In 2016 and if I do not forget any details, the last component of the Ubuntu family arrived. We are talking about Ubuntu Budgie, a flavor that before becoming official was called Budgie Remix. The main version uses the Budgie graphical environment and from the times I have tried it I can say that its reason for being, that it is simple to use, does what it promises. The problem for me is that it is not very customizable, but I do think it behaves quite well. Budgie's developer is Ikey Doherty, who has had the pleasure of announcing the Solus 4 launch "Fortitude".
In his informative note, Doherty tells us all the news that includes Solus 4, and they are not few. Among these new features we have new versions of Firefox (65.0.1), LibreOffice (6.2.1.2), Rhythmbox (3.4.3 with the latest release of the alternative toolbar extension) and Thunderbird (60.5.2). The Budgie and GNOME versions arrive with GNOME MPV 0.16 and the MATE version includes VLC 3.0.6.
Solus 4, a major release packed with new features
In the announcement of its launch they tell us that:
- Solus 4 arrives with Linux Kernel 4.20.16, which includes support for AMD Picasso and Raven 2 APUs, AMD Vega20 and Vega10, as well as improved support for Intel Coffee Lake and Ice Lake. Kernel 4.20.16 supports more hardware, such as the touchpad of some Lenovo IdeaPads.
- The new version of the operating system arrives with ffmpeg 4.1.1, the latest version.
- Support for dav1d in VLC has been enabled.
- The Software Center has been refined and fixes have been included.
- WPS Office has been removed due to its terms of use.
Budgie 10.5 arrives at Solus
- Solus 4 arrives with the latest release of the Budgie graphical environment, that is, with Budgie 10.5. This includes a new GTK theme that they have called Silver (Noir).
- The Budgie Menu has also been refined. No longer shows apps multiple times in non-compact mode when headers are off.
- Budgie 10.5 introduces a new applet called Caffeine Mode which is designed to ensure that the system does not hang or hang at the most unexpected moment. Caffeine is a very famous application available for macOS that later also came to Linux and does precisely the same as in Budgie 10.5.
- The applet from the to-do list. Now better detects apps to group them more consistently and introduces an improved experience.
- Raven, the center of widgets and notifications, has been improved.
- The new Calendar allows us to see the number of the week.
- Notifications are better managed.
- The widgets sound have been completely rewritten.
- As I said at the beginning of the post, Budgie was not very customizable and that is something that they wanted to change in Solus 4. Budgie 10.5 is more customizable than previous versions (which makes me want to try it…).
GNOME, MATE and Plasma also receive news, but less
Solus it is also available in GNOME, MATE and Plasma graphical environments. Taking into account its history, which has a lot to do with Budgie, it is understood that these news are less. We can mention in GNOME that the dark theme Silver has been included. The version MATE also includes a new theme and they have solved problems like one related to password settings in the MATE Control Center. Solus 4 comes with MATE 1.20, a version that fixes many problems.
As for Plasma, Solus 4 comes with what they say is the latest version, but it is not. They talk about plasma 5.15.2, but it is already available in the repositories of the Plasma 5.15.3 project, the one I am using right now in Kubuntu. It is important to mention that Plasma 5.15 greatly improves the user experience compared to previous versions, something that both I and some other readers of Plasma have experienced. Ubunlog.
If you are interested in installing Solus 4 you will only have to click on the following image to go to the official download website of the project. What do you think of Solus 4 and its news?
