Solus Deploys Flatpak 1.0, Prepares For X.Org Server 1.20, Better Intel GVT Support

[ThanosApostolou]

What kept me away from Solus, even though I used for quite some time and I was really excited about it, was the lack of multiple packages (providers) for different versions of some software. Yeah I know the devs didn't want to create all this mess that ubuntu has with update-alternatives for too many software, most of which I doubt if it's at all tested. But they could have allowed some exceptions. For example they could have both wine and wine-staging included, since it's used by too many people. Another example is that even arch linux has openjdk-7,8,9,10 and archlinux-java script to select the default java runtime, since many java projects may require a specific version but Solus only has one. It would be also nice to have a previous gcc release as alternative, but arch doesn't have either so not a big deal (the only software that I found which needed an older gcc release to get it work was intel pin tool).

I can stand having a windows vm system since I still need it for some applications, unfortunately, but the need to also have an Ubuntu vm just to run many software that I wasn't able to run at Solus (and never would be able due to the no-multiple-providers policy) it was a little too much for me.

With that being said, I am always excited to hear about Solus news and what these guys are achieving!!

[TheVE]

I moved from *buntu to Solus specifically for their curated rolling design. I'm running all AMD hardware and everything is smooth as butter when it comes to gaming and I love it!

[tegs]

As someone who has used Ubuntu for about 8 years and recently switched to Solus, the Ubuntu method to get the latest Xorg/Mesa is unstable.

On Solus, the devs try to keep the software up to date and will actually test for stability. On Ubuntu, you are locked to that old version of the kernel and Xorg unless you install an external PPA to pull unstable git releases.

I don’t know about you, but I’d go the Solus route. I cannot risk getting a stack from a PPA that could bring the whole system down.

[Vistaus]

Btw, just a heads-up: Linux 4.18 has already landed in Solus Unstable.

[Vash63]

Perhaps you should read the article before commenting because it clearly states that the nvidia short-lived drivers will be available soon.
Also "old video drivers" are the latest available version of the nvidia long-lived drivers. Solus defines itself as a curated rolling release, so it is logical not to offer beta drivers by default.

It's not a race after pushing new releases as fast as possible, this is the focus of "true" rolling releases. It's about a good balance between stability and software updates. Steam Play (which is in beta) was released a few days ago and the beta nvidia drivers will be available shortly once everything has been properly tested, so I think Solus listen to its community.

And about gaming, didn't the Solus founder contribute to GameMode ? Isn't Linux Steam Integration a Solus project ?

Criticism is good when it helps improving stuffs, not when it is just for pissing off at what other people do...

I didn't say that people in the Solus project haven't contributed to gaming. I wasn't talking about the people behind it at all. I'm saying that as a gamer, their distribution is less appealing or useful to me than Arch or even Ubuntu, as both of those allow me to get the latest drivers Nvidia releases without much hassle.

Maybe I'm just not in the target audience, but I care more that I can play the latest games that come out with Nvidia's latest optimizations than I do that the devs have individually tested the driver release and confirmed it works for them. I just want to be able to double click a game on Steam and have it work without needing to wait for driver updates to get pushed.

I'm not trying to piss off at any individual people here, I'm listing the actual reasons why I wouldn't want to use that distribution or recommend it to people for gaming systems. If the Solus devs take that personally, that's their problem, not mine.

[Espionage724]

Honestly the old video drivers are enough to keep me from even considering Solus on a gaming system. It's telling that it is basically the only desktop distro that didn't have an easy way to run Steam Play on day 1, and has had issues historically getting drivers new enough for fresh DXVK releases.

The long delay for Xorg 1.19 still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I believe one the maintainers said they had an issue on a single dual-graphics system. Meanwhile, the other mainstream distros had 1.19 for months at this point. For me, 1.19 was important at the time in order to use NVIDIA's Prime Sync to get rid of screen tearing.

Removing Wine Staging was also a pretty bad move (bug report). Not sure where these issues were reported at at the time; I was using it just fine up until a package update removed it. I don't like using PoL nor Lutris, and don't really care to use Steam's new thing.

[kyrios]

Honestly the old video drivers are enough to keep me from even considering Solus on a gaming system. It's telling that it is basically the only desktop distro that didn't have an easy way to run Steam Play on day 1, and has had issues historically getting drivers new enough for fresh DXVK releases.

I haven't looked into custom packages but it really should be as easy as downloading the equivalent of a PKGBUILD, updating the version number and running a package script.

Perhaps you should read the article before commenting because it clearly states that the nvidia short-lived drivers will be available soon.
Also "old video drivers" are the latest available version of the nvidia long-lived drivers. Solus defines itself as a curated rolling release, so it is logical not to offer beta drivers by default.

It's not a race after pushing new releases as fast as possible, this is the focus of "true" rolling releases. It's about a good balance between stability and software updates. Steam Play (which is in beta) was released a few days ago and the beta nvidia drivers will be available shortly once everything has been properly tested, so I think Solus listen to its community.

And about gaming, didn't the Solus founder contribute to GameMode ? Isn't Linux Steam Integration a Solus project ?

Criticism is good when it helps improving stuffs, not when it is just for pissing off at what other people do...

[dEnigma]

Honestly the old video drivers are enough to keep me from even considering Solus on a gaming system. It's telling that it is basically the only desktop distro that didn't have an easy way to run Steam Play on day 1, and has had issues historically getting drivers new enough for fresh DXVK releases.

I haven't looked into custom packages but it really should be as easy as downloading the equivalent of a PKGBUILD, updating the version number and running a package script.

You'll be glad to hear that they are considering adding the Nvidia beta drivers into the repository; and aside from those Nvidia drivers all the video drivers are ready for Steam Play. One thing that's also still missing (not as a minimum requirement but a recommended one) is llvm 7. The Solus devs are waiting for a stable release there. Meanwhile Steam Play already works fine on my Intel GPU laptop.

[ermo]

Honestly the old video drivers are enough to keep me from even considering Solus on a gaming system. It's telling that it is basically the only desktop distro that didn't have an easy way to run Steam Play on day 1, and has had issues historically getting drivers new enough for fresh DXVK releases.

I haven't looked into custom packages but it really should be as easy as downloading the equivalent of a PKGBUILD, updating the version number and running a package script.

Let me guess, you run Arch?

Solus is a different take on a rolling release than Arch. If what you're after is a "reasonably stable and functional, just works out of the box, has sane defaults" desktop Linux OS, you could do a lot worse than Solus.

Disclaimer: I'm a small time Solus maintainer and use it exclusively on my home systems (apart from a single Windows box and a Fedora Server box for serving media with SnapRAID+MergerFS+Samba, music with Logitech Media Server and IRC via ZNC).

[Vash63]

Honestly the old video drivers are enough to keep me from even considering Solus on a gaming system. It's telling that it is basically the only desktop distro that didn't have an easy way to run Steam Play on day 1, and has had issues historically getting drivers new enough for fresh DXVK releases.

I haven't looked into custom packages but it really should be as easy as downloading the equivalent of a PKGBUILD, updating the version number and running a package script.