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Introduction to Solus on a Legacy Bios Machine

GNU/Linux Distro In Reference: Solus 3.99

Solus is a unique GNU/Linux OS. It seems to be independent of any popular distributions. Today, i will share what i have observed in my first month of using Solus 3.99.  Please note my reference is on a non-UEFI Samsung RF410 machine.

1st) Responsiveness


My comment on Solus : It is fast relative to Fedora or Debian distro on a same device. I am using Cinnamon DE on Fedora and Mate DE on Parrot Security. For Solus, i also set it as Mate DE which i have used it previously on LMDE 2.

2nd) Unique package system

It is using eopkg package system. The term 'eopkg' is derived from its historical beginning as "Evolve OS", hence we can surmise that 'eopkg' is an acronym for 'Evolve OS Package' system.

Below is a few commands for handling eopkg system and it is pretty catchy as you need not key in the full command for certain keywords.

'Install':
sudo eopkg install <packagename>
or
sudo eopkg it <packagename>

'Upgrade System':
sudo eopkg upgrade
or
sudo eopkg up

'List installed packages':
sudo eopkg list-installed
or
sudo eopkg li

'rebuild eopkg databases after connection interupt':
 sudo eopkg rebuild-db
or
sudo eopkg rdb

'clean up cache after downloads in CLI':
sudo eopkg delete-cache
or
sudo eopkg dc

3rd) No '/etc/modprobe' directory

People who are acquainted with other GNU/Linux distros will find it unique again for its lack of modprobe and modprobe-related directory. How can we blacklist modules?

In Solus, we blacklist modules inside the /usr/lib64/modprobe.d/dist-blacklist.conf.  It works as it is like we do in Debian inside the /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf.

4th) Update Grub using Clear Boot Manager

Solus adapts ClearOS boot manager. So when performing update on grub, we run
'sudo clr-boot-manager update' much as we run 'sudo update-grub' in Ubuntu, Debian or
'sudo grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg' in Fedora.

5th) Editing Kernel Commandline


In Debian, Ubuntu or Fedora, we usually edit grub configuration at /etc/default/grub by adding or removing options at GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT. In Solus, we add in options in /etc/kernel/cmdline .

For e.g.  to remove the "quiet splash" option , we add in "ignore_loglevel systemd.show_status=true splash=silent"

Summary


In summary, Solus works in a different manner and it takes a (fair) bit of learning to understand how it works in comparison to other mainstream GNU/Linux distros. Ahoy Captain!


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