SolusOS Debian Stable for Everyone

[KBD47]

SolusOS Debian Stable For Everyone
http://kbd-thinkingoutloud.blogspot.com ... ryone.html

[MALsPa]

SolusOs looks great, from what I've read so far. Kinda what I'd hoped Mint would have done with LMDE, instead of basing it on Debian Testing -- but with certain apps that are more up-to-date than what you'd find in Debian Stable. I'm a big fan of Debian Stable and anything based on it. It'll be interesting to see what they do with Wheezy (and GNOME 3).

[KBD47]

SolusOs looks great, from what I've read so far. Kinda what I'd hoped Mint would have done with LMDE, instead of basing it on Debian Testing -- but with certain apps that are more up-to-date than what you'd find in Debian Stable. I'm a big fan of Debian Stable and anything based on it. It'll be interesting to see what they do with Wheezy (and GNOME 3).

Yes, same here. LMDE can be made Stable, but too much work, especially for newbies.
I continue to believe Debian Stable is the best Linux for newbies, with the caveat that it is made pretty much just like SolusOS or MEPIS.

[MALsPa]

Or SalineOS, for those who prefer Xfce.

[KBD47]

Or SalineOS, for those who prefer Xfce.

I tried SalineOS, and kudos to them for making it, I hope it gets better in the future, but I could not warm up to that old version of Xfce.

[MALsPa]

SalineOS currently has Xfce 4.6.2, which is the same as what's in Debian Stable. Looks like they'll be going to a Wheezy base soon after the Wheezy freeze, and then they'll have 4.8.x, but I don't mind 4.6.x at all -- I've had SalineOS running here since January 2011, and it's been great.

[KBD47]

SalineOS currently has Xfce 4.6.2, which is the same as what's in Debian Stable. Looks like they'll be going to a Wheezy base soon after the Wheezy freeze, and then they'll have 4.8.x, but I don't mind 4.6.x at all -- I've had SalineOS running here since January 2011, and it's been great.

Good to hear that it's working for you I'll have to give it another shot in the future.

[melbo]

I only see 32 Bit downloads at the SolusOS site. I appreciate the post and the blog link but when I think modern, (i7 with 8 to 16GB ram), 32Bit isn't the first thing that pops into mind - in fact, I haven't downloaded a 32 Bit anything in 4+ years.

Not trying to be a contrarian but it was mentioned that this was 'Modern' distro. ??

[KBD47]

I only see 32 Bit downloads at the SolusOS site. I appreciate the post and the blog link but when I think modern, (i7 with 8 to 16GB ram), 32Bit isn't the first thing that pops into mind - in fact, I haven't downloaded a 32 Bit anything in 4+ years.

Not trying to be a contrarian but it was mentioned that this was 'Modern' distro. ??

I think it was mentioned on the SolusOS forum that 64 bit is coming very soon.

[MALsPa]

A bit off topic, but today I took a look at the Debian Live project (see http://www.debian.org/CD/live/ and http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/cur ... so-hybrid/). I tried the GNOME version, but they have KDE, Xfce, and LXDE as well. I downloaded debian-live-6.0.4-i386-gnome-desktop.iso, put it on a flash drive using UNetbootin in Mepis 11, and booted into a live Debian Squeeze session on my notebook.

There's an icon on the desktop that says "Debian Installer," but I didn't try it out; I already have Debian Squeeze running here. But Debian Live appears to be completely usable for live sessions as well as for installing. Might not be a good option for everyone, but the project appears to be coming along -- anyone here tried it?

[KBD47]

I tried the Gnome and Xfce Debian Live CDs awhile back, and they worked well, but did not do a full install with them, it's something like 12 steps to install the things. Also not a fan of asking questions on the Debian Forum, some nice folks there, but others have nothing to do but let newbies know how exclusive the "debian club" is

[MALsPa]

Yeah, I assumed that you'd end up having to download some stuff, and a Debian installation isn't as simple as installing other distros. And I know what you mean about the Debian forums; on the flip side, there's tons of great documentation out there if you want to take the time to search. I really haven't ever needed to ask many questions at the Debian forums; good web searches are the key.

Anyway, like I said, not for everyone, but I'm glad it's out there. Until recently, there was no Debian live session; this is an important project. I'll have to try an installation sometime from the live session and see how things go.

By the way, another plug for The Debian Administrator's Handbook, which was mentioned in this thread: http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=101861

If you use Debian or any Debian-based distro, I think that handbook is worth checking out!

[KBD47]

Yes, the Debian Handbook looks good, probably more info than I'd ever need, but impressive. I will never understand why more effort is not given to make Debian easier for newbies to install. If Mint and MEPIS and now SolusOS can make such easy installers, all those folks at Debian can do it. Debian would probably be the number one distro if it was just easy to install, and newbies were made welcome. Thankfully we have folks at Solus and Mint and Mepis that are quite welcoming and are making easy to install and use Debian distros.

[wayne128]

Or SalineOS, for those who prefer Xfce.

I tried SalineOS, and kudos to them for making it, I hope it gets better in the future, but I could not warm up to that old version of Xfce.

One issue to based only on Debian 6 stable is that, new computer hardware might not get supported,
my broadcom gigabit NIC is one such issue, many distros based on 2.6.32 kernel simply cannot get internet until non-free-firmware is installed and modprobing.

However, some later Debian 6 kernel had it running out of the box.

[MALsPa]

Debian would probably be the number one distro if it was just easy to install, and newbies were made welcome.

Who's to say Debian isn't already the #1 distro? DistroWatch rankings?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think any other distro has as many distros based on it. Even Mint is ultimately a .deb distro.

[KBD47]

One issue to based only on Debian 6 stable is that, new computer hardware might not get supported,
my broadcom gigabit NIC is one such issue, many distros based on 2.6.32 kernel simply cannot get internet until non-free-firmware is installed and modprobing.

However, some later Debian 6 kernel had it running out of the box.[/quote]

Very true and good point. I think SolusOS is using the 3.0 Kernel and does a good job looking up drivers when you install it. This is why Debian Stable distros like SolusOS are such a big deal Backports can also make Debian Stable friendly to newer hardware. I think when I set my LMDE 201109 spin to Debian Stable sources with Backports enabled it upgraded to the 3.2 kernel if I remember correctly.

[KBD47]

Debian would probably be the number one distro if it was just easy to install, and newbies were made welcome.

Who's to say Debian isn't already the #1 distro? DistroWatch rankings?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think any other distro has as many distros based on it. Even Mint is ultimately a .deb distro.

Debian is always up there pretty high on Distrowatch, but I suspect most people only think of it for Servers and geeks rather than your everyday computer user who is probably directed to Ubuntu or Mint. I'm quite thankful for my ignorance in coming to Linux. I saw SimplyMEPIS and thought--wow, that looks good and the word 'simply' means it's simple to use MEPIS is pretty good, but had a heck of a time trying to figure out why I couldn't play mp3 or wma music files

[z06gal]

SolusOS Debian Stable For Everyone
http://kbd-thinkingoutloud.blogspot.com ... ryone.html

Excellent KBD and agree with every word. I decided to give it a look and cannot say enough great things about it. And fast? Wow...it really is a very nice distro. Kudos to the Solus team for this release

[KBD47]

Excellent KBD and agree with every word. I decided to give it a look and cannot say enough great things about it. And fast? Wow...it really is a very nice distro. Kudos to the Solus team for this release

Thanks Z06gal! I'm almost afraid I'll wake up and find that I dreamed SolusOS It is almost too good to be true, a Debian Stable that looks like a highly polished but incredibly reliable new Linux right out of the box.

[MALsPa]

Some of you will like this post by Ikey at the SolusOS forums:

Cinnamon is a Gnome Shell fork which will inevitably reduce Gnome + Mint compatibility in the future.
MATE will also suffer a bad fate imo because its a Gnome Fork.

We'll be using Gnome 3 classic mode with a lot of modifications. It will look and act exactly the same
as our Gnome 2 setup, requiring no hardware acceleration. I've begun porting the older panel/applet
libraries to use GTK3 and D-BUS meaning we won't loose any of the functionality previously found.

Long story short you'll be using the latest system and you won't be able to tell the difference.

http://forums.solusos.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=641