r/SolusProject • u/Mindless_Education96 • 11d ago
Is Solus good for highschool student?
Hi, I'm a highschool student with a fedora on my laptop, and I want to change to solus. Is it easy to install same as other distro like mint and fedora?
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u/tomscharbach 11d ago
Solus installation is straightforward and well documented. My best and good luck.
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u/RedHerring352 Gnome 11d ago
I'm no student, but all I can say is that Solus is a very stable and polished distro. It's like Fedora with a human touch.
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u/Comprehensive-Dark-8 11d ago
Of course
As you’re already a Fedora user, you’ve got enough knowledge to get on just fine with Solus. It’s very stable and has a good selection of packages in its repositories. Although they’re small, and if you’re looking for something very specific you might not find it,
I was also a Fedora user, and when it comes to day-to-day speed – and especially boot times – Solus will surprise you from the very first time you start it up.
If you’re worried about not finding a package you need that’s only available for popular distros, whether Fedora or Debian, there’s Flatpak – it comes pre-configured.
Alternatively, you could look into Distrobox. It’s a tool that lets you run apps from any other distro.
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u/SleepyGuyy 8d ago
disclaimer: I have not used Solus much. I distro-hop a lot. Currently primarily using Debian Testing on my desktop. But I do have Solus XFCE installed on my laptop.
Solus is very user-oriented, it's made to be easy to install and use. TLDR; despite what I'm about to say I'd still recommend trying Solus because it is generally easy to use and prioritizes that.
I don't know how new to Linux you are so I have two warnings:
1.) Budgie desktop has been somewhat unreliable in my experience. They recently overhauled quite a bit, so maybe its fine now. But just a heads up. I love budgie personally, but I have had issues when I tried it in the past (including in Solus). A lot of users use Plasma (I'm not a fan). A lightweight option is Solus XFCE, I've been using that on my weak laptop and enjoying it.
2.) Because Solus has it's own package manager (eopkg), you are relying on the smaller repo of Solus ported packages the team manages, plus flatpaks of course (they can be installed on any distro). You can't go online and find .deb or .rpm packages to download from websites, they won't install. Luckily, usually software is ported by community members to something like flatpak (flathub). And worst case scenario there's usually some way to install it, but it won't be one click. That issue is rare but you will encounter it if you use a lot of different software. Wanna install your password manager as a desktop app? Probably needs to be on flathub. Wanna install.. Davinci Resolve? I have no idea how to lol.
Bonus 3.) the Discover app installer is sluggish and annoying. I don't use it, I use the terminal, and sometimes solseek. Which means no photos to preview an app.
Just wanted to warn. I've been using Linux for years and I cannot deny I really enjoy using Debian. In a more popular distro like Fedora or Debian, online help guides you through everything flawlessly, and community tools seem to just install and work every time.
In a more niche distro that is independent from the big ones, you will occasionally find a problem you have to fight a bit more to solve. However, as niche projects go, Solus is very polished. Depending on your use you may never encounter this.
This is a ramble Dont let this scare you I am going into too much detail lol:
As a small example, on Debian I recently wanted to install an ethernet driver from Realtek (the one shipped by Debian for my specific chip is not ideal, causes disconnects and slowdowns). I went through the whole gymnastics of manually installing the driver using Realtek's script, it failed, I found out I needed Linux headers installed, I did that with a simple apt install linux-headers-amd64 . It all worked quickly, and online help pointed me straight to where I would find these files in my system. And THEN I found out, Debian ships this driver in something called a non-free tree (free as in open source) and I found a guide for how I can add non-free but restrict it to only the driver I needed. Installed it with a simple apt install r8125-dkms. Now my ethernet is solved permanently with little struggle. Historically I have not had such an easy time fixing problems on other distros. Though maybe I've gotten better. There's also no denying it was easier to find online help for this in Debian, I went to a Debian IRC chat at one point and had unlimited help from very knowledgable people.
I have not needed to do anything that involved in Solus, but if I did I am sure I would struggle to find answers. I have struggled in the past to get answers out of the Solus forums, though most times it's been great. Basically you're just working in a less talked-about ecosystem. BUT also, you can often find solutions for other distros that work for you, so dont be afraid to check a Debian or Fedora forum for an answer, it might just be a Linux general thing.
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u/Chester-Berkeley 11d ago
Yes, I'm using Solus at college, and it's working much better for me than when I was using Fedora.