Solus 1.1 Released, An independent, unique Live Linux operating system that uses a modern desktop environment

Solus is a next-generation Linux kernel-based operating system, built from scratch and based on powerful, modern open-source technologies, such as the systemd init system and the groundbreaking Budgie Desktop graphical environment.

It’s distributed as a 64-bit Live CD

Currently, the Solus is still in heavy development, but you can download it via Softpedia or directly from its official website as a Live CD ISO image suitable for computers supporting only 64-bit instruction set architectures.

Solus is a Linux-based operating system built from scratch for the modern desktop and targeting the x86_64 architecture.

Budgie

Budgie is our flagship desktop environment, developed and designed for the desktop, with inch of it catering to a desktop workflow. We have continued to improve Budgie, with v10.2.4 shipping in Solus 1.1. This release features a multitude of bugfixes, the following highlighted improvements, alongside updated translations:

• We have resolved issues with the some icons, such as network, occasionally rendering inconsistently (sizing, colors).
• We have resolved issues with the volume icon size.
• System locking has been restored in Solus 1.1, as we are now leveraging LightDM. As a result of dropping GDM for LightDM, we are also seeing significant performance improvements with a reduced CPU overhead.
• We have a new logo. Admit it, it’s cute.

For more details on Budgie, see our dedicated Budgie page.

Core and Graphics Improvements

It isn’t tradition for Linux distributions to ship fundamental changes in point releases. But given our tradition of breaking traditions, we’ve shipped a plethora of optimizations to the core of our operating system and further optimization to the core libraries used throughout our display / graphic stack.

• We now provide preliminary OpenGL 4.1 support.
• Mesa has been updated to 11.1.2
• Xorg has been updated to 1.17.4
• We’ve synchronized our Intel X11 driver with the last development version in git for improved performance and extended hardware support, including Broadwell, Skylake and preliminary support for future SKUs.  
• Nouveau support is at the latest release.

Applications

Solus 1.1 ships out-of-the-box with numerous applications to enhance the desktop experience. Below are some highlights of applications Solus 1.1 ships:

• firefox 44.0.2
• nautilus 3.18.5
• rhythmbox 3.3
• thunderbird 38.6.0
• vlc 2.2.2

System

Solus 1.1 ships with gstreamer media libraries, a multitude of system utilized fonts such as Clear Sans, Symbola, and Dejavu and leverages the most updated GTK 3.18 stack.

Solus 1.1 is UEFI enabled via goofiboot, a distribution-agnostic fork of gummiboot, to ensure a wider variety of modern hardware is capable of using Solus, and further hardware enablement with the shipping of Linux kernel 4.4.3.

Read the rest of the release announcement for further details.

How to Download :

Download (SHA256) the live DVD image (available for the x86_64 architecture only) from here: Solus-1.1.iso (781MB).