Solus is a fully-fledged, independent rolling release Linux distribution targeted at desktop users. It is unique because it is written from scratch and has its repositories and package manager, EOPKG. In addition, the distro is traditionally associated with Budgie as its flagship desktop environment.
While receiving less attention than other leading desktop-oriented Linux distros such as Ubuntu, Fedora, Linux Mint, and others, Solus has a devoted fan base concerned about what has been happening to their favorite distro in the last month. Here’s what it is all about.
What Is Happening with SolusOS?
Around January 19th, the SolusOS website, Dev Tracker, and Forum disappeared from the Internet. According to Beatrice Meyers, Technical Lead (Solus Project), the reason was a libvirt dnsmasq issue.
As many have noticed, the Solus servers are down. I have confirmed that the data is intact. This appears to be a libvirt dnsmasq issue. I will be consulting with IT folks at work this afternoon to see if we can’t figure this one out. Thank you for your patience.
As we all know, technical issues are an unwanted but sometimes inevitable part of our daily computing activities. However, the concerning aspect of this case is that the situation has mostly stayed the same for a month after it happened. The Solus website is still unavailable, at least as of this writing.
It is essential to highlight that these technical issues do not affect the SolusOS package repositories servers. In other words, there is no interruption in the distribution’s software update process.
Unfortunately, Beatrice seems to have experienced health issues throughout this time, which we hope are now behind her, and she is feeling fine.
However, these technical issues with the SolusOS servers raise some questions. Does the distribution currently give its existence to a single person? Because we’re talking about a well-established Linux distribution here, one that has built a reputation over the years, and the inability for over a month to fix a technical problem, with apparently only one person involved, is a bit worrying.
Meanwhile, in early 2022, Joshua Strobl, lead for the Solus, officially quit the project. So distribution is not having the best of times.
However, we hope these difficulties are only temporary because here we are not talking about just another forked Linux distro with a changed wallpaper and theme but an original one with a strong identity, which has earned users’ trust over the years.
What Are SolusOS’ Plans for the Future?
Despite the many concerns, the project is alive and breathing, and there is encouraging news. The reason for this conclusion comes from a recent Reddit post by a team member explaining SolusOS’s short-term goals. Here are some of the highlights:
- Get the websites back
- Release updated ISO
- Secureboot support
- New package manager (sol)
- Flatpak/Snap integration into Software Center
- Switch to PipeWire as the default
So, only time will tell if this happens, but our entire team hopes and believes that SolusOS will survive the current challenges. And after the last Solus 4.3 release a year and a half ago, we will have the chance to write a new review of this excellent Linux distribution this year.
