Review: Solus 4.5
When I tried out Solus last year I remarked that I thought it was a shame the distribution offers Btrfs as a root filesystem, but doesn't do anything with this feature. There is no boot environment switcher, no Timeshift installed, no automated snapshots when we install updates. This was, and still is, a feature I felt was missing, especially since Solus is a rolling release platform and Btrfs could add a level of reliability to the upgrade process.
Finally, a security bug I mentioned in my last review remains and I was disappointed to see it lingers. Non-privileged accounts (regular user accounts) can perform administrative actions if they have the first user's password. This happens even when the regular user is not in the sudoer file and it allows guest users to install or remove software. This means if two users happen to have the same password (or similar ones and the user makes a typo) they can perform admin actions without being a privileged user. This seems like a design flaw and one that, while it probably can only be exploited in a few rare situations, makes me uncomfortable with the security settings on Solus.
In short, I feel, mostly, that Solus has stayed the same over the past seven months. There are some key improvements and I'm happy to see progress. At the same time, some other concerns (some minor, some serious) linger. I started my trial very happy with the live environment, the installer, working sound, and the performance. But the inconsistent interface, searching two panels to find settings, and the occasional crash slowly jaded me during my trial. Solus isn't a bad desktop distribution, but there are some areas I feel could use additional work.