os/Linux/distr/pclinuxos/pclinuxos/live-cd/community/

tomscharbach

Axios I just dont do grub anymore.

Me neither. I've banged my head into the "Grub, Grub Uber Alles" wall too many times. I have come to really appreciate the fact that Solus doesn't use Grub.

tomscharbach

WetGeek When you wrote that it was time to "move on," I thought you were referring to installing PCLinuxOS on it in place of Windows. That's what I was wondering about.

Nah. I'll use the 11-3120 for the railroad and general light work, diverting the 11-3180 to become "Mikey", the computer used to test distros that make it through Live testing. I'm about to do another Live test on PCLOS ("normal" build this time rather than Darkstar) and see whether I want to install it on the 11-3180.

I don't know whether I'll keep Windows 11 or install Solus Plasma on the 11-3120. Up in the air right now, because there are some advantages to using Windows 11 at the railroad.

Staudey

tomscharbach Solus uses GRUB for legacy (i.e. BIOS) boot.

WetGeek

tomscharbach I don't know whether I'll keep Windows 11 or install Solus Plasma on the 11-3120. Up in the air right now, because there are some advantages to using Windows 11 at the railroad.

Is there enough disk space for a dual boot?

tomscharbach

Staudey Solus uses GRUB for legacy (i.e. BIOS) boot.

Another good reason to use UEFI, as if there weren't already a hundred good reasons.

tomscharbach

WetGeek Is there enough disk space for a dual boot?

I gave up on single-drive dual-boot several years ago. If I want to use Solus on a Windows computer, I can use the "Portable Plasma" external M.2 drive which sets up dual-drive dual-boot and works fine on whatever computer I want to use, so long as the computer is UEFI and Secure Boot disabled.

Staudey

tomscharbach I don't think many people are using BIOS by choice 😃

tomscharbach

@WetGeek For what it is worth, I ran the "normal" PCLOS Plasma in a Live session and was not impressed. A ton of applications I'll never use, few of the K-pop standards present in Solus Plasma, a washed-out Breeze Dark theme, LibreOffice overload, inconsistent theming with about half the applications, and sizing issues with a number of Windows. Thumbs down.

The more I compare Solus to just about anything else, the more I become convinced that Solus is a unique distro, well-designed and well-implemented from top to bottom.

brent

tomscharbach The more I compare Solus to just about anything else, the more I become convinced that Solus is a unique distro, well-designed and well-implemented from top to bottom.

It would take me about 7 sentences to say exactly this ^^, so yeah, me too, this^.

WetGeek

tomscharbach I ran the "normal" PCLOS Plasma in a Live session and was not impressed

I decided to give it one last try -- I've replaced the .ISO in the VM with a brand-new (11/30/2022) version of KDE Plasma. It's now making just 22 upgrades, and I should be close to resolving my last smidge of curiosity about what I'm now referring to as my "PCLinuxOS Affair."

I have never explored other distros in order to find a replacement for Solus, as I feel the same way about it as you do. I'm just intrigued by what's going on in other distros, by other teams. But this last attempt will certainly conclude my participation in the PCLinuxOS Affair.

tomscharbach

WetGeek I have never explored other distros in order to find a replacement for Solus, as I feel the same way about it as you do. I'm just intrigued by what's going on in other distros, by other teams.

The title of this thread ("If not solus, what distro would you be using?") suggests that "a replacement for Solus" is a relevant to evaluation, but I understand what you mean. While "a replacement for Solus" is always in the back of my mind, I look at distros with an eye towards (1) is the distro a good choice as a desktop/working environment for an "ordinary home desktop user", (2) is the distro something I would recommend to my friends (non-technical for the most part) for that purpose, and (3) is the user interface as well-designed and intuitive as Windows, MacOS, Android, ChromeOS, iOS and other major user interfaces, all different but well done. A threshold criteria is design quality -- nobody who is used to any of the "majors" is going to tolerate sloppy, amateurish design for their primary working computing environment.

WetGeek

tomscharbach The title of this thread ("If not solus, what distro would you be using?") suggests that "a replacement for Solus" is a relevant to evaluation

@adurante created this thread, and gave it that name. I created the Other Interesting Distros thread, which is more in line with my interests. Still, having used and loved Solus for years, there's understandibly some overlap. If Solus were taken away somehow, and I no longer had it, I'd want its replacement to be as much like it as possible.

brent

tomscharbach The title of this thread ("If not solus, what distro would you be using?") suggests that "a replacement for Solus" is a relevant to evaluation, but I understand what you mean. While "a replacement for Solus" is always in the back of my mind, I look at distros with an eye towards (1) is the distro a good choice as a desktop/working environment for an "ordinary home desktop user", (2) is the distro something I would recommend to my friends (non-technical for the most part) for that purpose, and (3) is the user interface as well-designed and intuitive as Windows, MacOS, Android, ChromeOS, iOS and other major user interfaces, all different but well done. A threshold criteria is design quality -- nobody who is used to any of the "majors" is going to tolerate sloppy, amateurish design for their primary working computing environment.

Sometimes I think we BS ourselves, maybe I do. I love threads like these because maybe I pretend to be looking for a cool sidekick to Solus. As a practical matter Win10 is my backup. Do I need a third OS? I'm not a hobbyist.
Or is the truth that Solus set the bar so high this distro hunt is an intriguing pita. You really want the truth truth? I'm always scared that Solus & Co.will cease to function, pull up stakes, and vanish, and I want a luxurious daily driver like this I can step right into to conduct the business of day to day living.
[If that awful day comes I will be honest, Bodhi or Bunsen I've enjoyed the most].
But I very much enjoy others' POVs on distros.

tomscharbach

brent Or is the truth that Solus set the bar so high this distro hunt is an intriguing pita.

I think that the bar -- in terms of design quality, user interface and useability, ease of use for non-technical users, and quality/stability of the underlying operating system -- is set by Windows, MacOS, and ChromeOS on the desktop, and Android and iOS for smartphone users.

When I show friends Linux on the desktop, that level of quality (the level of quality that they are used to from using mainstream operating systems) is what my friends expect to see on my Linux desktop.

Solus and a relatively small number of other distros provide that level of quality -- carefully designed user interfaces, carefully curated apps and a stable operating system -- in short, top-to-bottom quality and ease of use. Most distros, frankly, do not meet the bar.

brent I'm always scared that Solus & Co.will cease to function, pull up stakes, and vanish, and I want a luxurious daily driver like this I can step right into to conduct the business of day to day living.

I think that is the point of this thread. If Solus disappears, what would we use instead?

brent But I very much enjoy others' POVs on distros.

Me, too. Other POV's point me in directions I might not find on my own.

Brucehankins

brent the possibility that is just disappears one day is not zero, that's why I keep trying other things. My opinions have changed quite a bit over the years, and I really don't think there's anything as good as Solus. Apt is slow, pacman syntax make no sense (really -Syu instead of up or update), Fedora hates me, and SUSE just never made me feel warm and happy. I'd probably transition to Endeavour at this point and then start hopping again. I might give Gecko another look or Tumbleweed.

teep

joluveba In my experience Void boots faster than Solus. That's not to say Solus is by any means slow.

brent

Brucehankins after eopkg, apt and pacman confusing, fedora hates me too, suse hates me. tumbleweed/gecko is a fan club I always tried to join but would not have me on two computers. that was between an old lenovo desktop and a hand built abandoned gaming rig I don't game on. it's always rejected me.
I know that possibility of solus going poof "is not zero" and it makes me nervous. it's as stable as win 7, prettier, snappier, and much more secure....and better than every distro I tested. If the Solus thing goes under I'm staying on the roller coaster of small/independent and I don't know why. My needs are not power computing obviously but I admire vision and authenticity foremost. Your post above is awesome.

tomscharbach

Brucehankins I really don't think there's anything as good as Solus.

Solus brings together a unique combination of a solid, efficient and stable OS layer, high-quality DE layers (my experience is limited to Budgie and Plasma) implemented flawlessly, carefully selected applications targeted at home desktop user, Flatpack, appimage and Snap support, and an intelligently implemented rolling release model. In short, a solid, kruft free, user-friendly, desktop-focused, quality designed/implemented top-to-bottom. Although there are other high-quality distros available, none bring all of those factors together as well as Solus.

I've looked at quite a number of Budgie and Plasma implementations during the last year precisely because "the possibility that is just disappears one day is not zero". None of them are as good as Solus. The only two I'd consider at this point as Solus replacements or distros that I would recommend to friends wanting to come over from Windows are Ubuntu Budgie and Kubuntu.

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