14 DAY TRIAL // The Solus operating system is almost in stable form, and the developers are putting the final touches to it. The leader of the project shared details about some of the biggest components in the Linux distribution so that users have a general idea about what to expect.
Solus is a new Linux distribution built from scratch, which in this case means that it's not based on another one, like Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu, and so on. This, in itself, is important since there aren't many developers who choose this path. It is more difficult for them and it takes longer to finish, but it has one big advantage. It gives them much more control over what they are doing with Solus.
The second important thing to mention is that Solus is also using a new desktop environment named Budgie, which is built by the same team. Unlike the operating systems, the desktop has been stable for a while now, and it's already been implemented in a couple of other distros.
Solus is going to use Linux kernel 4.3
The current Linux kernel in Solus is the latest 4.1.15 LTS version released yesterday, the same one used by Arnold's Terminator (it's true, check it out). The developers have explained that the final version will be using Linux kernel 4.3, which means that a new important upgrade will soon be released for the OS.
The latest Linux kernel, 4.3.x, comes with support for the Intel Skylake CPUs and the new AMDGPU driver. Also, the libinput xorg driver has replaced synaptics and evdev input drivers, the Intel and nouveau packages will be synced with latest git snapshots, and the latest Budgie version (which was recently rewritten) will be implemented by default.
"We're aware some of this is landing very late - but cmon, you know how we roll. We always deliver, and we have Murphy tied up, this time, round. We will be accepting reality here and scheduling a few point releases for 1.0, but do not be mistaken: 1.0 is literally around the corner," Ikey Doherty, the leader of the Solus and Budgie project explained on Google+.
When he says around the corner, he actually means sometime before Christmas. Solus is really close to version 1.0.