Brief: Solus Project team has released a major version of Solus Linux distribution today. Solus 3 brings a number of visual and technical changes to its predecessor along with the support for snap packaging.

It’s hardly 2 years since the first stable version of the Solus Linux has been released. Solus took the unusual and uncomfortable choice of not choosing Debian/Ubuntu, Fedora or Arch Linux as its base and building a Linux distribution from scratch.

And in these two years, Solus has evolved from a hobby project to a more mature project. And in that course, it has gathered a loyal support base which keeps on growing.

New features in Solus 3

Solus was and is still a rolling release distribution. However, with Solus 3, the project has taken a hybrid approach to the rolling release model. Instead of release snapshots, they are going for releases. But don’t worry, if you are running an older version of Solus, you just need to keep your system updated to be on the newer release.

So what does Solus 3 brings? Here are some of the main highlights:

Linux Kernel 4.12.7 brings hardware improvements for AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA.

Mesa has been upgraded to 17.1.6.

Support for Snap packaging. It already supports Flatpak.

Upgraded software such as ffmpeg 3.3.3 Firefox 55.0.1, LibreOffice 5.4.0.3, Rhythmbox 3.4.1, Thunderbird 52.2.1 and GNOME MPV 0.12.

Since Budgie is the main desktop environment, created by Solus itself, the main focus will be on Budgie as it brings a number of visual changes.

You can convert the panel to a dock now:

You can easily use Night Light feature in Budgie now.

Budgie Menu has categories now to group applications together.

Budgie also introduces vertical panels:

And all this can be configured in the new dedicated Budgie Settings application which has been separated from the regular system settings:

With Budgie settings, you can configure a number of settings to suit Budgie as per your taste. You can change the transparency of the panel, use intelligent hide to hide the panel, add a new panel and change the panel to dock.

Want more? Take a look at Solus 3 Budgie desktop in this video on our YouTube channel. And do subscribe to our channel for more Linux videos:

Get Solus 3

If you are already running Solus 3, you don’t have to reinstall or anything. Just update your system. If you are not running Solus and want to give it a try, you can grab the ISO from its official website:

Download Solus Linux

You can easily make a live USB of Solus Linux and try it in a live session.

What do you think of Solus 3 features? What did you like the most and what you did not. Share with us in the comments below.

Image courtesy: Solus Linux