This has been a very interesting thread to follow and good discussion I believe. I'm tardy to the party, but I think Harvey's proposal of an "experimental" .iso is probably the best solution we could ask for currently. As many others have said the team is doing an amazing job keeping things updated and stable weekly, let's believe in them and support them.
If you're looking for more of a Tumbleweed vs Leap experience, I believe Solus can provide that currently. Just switch to the unstable repository. Yes it's not tested and verified working or safe, but essentially Tumbleweed is the arch chaotic version of SUSE. An update drops, and update is pushed, it's drinking from the fire hose. I ran tumbleweed for a while, there were sometimes dozens of updates a day.
When it comes to supporting newer hardware and features, Tom has done an excellent job outlining some of the major problems that not only the Solus team face, but also the larger distro community as a whole. I remember when another popular distro was being derided because they didn't offer high DPI support. The reason was because none of the team members had or could afford a 4K monitor to test on.
The discussion of newer vs older hardware seems to be pretty heated, but still civil and interesting. In the end as elfprince said, the team will make the decisions here, we just have to trust them. As someone who has 14 year old hardware and 6 month old hardware, it would be nice for newer hardware to be supported. i've run into a few distros that wont boot on the 6 month old build. Everything will boot on the 14 year old machine, but very few will produce a usable experience. Not all old hardware can be supported indefinitely and not all new hardware will see support right away, we have to trust the team to make the best decisions we can around these issues.
New installation method needed?
Brucehankins Tumbleweed is the arch chaotic version of SUSE. An update drops, and update is pushed, it's drinking from the fire hose. I ran tumbleweed for a while, there were sometimes dozens of updates a day.
LOL. I ran Tumbleweed in a VM last winter for a few weeks when I was testing different Budgie distos, and it drove me nuts. The ISO is huge (4.5 GB as I recall), takes forever to download and install, updates (usually hundreds of files) more-or-less daily, and (at least vis a vis the Budgie desktop, which is installed as an add-on) had stability issues. I gather Arch is like that, but I've never run anything Arch. My Tumbleweed takeaway: I learned to love the word "curated".
- Edited
Brucehankins This has been a very interesting thread to follow and good discussion I believe.
sound and fury in some ways. we started with 'it's a big undertaking and team is on it' and ended with 'its a big undertaking and team is on it.' Feasibility of an instant-iso was interesting.
ironically, for a thread about solus iso rejecting newer hardware, all 5 install gigs of Tumbleweed rejected my older hardware and I could not install. I did not ask the SUSE people for a compatible iso, though. Just kind of moved on
. Glad I did after reading you (edit: and Tom) here.
I've been using Solus since 2017 and have endured much stress but am finally being pushed to leave after reading elfprince's comments, i feel blatantly belittled unwanted and rejected from using Solus after seeing the team agree with some of those sentiments they put forth. Unbelievable and even depressing to me
Brucehankins we have to trust the team to make the best decisions we can around these issues.
Indeed. And one thing I've learned from this discussion is that getting new .ISOs out sooner will not guarantee that newer computers will be able to install and run Solus. It's not up to Solus to create drivers for the new components.
That said, it's not ideal to have more than a year between .ISO file updates. So, we're actually talking about two parts of the problem. One part the Solus team controls. The other part -- stale drivers that don't support newer hardware -- is not under Solus' control.
I remember going back for many years that word was passed around in forums that this brand of computers was good with Linux, and that brand was best avoided. Apparently that's not changed much. As Tom pointed out, Intel is one good rule of thumb.
It's not very helpful if we need to tell someone with a new laptop that the reason they're having problems getting Solus installed on it is because they bought the wrong brand of computer. But other Linux distros are likely not to work on it, either.
Still, the issue of infrequent releases remains, and that part is under Solus' control. I'm hoping that the team can arrive at some better way of updating .ISO files, and that's what this thread was all about, from the beginning -- coming up with ideas that might make the process more efficient, and thus less work for the team, and at the same time better results for users.
Over the years, I've found that most of the time, our weekly updates go very smoothly. The Solus team can be justifiably proud of that. In fact, that's what I've come to expect when I update a Solus computer. And the Solus team usually knows in advance that an update will be a dangerous one, because of what's been changed upstream. We've often been warned in the forum.
My favorite idea would be generate new .ISO files based on the content of the Solus repository after an update has proven to be relatively trouble-free. Essentially, all Solus users would occasionally become beta testers (or actually, release candidate testers). It would be up to the team to decide whether to do that quarterly, or monthly, or whatever.
WetGeek generate new .ISO files based on the content of the Solus repository after an update has proven to be relatively trouble-free
Big fan of this idea. Even better if we could make it an automated process. These could be the "alpha releases" that Harvey mentioned.
If we go this route, I would gladly contribute by testing ISOs.
infinitymdm Even better if we could make it an automated process.
I asked a long time ago whether .ISOs are generated by an automated process, and was told that they are.
- Edited
I've been in the BSD community before Linux became my desktop choice. They always point people to the 'list' of hardware that is supported by BSD. Otherwise, no promises. So, they leave the responsibility in users hands, and expect them to do their research (an RTFM) before spending money on a computer. As @WetGeek mentioned, not much has changed. I remember that printers, especially, were (and still can be) also a big headache.
goblinking , I don't know why you are upset. This is a discussion, with many kinds of opinions.
The truth is, that people still need to check around if Linux will be supported on a particular hardware, like it or not. Their responsibility. Linux is still not Windows. Buyer beware?
- Edited
WetGeek I remember going back for many years that word was passed around in forums that this brand of computers was good with Linux, and that brand was best avoided. Apparently that's not changed much.
In cooperation with OEMs who participate in the program (Dell, HP and Lenovo), Ubuntu tests and certifies desktops and laptops, which provides useful information. I think that the certification program is open to other OEM's, but the others don't seem to be participating. It doesn't surprise me because Dell, HP and Lenovo all offer Linux computers, which suggests that Linux is taken seriously. Other OEM's, maybe not so much.
But otherwise, buyers have to make their own decisions.
tomscharbach Ubuntu tests and certifies desktops and laptops, which provides useful information.
One might be forgiven for believing that if Ubuntu will install and run on it, Solus ought to as well. Do they test new current stuff as well as LTS releases?
- Edited
goblinking in elfprince's defense all he said was we have a crew working hard, for free, and the iso comes when it comes. WIN and Mac can install on most anything. Linux is not there yet; ergo not exclusively a solus thing.
I'm sure no one at OpenSuse shed a tear for me because I couldn't bare metal install their iso on my older equipment after multiple attempts, and I'm equally sure no one went to advocate on my behalf either.
- Edited
WetGeek One might be forgiven for believing that if Ubuntu will install and run on it, Solus ought to as well. Do they test new current stuff as well as LTS releases?
I use all-Intel as my starting point and rely on my own judgment, but unless Dell offers Ubuntu as a configuration option on the model I'm interested in (as was the case when I bought my new laptop in February), I check the Ubuntu list as a backup.
I assume that if a computer will run Ubuntu, it will run Solus, because components and drivers, which are the most relevant indicators, are kernel-dependent.
As far as I know, the certification is applicable only to LTS releases, but that makes sense in light of the fact that Ubuntu tests about 1,000 computers each cycle. Keep in mind that Ubuntu is a Canonical product, and Canonical is a business.
brent he also said that we straight up shouldn't care about people having or wanting new hardware, which imo is the completely wrong take, and did feel to be a bit condescending. I thought about saying something at the time, but didn't. Now I regret that decision.
As is being happy about where we are. Sure, but there is still a lot of work and improvement to be made, such as the very dated ISO images available.
EbonJaeger methinks this thread wore everybody a little thin
EbonJaeger he also said that we straight up shouldn't care about people having or wanting new hardware, which imo is the completely wrong take, and did feel to be a bit condescending.
I believe that you were referring to me here. All I was, and am, saying is that users with brand new computers must know that they may have a hard time installing some, or many, Linux distros. Like I said, Linux is still not Windows.
Also, I was not condescending. I was referring to the multitudes of less-than-brand-new computers which happily run Solus and other distros, because they already have supporting drivers available, etc.
If one wishes to run Solus, and many other Linux distros, on a brand new hardware, be prepared for some potential setbacks. Feelings do not come into this, just facts.
- Edited
goblinking None of the team have agreed with anything elfking has said, as far as I can see in this thread. Your account that was just created to post this message also doesn't inspire much confidence. Seems like all those new reddit accounts that get created just to troll Solus. Really weird hobby, if this is also the case for you. If not, I'm sorry for suspecting as much, but you being overly dramatic doesn't help.
edit: Just to be clear, no member of the team had reacted at all at the time your message was posted, is what I meant. I don't know for certain if any team member agrees with those points.
- Edited
Staudey Actually, there are some who disagreed. In my earlier posts(s) I questioned the need for super high end pcs etc, which are normally used for gaming. I apologize, it is not my concern if a user with a brand new high end game machine intends to run Solus on it.
If I wanted to play lots of games, I too would need to invest in a stronger pc, with much more memory and 'juice power', as well as 'stick 'n rudder' etc, because keyboard and mouse just doesn't cut it! 
All I know is that Solus is made for home use, and home computing, and therefore can live quite happily on an average pc. But that is just my take on it.
- Edited
elfprince Personally I'm also currently rocking hardware that is way, way below the "enthusiast" level of the typical gaming PC. That being said, I think supporting both old and new hardware is important, especially if the latter is just a matter of keeping our software reasonably up-to-date (i.e. I don't support bending over backwards, importing custom patches and so on just to get hardware working on the release date). Of course this isn't always as easy as it sounds, but ideally we would provide a good common base for everyone's needs and not exclude large groups of people because there hardware is either too old or too new (within reason).