Ten months after the previous 4.7 “Endurance” release, the Solus team announced the immediate availability of Solus 4.8, codenamed “Opportunity,” which delivers a wide range of system updates, desktop improvements, and infrastructure changes across all editions, along with a completely redesigned website.
With this release, the team finally completed its long-running Usr-Merge transition. With the new epoch, the project moved to the Polaris package repository, enabling the removal of compatibility symlinks and unblocking major upgrades such as systemd 257.10. The update also allowed the distribution to drop Python 2 entirely after migrating all tooling to Python 3.
For Solus 4.8, the Plymouth boot splash system is now enabled by default. Earlier concerns about performance no longer apply, and its inclusion provides a cleaner interface for offline updates through GNOME Software and Discover. Offline updates download packages in advance and install them at boot, reducing the chance of breakage during active sessions.
All packages using libgirepository now rely on the newer 2.0 API, enabling compatibility with the latest pygobject stack. The team also patched libpeas to ensure consistent use of the updated GObject Introspection API.
Across all editions, Solus 4.8 ships Firefox 145, LibreOffice 25.6.2, and Thunderbird 140. The release includes Linux kernel 6.17.8, with an optional LTS kernel (6.12.58), and Mesa 25.2.6. The systemd package has been modernized, aligned with this in AerynOS, and slimmed down for 32-bit environments. The homed and userdb components are now enabled.
The Budgie edition ships Budgie Desktop 10.9.4, updating all applets to libpeas-2 and girepository-2.0 while maintaining Python applet support. A new default theme, Pocillo Dark, is now in place.
The GNOME edition includes GNOME 49.1 and drops the default X11 session; users who still need X11 must install an additional package. With GNOME 50 expected to end X11 support entirely, Wayland is now the primary environment. GNOME 49 brings accent colors, accessibility improvements in Calendar, a faster GNOME Software, upgraded Remote Desktop support, lock-screen media controls, and HDR brightness adjustments.
New defaults include the MoreWaita icon theme, Decibel for audio, Papers for PDF viewing, and Ptyxis as the terminal.
The Plasma edition ships KDE Frameworks 6.19, Plasma 6.5.3, and KDE Gear 25.08.3. Similar to GNOME, it no longer includes an X11 session by default. Plasma 6.5 adds automatic theme transitions, improved KRunner search, rounded window corners, and performance updates to Discover.
Last but not least, for the first time, the Xfce edition (which ships with Xfce 4.20) becomes a full member of the Solus lineup. Just a reminder: the distro now offers the Solseek tool, which makes managing your system software much easier.
Refer to the release announcement for detailed information about all changes. Users can download Solus 4.8 “Opportunity” from the project’s website, choosing between all four editions (Budgie, GNOME, Plasma, and Xfce) as direct downloads or via torrent.
