What began as just another Debian-based distro quickly became an independent project that had to shut down due to a lack of contributors. Not long after, development was revived, and after a name change, we have what is now Solus. Recently, its maintainers announced the release of Solus 1.1, fixing several bugs present in the first version and making some high-level changes.
A Fork of Itself
Developing a Linux distro that is "different" from the rest is a much bigger mission than we imagine. Sooner or later, many projects end up sharing aspects that go beyond code, but truth be told, there is nothing wrong with that. Creating an operating system from another, forking, and adapting versions are fundamental parts of what defines the Linux universe, with a dynamism and versatility that proprietary alternatives lack. In the case of Solus, I think we could consider it a fork of itself. The Solus adventure began in 2012 under the name SolusOS, was then abandoned in October 2013 and "rescued" in 2014, later renamed Solus (briefly Evolve OS), and in December of last year reached version 1.0. Today we have the first "point release" of Solus, version 1.1 "Shannon".
What's New in Solus 1.1
At first glance, the interface might remind you a bit of GNOME, but it's actually an internally designed desktop environment called Budgie. One of the main goals of Solus 1.1 was to fix several inconsistencies in icon rendering, as well as problems with their functions, sizes, and colors. Then we see the definitive replacement of GDM with LightDM, a decision aimed at improving performance and reducing CPU load. Finally, Solus 1.1 integrates updates for Mesa, Xorg, Nouveau, and Intel X11 drivers, along with preliminary support for OpenGL 4.1 and much broader printing compatibility.
Final Thoughts
In summary, Solus made a big leap in quality with this build 1.1, but there are still small details to resolve. I've seen complaints about basic processes like keyboard language switching, or the absence of Google Chrome in its software store (requires a manual installation), although I'd dare say they are classic "growing pains" that every distro must go through. Personally, I might make room for Solus on my netbook (I admit Xubuntu feels very comfortable there), however, everyone is invited to download a copy (781 MB, only 64-bit) and try it for themselves.
