Ubuntu Budgie vs Solus?

Brucehankins

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.

jrsilvey

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 Ubuntu, on the other hand, has repos full of outdated and unmaintained software.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

jrsilvey 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.

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

Case in point: I tested (and then used extensively) Ubuntu Budgie LTS 22.04 because Edge was released in deb/rpm, requiring me to build a private eopkg to use Edge on Solus. That was not a long term, sustainable solution for me.

Edge was released as a Flatpak earlier this month. I installed the Flatpak several days ago, it seems to work fine, and I no longer thinking about moving to Ubuntu Budgie at the end of the year (my personal deadline for a Flatpak solution).

I prefer the Solus OS layer to the Ubuntu OS layer, for reasons discussed in this and other threads, and am glad to be able to look forward to using Solus going forward. Ubuntu Budgie is an excellent implementation of the Budgie DE layer, though, and that's a fact.

murbert

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.

WetGeek

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?

brent

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.

tomscharbach

WetGeek 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?

No ideas, but here's how:

Third-Party Cookies:
Settings > Cookies and Site Permissions > Manage and delete cookies and site data > Block Third Party Cookies

Trackers:
Settings > Privacy, Search and Services > Tracking Prevention > [set to] Strict

You can go a lot further in terms of custom drill down settings, but those are the basics.

WetGeek

tomscharbach those are the basics.

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

tomscharbach

brent Flatpaks are wrapped applications. Nothing is added or deleted, nor is the application's code changed. If the application sucks, the wrapped application will still suck, and vice a versus.

qsl

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).

jrsilvey

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.

brent

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

tomscharbach

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.

tomscharbach

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.

brent

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.

qsl

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).

tomscharbach

jrsilvey 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.

I have no idea, but Ubuntu is pushing toward Snaps across the board. In Ubuntu Budgie, even Firefox is a Snap.

jrsilvey [T]he real fear I have is that Microsoft will buy the Snapcraft Store

Microsoft and Canonical seem to be moving closer and closer in recent years. I don't know whether Microsoft will buy Canonical or the Snapcraft store, but I suspect that it won't be too long before Microsoft develops official versions of cross-platform applications (e.g. Edge) as Snaps. The Flatpak is an unofficial wrap not supported by Microsoft.

qsl 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 ...

I have the same issue. Although the primary reason I use Windows 11 on my laptops is that Linux power/battery management is still inadequate (70% of Windows, and 3-5 F higher outside case temperature), the secondary reason is that I have searched high and low for Linux replacements for niche applications I use on the road (e.g. MyRadar), without success.

qsl 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.

I agree, particularly when it comes to proprietary and semi-proprietary applications. I hope that it won't be too long before the Third Party repository becomes redundant. It already is for about a dozen of the applications listed.

jrsilvey

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.

Brucehankins

jrsilvey Snaps constantly break everywhere. Canonical is working to improve them, and they are making great strides, but it still sucks. With help from (mostly entirely done by) Mozilla, the Firefox snap has went from an 18 second cold start to a 8 second cold start over the past year or so. Other snaps don't get the same attention, so they're still plagued with performance issues.
I don't know that MS taking over the snap project would change much honestly. Adoption of snaps has been pretty stagnant, and we see Ubuntu based distros ditching snaps for native file formats for flatpak apps more and more. I think the opinion of Canonical doesn't help here, almost as much as the poor performance of snaps.

tflovik

I have firefox snap version on Ubuntu Mate and after last snap version the startup time is now only 3 sec.