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Solus RSS Feed DistroWatch.com: Solus

Solus


Last Update: 2026-04-18 23:23 UTC


solus-4.8-budgie (more screenshots in our gallery)  
Solus is a Linux distribution built from scratch. It uses a forked version of the PiSi package manager, maintained as "eopkg" within Solus, and its flagship edition uses the Budgie desktop environment. Budgie was originally developed-in-house, but is now maintained as a separate project by the Buddies of Budgie team. Solus is available in GNOME, KDE Plasma and Xfce editions.

Popularity (hits per day): 12 months: 46 (285), 6 months: 44 (268), 3 months: 57 (200), 4 weeks: 60 (197), 1 week: 76 (200)

Average visitor rating: 7.8/10 from 260 review(s).


Solus Summary
Distribution Solus
Home Page https://getsol.us/
Mailing Lists --
User Forums https://discuss.getsol.us/
Alternative User Forums
Documentation https://help.getsol.us/
Screenshots DistroWatch Gallery
Screencasts
Download Mirrors https://getsol.us/download/ • DistroWatch Torrent Archive
Bug Tracker https://dev.getsol.us/maniphest/
Related Websites GitHub
Reviews 4.9: DistroWatch
4.8: FOSS Force
4.7: DistroWatch
4.5: DistroWatch
4.4: DistroWatch • MichlFranken (German)
4.x: DistroWatch • DistroWatch • Linuxzasve (Croatian) • DistroWatch • Ordinatechnic • Dedoimedo • Average Linux User • CMS Critic • Heise (German) • Dedoimedo • DistroWatch
3: Ordinatechnic • DistroWatch • CMS Critic • Linux.com • Pro-Linux (German)
2017.x: Dedoimedo • DarkDuck • DistroWatch
1.x: Dedoimedo • DistroWatch • Freedom Penguin • LWN
Where To Donate, Buy or Try Open Collective •

Recent Related News and Releases
  Releases announcements with download links and checksums:
 • 2026-04-18: Distribution Release: Solus 4.9
 • 2025-11-29: Distribution Release: Solus 4.8
 • 2025-01-26: Distribution Release: Solus 4.7
 • 2024-10-15: Distribution Release: Solus 4.6
 • 2024-01-09: Distribution Release: Solus 4.5
 • 2023-07-08: Distribution Release: Solus 4.4
 • 2021-07-11: Distribution Release: Solus 4.3
 • 2021-02-03: Distribution Release: Solus 4.2
 • 2020-01-25: Distribution Release: Solus 4.1
 • 2019-03-18: Distribution Release: Solus 4.0
 • 2017-08-15: Distribution Release: Solus 3
 • 2017-04-18: Distribution Release: Solus 2017.04.18.0
 • More Solus releases...

  Headlines:
 • 2026-01-10 New release of Budgie switches from X11 to Wayland
 • 2025-10-11 Solus approaches a new epoch
 • 2024-07-15 Solus dropping AppArmor and Snap support
 • 2023-04-18 Solus team planning a come-back
 • 2023-02-13 Solus project status updates
 • 2021-09-14 Solus to replace GTK in Budgie desktop
 • 2019-10-03 Solus updates supported desktops
 • 2019-03-21 Budgie 10.5 shipped with Solus 4.0
 • 2019-01-15 Solus roadmap for 2019
 • 2018-11-02 Solus team regaining account access
 • More Solus headlines...

Table Notes and Explanations

(Please refer to the table below.)
  • Select view:
  • To compare the software in this project to the software available in other distributions, please see our Compare Packages page.
  • Notes: In case where multiple versions of a package are shipped with a distribution, only the default version appears in the table. For indication about the GNOME version, please check the "nautilus" and "gnome-shell" packages. The Apache web server is listed as "httpd" and the Linux kernel is listed as "linux". The KDE desktop is represented by the "plasma-desktop" package and the Xfce desktop by the "xfdesktop" package.
  • Colour scheme: green text = latest stable version, red text = development or beta version. The function determining beta versions is not 100% reliable due to a wide variety of versioning schemes.
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Feature 4.9 4.8 4.7 4.6 4.4 4.3 4.1 4.0 3.9999 3 2017.04.18.0 1.2.1 Feature
Release Date 2026-04-18 2025-11-29 2025-01-26 2024-10-15 2023-07-08 2021-07-11 2020-01-25 2019-03-17 2018-09-20 2017-08-15 2017-04-18 2016-10-19 Release Date
End Of Life                         End Of Life
Price (US$) Free Free Free Free Free Free Free Free Free Free Free Free Price (US$)
Image Size (MB) 3600-4200 3300-3900 3000-3300 2400-2900 2200-2600 1800-2100 1600-1900 1400-1500 1400-1500 1100-1200     Image Size (MB)
Free Download ISO ISO ISO ISO ISO ISO ISO ISO ISO ISO ISO ISO Free Download
Installation Calamares Calamares Calamares Calamares Graphical Graphical Graphical Graphical Graphical Graphical Graphical Graphical Installation
Default Desktop Budgie, GNOME, KDE Plasma, Xfce Budgie, GNOME, KDE Plasma, Xfce Budgie, GNOME, KDE Plasma Budgie, GNOME, KDE Plasma Budgie, GNOME, KDE Plasma, MATE Budgie, GNOME, KDE Plasma, MATE Budgie, GNOME, KDE Plasma, MATE Budgie, GNOME, MATE Budgie, GNOME, MATE Budgie, GNOME, MATE Budgie, GNOME, MATE Budgie, MATE Default Desktop
Default Browser Firefox Firefox Firefox Firefox Firefox Firefox Firefox Firefox Firefox Firefox Firefox Firefox Default Browser
Package Format eopkg, flatpak eopkg, flatpak eopkg, flatpak eopkg, flatpak eopkg, flatpak, snap eopkg, flatpak, snap eopkg, flatpak, snap eopkg, flatpak, snap eopkg, flatpak, snap eopkg, flatpak, snap eopkg, flatpak eopkg Package Format
Package Management eopkg, flatpak eopkg, flatpak eopkg, flatpak eopkg, flatpak eopkg, flatpak eopkg, flatpak eopkg, flatpak eopkg, flatpak eopkg, flatpak eopkg, flatpak eopkg, flatpak eopkg, flatpak Package Management
Release Model Rolling Rolling Rolling Rolling Rolling Rolling Rolling Rolling Rolling Rolling Rolling Rolling Release Model
Office Suite LibreOffice LibreOffice LibreOffice LibreOffice LibreOffice LibreOffice LibreOffice LibreOffice LibreOffice LibreOffice LibreOffice -- Office Suite
Processor Architecture x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 Processor Architecture
Init Software systemd systemd systemd systemd systemd systemd systemd systemd systemd systemd systemd systemd Init Software
Journaled File Systems Btrfs, ext4, ReiserFS, XFS Btrfs, ext4, ReiserFS, XFS Btrfs, ext4, ReiserFS, XFS Btrfs, ext4, ReiserFS, XFS ext4 ext4 ext4 Btrfs, ext4, ReiserFS, XFS ext4, ReiserFS ext4, ReiserFS ext4, ReiserFS ext4, ReiserFS Journaled File Systems
Multilingual Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes         Multilingual
Full Package List 4.9 4.8 4.7 4.6 4.4 4.3 4.1 4.0 3.9999 3 2017.04.18.0 1.2.1 Full Package List
Package 4.9 4.8 4.7 4.6 4.4 4.3 4.1 4.0 3.9999 3 2017.04.18.0 1.2.1 Package
alsa-lib (1.2.16.1) 1.2.14 1.2.14 1.2.13 1.2.12 1.2.9 1.2.4 1.1.9 1.1.5 1.1.5 1.1.4.1 1.1.3 1.1.1 alsa-lib (1.2.16.1)
amdgpu (25.0.0) 23.0.0 23.0.0 23.0.0 23.0.0 23.0.0 19.1.0 19.1.0 19.0.0 18.0.1 -- -- -- amdgpu (25.0.0)
apparmor (5.0.2) -- -- -- -- 3.1.3 3.0.1 2.13.3 2.11.0 2.11.0 2.11.0 -- -- apparmor (5.0.2)
apt (3.3.3) -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- apt (3.3.3)
bash (5.3) 5.3 5.3 5.2.37 5.2.32 5.1.16 5.1 5.0 4.4 4.4 4.3 4.3 4.3 bash (5.3)
bind (9.20.29) -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- bind (9.20.29)
chromium (154.0.8037.57) -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- chromium (154.0.8037.57)
cinnamon (6.6.9) -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- cinnamon (6.6.9)
cups (2.4.19) 2.4.15 2.4.15 2.4.11 2.4.11 2.2.13 2.2.13 2.2.8 2.2.8 2.2.8 2.2.3 2.2.3 2.1.0 cups (2.4.19)
e2fsprogs (1.47.4) 1.47.3 1.47.3 1.47.1 1.47.1 1.47.0 1.45.6 1.44.6 1.44.6 1.44.4 1.43.4 1.43.4 1.42.13 e2fsprogs (1.47.4)
ffmpeg (9.0.2) 7.1.1 7.1.1 7.1 4.4.5 4.4.4 4.4 4.2.2 4.1.1 3.4.4 3.3.3 2.2.4 2.8.6 ffmpeg (9.0.2)
firefox (157.0) 149.0.2 145.0.1 134.0.2 131.0.3 114.0.1 89.0.2 72.0.2 65.0.1 62.0 55.0.1 52.0.2 49.0.1 firefox (157.0)
flatpak (1.18.4) 1.16.6 1.16.0 1.14.10 1.14.10 1.14.4 1.10.2 1.0.9 -- -- -- -- -- flatpak (1.18.4)
freetype (2.14.3) 2.14.3 2.13.3 2.13.3 2.13.2 2.13.0 2.10.4 2.8 2.8 2.8 2.8 2.7 2.6.1 freetype (2.14.3)
gcc (16.2.0) -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- gcc (16.2.0)
gimp (3.2.6) -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- gimp (3.2.6)
git (2.55.0) -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- git (2.55.0)
glibc (2.44) 2.43 2.42 2.40 2.40 2.36 2.33 2.29 2.29 2.27 2.25 2.25 2.24 glibc (2.44)
gnome-shell (51.0) 49.5 49.1 47.3 46.5 43.5 40.2 3.34.3 3.28.3 3.28.3 3.24.3 3.24.1 -- gnome-shell (51.0)
grub (2.16) 2.14 2.12 2.12 2.12 2.04 2.04 2.04 2.02 2.02 2.02beta2 2.02beta2 2.00beta2 grub (2.16)
gtk (4.24.0) 4.20.3 4.20.2 4.16.12 4.14.5 4.10.4 3.24.29 3.24.13 3.22.30 3.22.30 3.22.18 3.22.12 3.18.9 gtk (4.24.0)
httpd (2.4.68) -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- httpd (2.4.68)
hyprland (0.56.2) -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- hyprland (0.56.2)
inkscape (1.4.4) -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- inkscape (1.4.4)
kmod (34.2) 33 33 33 33 30 25 25 25 25 24 17 17 kmod (34.2)
krita (6.0.4) -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 3.1.0 -- krita (6.0.4)
Package 4.9 4.8 4.7 4.6 4.4 4.3 4.1 4.0 3.9999 3 2017.04.18.0 1.2.1 Package
LibreOffice (26.8.0) 25.8.6 25.2.6 24.8.4 24.2.5 7.5.3 7.1.4 6.3.4 6.2.1 6.1.0 5.4.0 5.3.2 -- LibreOffice (26.8.0)
libselinux (3.11) 3.8.1 3.8.1 3.7 3.3 3.3 git git git git git -- -- libselinux (3.11)
linux (7.2.8) 6.18.21 6.17.8 6.12.9 6.10.13 6.3.8 5.13.1 5.4.12 4.20.16 4.18.5 4.12.7 4.9.22 4.8.2 linux (7.2.8)
mariadb (13.0.2) -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- mariadb (13.0.2)
mate-desktop (1.28.2) -- -- -- -- 1.27.1 1.24.2 1.22.2 1.20.4 1.20.3 1.18.0 1.18.0 -- mate-desktop (1.28.2)
mesa (26.2.3) 26.0.5 25.2.6 24.3.3 24.2.3 23.0.3 21.1.3 19.3.2 19.0.0 18.1.6 17.1.6 17.0.4 12.1.0 mesa (26.2.3)
nautilus (51.0.1) 49.5 49.1 47.1 46.2 43.4 40.2 3.26.4 3.26.4 3.26.4 3.24.2 3.24.0 3.20.3 nautilus (51.0.1)
NVIDIA (615.71.09) -- -- 565.77 560.35.03 535.54.03 465.31 440.82 418.43 390.87 384.59 375.39 370.28 NVIDIA (615.71.09)
openjdk (27) -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- openjdk (27)
openssh (10.5p1) 10.3p1 10.2p1 9.9p1 9.9p1 9.3p1 8.6p1 8.1p1 7.7p1 7.7p1 7.5p1 7.5p1 7.3p1 openssh (10.5p1)
openssl (4.0.2) 3.6.2 3.3.5 3.3.2 3.3.2 1.1.1u 1.1.1k 1.0.2u 1.0.2r 1.0.2p 1.0.2l 1.0.2k 1.0.2j openssl (4.0.2)
perl (5.44.0) 5.38.5 5.38.4 5.38.2 5.38.2 5.36.0 5.32.1 5.30.1 5.28.1 5.26.2 5.24.1 5.24.1 5.22.1 perl (5.44.0)
php (8.5.11) -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- php (8.5.11)
plasma-desktop (6.7.5) 6.6.4 6.5.3 6.2.5 6.1.5 5.27.5 5.22.2 5.17.5 -- -- -- -- -- plasma-desktop (6.7.5)
postfix (3.11.7) -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- postfix (3.11.7)
postgresql (18.6) -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 10.5 -- -- -- postgresql (18.6)
Python (3.14.7) 3.12.11 3.12.11 3.11.11 3.11.10 3.10.11 3.7.11 3.7.6 2.7.16 2.7.15 2.7.13 2.7.13 2.7.12 Python (3.14.7)
qt (6.11.2) 6.10.3 6.9.3 6.8.1 6.7.3 6.3.0 5.15.3 5.13.2 5.12.1 5.11.1 5.9.1 5.6.2 5.6.1 qt (6.11.2)
samba (4.25.0) 4.23.6 4.22.5 4.19.9 4.19.6 4.16.10 4.13.9 4.10.11 4.8.8 4.7.9 4.6.6 4.3.13 4.3.11 samba (4.25.0)
systemd (262) 257.10 257.10 254.23 254.18 251.15 247.7 244 239 239 218 218 218 systemd (262)
thunderbird (156.0.1) 149.0.2 140.5.0 128.6.0 128.3.1 102.12.0 78.11.0 68.4.1 60.5.2 60.0 52.2.1 52.0.1 45.4.0 thunderbird (156.0.1)
vim (9.2) -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- vim (9.2)
vlc (3.0.24) -- -- -- -- 3.0.18 3.0.16 3.0.8 3.0.6 3.0.3 2.2.6 2.2.4 2.2.4 vlc (3.0.24)
wayland (1.26.0) 1.25.0 1.24.0 1.23.1 1.23.0 1.22.0 1.19.0 1.16.0 1.16.0 1.14.0 1.12.0 1.12.0 1.10.0 wayland (1.26.0)
xfdesktop (4.20.2) 4.20.2 4.20.1 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- xfdesktop (4.20.2)
xorg-server (21.1.24) 21.1.22 21.1.21 21.1.15 21.1.13 1.20.14 1.20.12 1.20.6 1.20.3 1.19.6 1.18.4 1.18.4 1.18.4 xorg-server (21.1.24)

Reader Ratings
Reader supplied reviews for Solus

Average rating
7.8
from 260 review(s)



What are your thoughts on Solus?
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Past reviews - sort by:

Version: 4.9
Rating: 9
Date: 2026-09-26
Country: Germany
Votes: 0


I’ve been using Solus with KDE on a laptop for over a year. So far, there haven’t been any significant issues. Everything runs smoothly. KDE currently (2026) has a few minor bugs, but that’s not a Solus problem. I run other distros with KDE on other computers and experience the same bugs (e.g., Discover doesn’t respond or is slow). I’ve now set up a desktop as a productive workstation with Solus and GNOME. The setup was super easy; all the important programs are available natively in the package repositories, and I don’t have to use Flatpaks to get the latest versions. That’s usually only available on Arch or Fedora. But both of those are significantly less stable than Solus. So, thumbs up all around. A great project and a very good distro.


Was this review helpful? Yes No
Version: 4.9
Rating: 9
Date: 2026-09-09
Country: Morocco
Votes: 3


Solus est une excellente distribution Linux pour un usage quotidien. Stable, rapide et très bien pensée.
Le gestionnaire de paquets eopkg est impressionnant de rapidité, et le modèle de mise à jour rolling release est géré de façon très professionnelle, avec un bon équilibre entre nouveautés et stabilité.
La seule remarque : le dépôt officiel reste assez limité.
Malgré ça, Solus reste l’une des meilleures options rolling release actuelles, surtout si tu cherches quelque chose de fiable, réactif et agréable au quotidien.


Was this review helpful? Yes No
Version: 4.9
Rating: 10
Date: 2026-08-29
Country: United Kingdom
Votes: 15


Solus should be far further up the list of distributions because it is technically solid and, in my opinion, has the best compromise between static and rolling releases.

It is a singular distribution - not based on Debian, Fedora or anything else - and, recently, has had big infrastructure improvements. The most notable is to eopkg, its packaging software, which now in version 5 has features such as parallel downloads and updates, rollback, orphan removal and check, which compares the hashes of installed packages with the supplied list and flags any non-matches. It is easily up with the more familiar dnf and apt now.

The Solus repository, at the time of writing, has 11,900 packages. Flatpaks are supported, without any configuration required, to fill in the gaps.

I recommend solseek (sudo eopkg install solseek), which is a text-based front end and makes managing eopkgs, flatpaks, firmware updates and drivers simple. GNOME Software, with a plugin to support eopkg, is part of the default build, but solseek does more.

Unlike most rolling release distributions there is a release every Friday evening, which tends to be between 50 and 150 packages. There is almost always a kernel update, and minor versions of GNOME components (my preferred desktop) appear most weeks. I have never had any issues with updates, even when updating an old machine every other week and, recently, acquiring a second-hand laptop which required a bare metal build followed by 1,800 package installations, which Solus did without raising an eyebrow. (A minor criticism of Solus is that there is quite a long time between full releases but, if eopkg can cope with that mass of updates ...). I guess that the time to prepare for a weekly release, rather than willy-nilly updates, is well spent ironing out bugs.

There are occasional out-of-band updates, such as Firefox or Thunderbird releases or where there are serious CVEs (security notifications) published. These are only a few a month.

I have not said much about the desktop because it is standard GNOME, with sensible supplied applications and the only addition about two dozen wallpapers. (gnome-backgrounds has the default GNOME 50 wallpapers, if required).

In a word: great.


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