Solus is a fully-fledged, independent rolling release Linux distribution targeted at desktop users. The project was created by Ikey Doherty, with the initial Solus 1.0 release in 2015, giving users a modern, easy-to-use Linux distribution suitable for beginners and experienced users alike.
He left the project in 2018, having spent the last year focusing on a new one, Serpent OS, which has yet to see a stable release. The next big blow for the project came in early 2022, when Joshua Strobl, lead for the Solus, officially quit.
As we previously informed you, the project’s website, Dev Tracker, and Forum disappeared from the Internet in the middle of January this year. They were unavailable for more than a month. This was owing to technical issues, which a single person supposedly handled – Beatrice Meyers, Technical Lead for the project.
So, Solus has had a difficult last two years. To top it all off, a few days ago DistroWatch labeled the distribution as “Dormant.”
Additionally, Solus has been removed from the home page’s list of active distributions and cannot be found there. So now let’s see what DistroWatch says about this status and when distribution gets it.
A distribution which has not put out a new release in two or more years is marked as being Dormant in our database. The distribution may still be worked on, but has not published any new stable releases. When a dormant distribution publishes a new stable release it is then marked as being Active. A project may also be marked as dormant if it no longer plans to put out future releases, ie planned inactivity, while older releases are maintained.
As you can also see from the project’s DistroWatch page, the latest Solus release is dated July 11, 2021. That’s almost two years without any new releases. For reference, between 2019 and 2021, the distro has released as many as four – Solus 4.0, 4.1, 4.2, and 4.3.
So, what conclusions can we draw from all this? First, the lack of development clearly shows something is going on with the project.
Is Solus still alive? I hope so, but these are just prepositions. However, the complete lack of any official statement on its current status is quite concerning.
However, we hope that these difficult times will pass and that the distribution will be able to attract new developers who will continue to build up on what has been built so far.
Because we’re talking about a well-known and trusted name in the Open Source world – Solus is not just another forked Linux distro with a changed wallpaper and theme. Instead, it is an original one with a strong identity, which has earned users’ trust over the years. So, fingers crossed that things go well.
I tried reaching out to the Solus project – knocked on the door to potentially lend a helping hand but there was no answer, so I got a familiar feeling reminiscent to what Joshua voiced in his resignation letter/post.
Excellent distribution and I hope Solus will survive!
I reckon it’s done. Once Ikey abandoned it the writing was on the wall. I always had the impression it was just really a fun project for him but eventually would go nowhere especially as they were VERY antagonistic towards the community and had VERY few packages.
I tried it once and after my experience with it and the team I immediately dropped it as I could see they weren’t really people focused. If you don’t cater to the community you’re doomed.
My favourite distro for the last 3 years now. Haven’t loved a distro this much since I started with Debian 20 years ago. Now it looks like I’ll be going back to Debian with a Budgie Desktop.