SolydXK

Reader supplied reviews for SolydXK Average rating 8.1 from 21 review(s) What are your thoughts on SolydXK? Please include a few pros and a few cons, along with your overall impression of the operating system. Our FAQ page has tips on writing a good mini-review. Version: -- 1210-2021082019029201701201606201411201311 Rating:    -- 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 out of 10 Your review (minimum 250 words): Past reviews - sort by: DateVotes Version: 12 Rating: 10 Date: 2024-04-16 Votes: 3 tried Solydxk XFCE enthusiast edition (which is based on debian testing) Overall is very cool with nice set of apps, but unfortunatelly there is no bluetooth support out of box, so that regular users will have trouble with their hardware... The system was very stable, even if it is based on debian testing. Debian testing as always gives relatively new set of apps, so if you are a developer, having for example latest version of golang is convenient. If you are a gamer having newest kernel & mesa paired with steam is very cool. Was this review helpful? Yes No Version: 12 Rating: 9 Date: 2024-04-03 Votes: 1 I started using Solydx 10 in 2020 during covid. I liked plain Debian but was still a noob.. At that time the distro I was using would freeze when Virtualbox and Firefox were both open, likely a problem with kernel 5.9 . No such problem with Solydx, Callamares install was easy, everything worked OOTB. I did not even need to consult the forum. Now I'm on version 12 bookworm. I do get some umount errors on shutdown, but nothing show stopping. Ram use is also higher in version 12 than 10 Alll in all a good, STABLE, usable OS for any level of user. I wish it didn't use systemd, oh well. Recommended. I've used linux since 2007. Was this review helpful? Yes No Version: 12 Rating: 8 Date: 2023-12-19 Votes: 15 I have visited and re-visited SolydX over the years since 2013. Like all linux distros it has gone through changes, some good some not so good. However it has always maintained an interesting course somewhere between stock debian and some of the more flamboyant variations. SolydXK 12 is based on Debian Bookworm (Debian 12) I do not use KDE so the following refers to SolydX 12 only. On the download page you'll find there are links to the standard release and also the EE release. As it states quite clearly, EE is based on Debian Testing and is therefore inherently 'fragile'. In the past I have used EE during the last few months in the run up to a new Debian version release, but in December 2023 that's a bit far away to consider using as a daily driver just yet. Testing carried out in Virtualbox 6 and on Dell 7040 SFF (2019) and Lenovo Thinkpad Edge E530 (2012) SolydX 12 boots from either USB or in Virtualbox at exactly the same speed as any other Debian based distro I have tried or used. Subjectively it may be a tad faster. Shutdown speed is also uber fast. So, no complaints there. SolydX 12 includes Virtualbox Guest Utils and is therefore nice to use in VB straight from boot. The installer is standard Debian Calamares and so no drama there and installation is predictable. A nice touch is that wifi configuration is carried over to the installed version. No problem with any hardware detection. I choose to remove xorg-synaptics and just rely on xorg-libinput (already installed) to handle the touchpad on the Thinkpad. Both work, but libinput is much much better behaved on my hardware. YMMV. SolydX 12 comes with smaller selection of software than stock Debian. Perhaps the most obvious area is LibreOffice with just LibreOffice Writer, Calc and Startcenter. To be honest this makes good sense to me. Multimedia and Graphics sections are lighter than with some debian distros. However, this is more than countered by the extra software installation options in the Welcome screen. These stretch from Lutris and Steam, through Handbrake and Pitivi to Clementine, Samba, codecs and Clamav - the other bits of LibreOffice if you want them - plus others. Notable extras in the installed Accessories are KeePassXC and Ventoy. There's a really useful set of tools in SolydXK System Settings which includes stuff for tweaking the Grub and Plymouth theme choices, setting up encryption, adding lines to fstab, setting download mirrors and locale and installation of open device drivers. There's an update checking tool to - well - keep your system updated. A neat little under the hood tool is used to keep your .xsession-errors file from overflowing all over the place. Not an issue with XFCE but I know from past experience that KDE vomits huge amounts of output into that file all the time - so this is a thoughtful addition. There are a other useful goodies tucked away here and there - you'll have to try it out to see what they are, but their standard Thunar custom actions are really jolly good! There is a user forum. It is not hugely active, but I have found the developers to be very approachable and in a few days they did make some changes to a small area which was very nice. Is SolydX the ideal distro for a newcomer to linux? Possibly not. All in all I find this to be the sort of distro you would install if you like Debian, you like XFCE, you prefer to be in charge of what software is installed and what isn't. The only way I can describe it is linux for grown-ups. Do I use it? Of course. Was this review helpful? Yes No See all 21 reader reviews of SolydXK...