Ubuntu Budgie vs Solus?

Neither. Both Solus Budgie and Ubuntu Budgie 22.04 LTS are superb implementations of the Budgie DE. I have used both extensively (Solus Budgie since 2017 and Ubuntu Budgie since April), and both work extremely well for my use case, which is desktop computing without need for complex enterprise management or complex network management tools.

The differences between the Budgie DE implementations are insignificant (the Solus Budgie default theme/layout is almost identical to the Ubuntu Budgie "Traditional Budgie" theme/layout), although (1) Ubuntu Budgie offers a wider variety of themes and layouts than does Solus Budgie , (2) in my opinion, the main menu is slightly better organized in Ubuntu Budgie than in Solus Budgie, and (3) Ubuntu Budgie offers a "browser ballot" as part of the "Welcome" experience that allows users to select a browser from among 8-10 choices.

Both Solus Budgie and Ubuntu Budgie are supported by strong teams and are contributors to the BuddiesOfBudgie project, so we can expect both to continue to stay in the mainstream of Budgie development over time.

The difference between the two is at the OS-layer, the Ubuntu OS layer versus the Solus OS layer. The differences between the two OS layers are well known and frequently discussed. I need not go into those differences for the purposes of this discussion.

kyrios Try by yourself and ask yourself what is important for you.

Kudos.

Kevinsotovalle like kyrios said, it really comes down to your wants and needs. A lot of the same arguments for Solus vs Pop will apply here.
All the Ubuntu flavors follow the same 22.04/22.10 release cycle. In fact, all but one has followed this and they've only missed on release deadline ever. An amazing feat if you ask me.
The problem is, you're either riding the 6-month cycle or you're hanging on 12+ months from one LTS to the next. Stuff can get crusty and old without backports, PPAs, and other mitigations. You may not have the latest and greatest Budgie packages. I emphasize may, because Budgie is independently developed, as such, it could just so happens every distro that implements it has the latest also.

Brucehankins because Budgie is independently developed,

Budgie is independently developed now, but until quite recently and for the entirety of its existence was tied to Solus.

Personally I prefer Solus Budgie but as stated by everyone else it's a matter of personal preference.

It comes down to whether you want to be able to use .deb files or not.

I prefer Solus' stability over Ubuntu's user base. I find Solus to have everything I need. Ubuntu, on the other hand, has repos full of outdated and unmaintained software.

I have broken every single installation of Ubuntu anything eventually. However I have run the same installation of Solus since 2019 (without reinstalling) and have never run into an issue which I was not able to fix, no matter the severity.

In closing.. Solus Budgie is my preferred version of the Desktop Environment because I prefer Solus. If I -had- to use another version of Budgie, I would switch to Manjaro Budgie. The Budgie applets are a bit more customizable and I like Manjaro.

Just a matter of personal preference.

Btw.. from what I understand Fedora is coming out with a version of Budgie called 'Fudgie'. Fedora has the best implementation of Gnome out there and I would be interested to see what Budgie is like on that distro.

tomscharbach Edge was released as a Flatpak earlier this month.

I haven't figured out how to get it to block trackers and third-party cookies. I'm sure I'm missing some settings. Any ideas?

tomscharbach those are the basics.

Thanks. I don't know why I couldn't find those.

tomscharbach Yes it does, although as Flathub grows over time, I think that the importance of deb files will lessen for Solus.

that's an astute observation and I'm beginning to think its a blessing and a curse.
curse: over-reliance of loosely? barely?-cve-curated Flathub programs will be Linux' trojan horse I predict and I'm as guilty as anyone of depending on them.
curse: not finding a practical open source way to make .deb/.rpm accessible to the non-deb/rpm community without compiling a program onself (that is not an intuitive endeavour for me personally)...and thats if the developers/creators offer the targz.
blessing of flathub: instant gratification. I couldn't find a GUI password manager that worked for me in our repo and I didn't have the brain for the CLI ones in our repo. Flatpak to the rescue.

brent I have to imagine more useful flathub programs will be put into the repository eventually (or if demand is enough).

The rest puts it on parity with windows (including disappointment), and gives developers better access without as much of a hassle in maintaining (passed on to a few windows specific developers that maybe it might be a good idea to sell something that is flatpak compatible).

brent my concerns were purely the app's state before wrapping

Yup, well, that's a problem. Linux has about ten times as many applications as makes sense, and way too many of them are poorly designed, indifferently maintained, outdated, and possibly insecure. I stick with mainstream applications for that reason.

qsl I have to imagine more useful flathub programs will be put into the repository eventually ...

That may be true for FOSS applications, but it is not true for proprietary and semi-proprietary applications. In the past, those applications (e.g. Android Studio, Bitwig Studio, Gitkracken, Chrome, Mendeley, Skype, Slack, Spotify, Plex and Viber) were packaged into the "Third Party" repository, but that is no longer the case. The Third Party repository is closed.

tomscharbach qsl thanks for responding. I think it goes back to perception.
Solus, for instance, dedicated crew, good-sized repo, and they are proud and stand by their curated apps they offer. Probably a lot of distros this way (not AUR obviously).
They call third-party apps "third party" with the disclaimer it didn't originate with them, you've been warned.
A vaguer warning comes with Flat/Snap/Appimages...a distro doesn't claim them as their own, but offers these "repos" or "stores" as auxiliary packages, mostly open source and generally reliable.

So the with this perception of mine, when I began with solus way back when I thought NEVER step outside the repo. Then we all wind up stepping outside the repo, baby steps, but my comfort level does not ever improve outside of Solus' curation. Although we all have to do it for something. I have a few.

brent One of the big impediments (well, at least for me) to using linux in general is those niche programs that either there isn't a good linux replacement (still can't find an acceptable replacement for IDDM, for instance) or are too much of a pain to use in linux (numerous audio programs that are just... no).

I actually think this plays to Solus's favor, allowing them to play to their strengths (again) without being overburdened with maintaining the flavor of the month or niche applications, and also giving better access to developers who are proprietary/profit driven with an easy product to sell that doesn't have to contend with the peculiarities of each distribution.

This is why flatpak was mandatory distribution criteria for me (and I hope in flourishes).

jrsilvey It comes down to whether you want to be able to use .deb files or not

For me it's snaps. I'm not going there.

brent

Flatpaks are fine for right now.. but the real fear I have is that Microsoft will buy the Snapcraft Store. That would really suck.

murbert I don't quite understand?

I use one snap btw and it kills me because snaps constantly break in Solus. I don't know if it's a Solus thing or a Snap thing. But anyway I hate Snaps.