Distro most like Solus

Frank-Starr

Overall, which distro is the most like Solus Linux? Everything from rewritten from scratch through using RAMdisk and not having a lot of programs Active during use?

WetGeek

Frank-Starr Overall, which distro is the most like Solus Linux?

Of all that I've tested, the one that I found easiest to configure into a daily-driver laptop has been Ultramarine Budgie. In fact, I installed it on a spare laptop, and used it as such from time to time.

It's based on Fedora, so it readily accepts .RPM installers. Most packages that you don't find in its repository can probably be installed from such an .RPM file. Despite offering only Budgie as a DE, it creates a relatively small installation.

Keep in mind that, although it is much like Solus Budgie, it is not Solus. It loads and enables 156 unit files upon startup (compared with 3 or 4 for Solus), so in the time it takes to start up, you could probably launch Solus and answer an email. It takes a similar length of time to shut down.

Brucehankins

Frank-Starr that's a tough ask. My initial thought is some of the arch variations like Endeavour, but a lot of those can be cluttered also. I'd take a look at Void or Nix, they are pretty cool, but have a good learning curve. If you really wanna get crazy, there's Slackware and Gentoo, just saying, use at your own risk, lol.

tomscharbach

Frank-Starr ... rewritten from scratch ...

As far as I know, there are very few distros other than Solus written from scratch at the OS layer. Almost all distros are derivatives of Debian, Ubuntu, Arch, SUSE or RedHat/Fedora.

Staudey

(Note: Please don't start your posts with four spaces (unless you're posting code or need that formatting for stylistic reasons). This makes it incredibly hard to read as there will be no automatic line breaks and instead a scollbar to navigate through it. I've edited your last post and this one, because I couldn't stand them as they were. Thanks!)

Frank-Starr

Thanks very much. Must be some sort of a flaw in speech to text. I’ll try and hit the backspace key preceding the first letter in this post a few times and hope that helps.

brent

"Distro most like Solus"

I got nothing.

brent

WetGeek you hit the nail on the head. if you are used to a DE than 'most like' is going to be similar. Budgie for instance, it's raven, control center and desktop settings will be most like if you've just left that distro for another flagship budgie (or not flagship). Most like would have to include package manager. I've used dpkg and pkg and they are similar to eopkg in syntax/argument---so most like from that point of view too.
Most like can also include one's familiarity with gtk/gnome if having used budgie, and especially most like would have to do with systemd---that's a most like if one prefers that under the hood. And terminal commands in general---how different that what you are used to and how much the same.
Most like Solus Budgie (for instance) would have:
gnome shell
budgie
gtk theming more or less
systemd
dpkg, pkg, or eopkg
flatpak/snap enabled

I was being cheeky when I said I got nothing, but not being cheeky, I don't know what distro is most like according the criteria above

WetGeek

brent you hit the nail on the head.

Actually, your approach was better. I was thinking along the lines of which distro was most like an edition of Solus. And Ultramarine Budgie always impressed me as being most like Solus Budgie (except for its gawdauful startup and shutdown times).

murbert

Every time I try a different distro it comes up short in my mind when I compare it to Solus Budgie. The speed, ease of use, sensible defaults, stability, eopkg & the speed all combine to make what is for me, the best home computer distro.
For speed optimizations Clear Linux. It boots faster than Solus. It's not designed for desktop use though, so networking and printers are a b****
For my use Fedora Cinnamon is the best alternative, though DNF optimizations and adding repos are necessary.
I'm thinking a Serpent OS derivative coming probably next year will be closest.

brent

murbert I'm thinking a Serpent OS derivative coming probably next year will be closest.

Be curious about what you've picked up on the chatternet about Serpent. The childish part of me thinks this will knock all our socks off...or end up severely over-hyped in our imaginations and deflating when released. Too blind to see a middle ground with the mercurial Ikey.

elfprince

tomscharbach Perhaps that is why it is so stable? Not inheriting bugs from other distros?

WetGeek

After recommending Ultramarine Budgie in this thread, I wondered whether that distro offers any other DEs. Indeed, it does, including GNOME and Pantheon. I've heard good things about Pantheon, and decided to take a look at it.

However, I'm stumped at the moment. Part of the installation requires selecting the disk to which to install it. In the Budgie edition, having done so in the UI, a [Done] button returns one to the main installation page so you can select other options before starting the installation.

In this case, however, there is no [Done] button to return me to the main installer page. Thus, I have no way to continue the installation. I can't believe such a problem could exist without being fixed right away, but I'm out of ideas. Anyone have a useful suggestion?

WetGeek

WetGeek Anyone have a useful suggestion?

Nevermind. It's shown as disabled, and blended into the background so well that I didn''t see it at first. Still, the question is now, "why isn't it enabled"? I've selected the disk to use, and I ca't see any items that haven't been answered.

EDIT: Although it gives the appearance of being disabled, clicking on the [Done] button does trigger the needed action. I'm on my way to installing this now.

WetGeek

WetGeek I'm on my way to installing this now.

At first glance, Pantheon looks a bit like GNOME, but without that awful way it supports virtual desktops. I need to figure out how Pantheon does that, so if anyone here is a fan of this DE and you can shorten my search, please let me know.

I won't be doing a step-by-step review of this edition, but at the end of my exploration, I'll try to give a summary of what I've learned about Pantheon. Keep in mind, I've never seen it befoe.

elfprince

WetGeek Reminds me of Apple desktop?

mike-ward

WetGeek Awful? The thing I like most about Gnome are the dynamic work-spaces (virtual desktops).

WetGeek

elfprince Reminds me of Apple desktop?

I'll take your word for that. I never went over to the dark side, despite having a son who did.

WetGeek

elfprince Reminds me of Apple desktop?

According to what I've seen while researching how to access virtual desktops in Pantheon, it's supposed to look like a Mac desktop. That must be why it's so hard for me to figure out. (Although I did finally get the virtual desktops thing sorted.)

What's giving me grief now is trying to get my NAS shares visible in Pantheon's "Files" file manager. I know for sure that my changes to /etc/fstab are doing what they should, as I can verify that the shares are mounted in the terminal. Here's a partial listing of my ISOs share from there:

But if I try to access that share, or any other, in the Files file manager, I get an error telling me I'm not allowed to see what's there. Despite having set those shares like so:

I can't imagine why I'm not allowed to see their contents, but here's what I get when I try to:

I'm done for today, but I'll play around with this some more tomorrow. I'm not giing up on it yet.

brent

WetGeek It does resemble an apple dock with a gnom-ish top bar. Congrats on exploring a new DE...I wonder if Pantheon is kind of a Gnome-desktop hybrid/rebrand? Have dabbled in DEs but not Pantheon.

WetGeek

mike-ward The thing I like most about Gnome are the dynamic work-spaces (virtual desktops).

I was just expressing my opinion, Mike. And I strongly support your right to hold a different opinion.

In a way, you're pretty lucky. Nearly every distro I've examined offers a GNOME DE. Finding Budgie or Plasma can be more difficult, although Plasma is also pretty common.

murbert

brent It seems like they are building a platform designed for people to customize and share. Pretty much all I know is from the forum https://forums.serpentos.com/

WetGeek

brent Be curious about what you've picked up on the chatternet about Serpent.

I haven't seen much about it, but then, I haven't looked for it, either. I'll be glad to take a look when it manifests.

brent

murbert A flarum forum didn't even exist last time I visited the website. since the oldest thread is 15 days ago, that's about right. thanks a lot for showing this to me. The Staudey iso running gag is hilarious.