Solus DE observations

Linux for blind general discussion blinux-list at redhat.com
Wed Aug 4 01:19:19 UTC 2021


If I would try Solus, would it be best to try mate,, gnome, or budgie?
I am a total, and use orca.

> On Aug 2, 2021, at 8:36 AM, Linux for blind general discussion <blinux-list at redhat.com> wrote:
> 
> I'm going in circles trying to figure out why Mate loses focus with Chromium or when closing apps. I've been told it's /not/ just a Solus issue and happens on other desktops and was told Mate's not being developed any more.
> 
> I've yet to test a fresh Budgie install, but on my Mate plus Budgie system, I've a few minor quirks like the task switcher in Budgie not being accessible, and wondering if there's anything I can do with that? I'll take Budgie not breaking since Chromium (or Brave) is my browser of choice and I don't want my desktop to keel over and die every time I close Brave or a Brave private window
> 
> On 8/2/21 12:30 PM, Linux for blind general discussion wrote:
>> I have heard of Budgie.
>> Since a totally blind user would not care about a desktop’s appearance, what might be advantages of Budgie in my case?
>> I had never considered Solus before.
>> As to problems with desktops when installing, I appreciate knowing of them.
>> 
>>> On Aug 1, 2021, at 10:50 AM, Linux for blind general discussion <blinux-list at redhat.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Matthew
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> What is solus exactly?  is this a flaver of ubuntu meeing based off of it or some thing else?  How is the installer.  Thanks.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Hi,
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 8/1/2021 5:38 AM, Linux for blind general discussion wrote:
>>>> Since Solus came up again, I'll share my observations of the three DEs I've used. I'm leaving Plasma out since it doesn't work too well for me, but yMMV on that
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Budgie:
>>>> It's, boiling it down. Gnome with a fancy coat of paint and is the Solus flagship one. It works well enough given it's Gnome 40 based and is very much useable. Now if I could assign keyboard shortcuts, that'd be handy. Maybe I can and haven't found it yet, I dunno. One note I do have is that LightDM is the login manager and is insanely /loud/ on startup once you enable Orca with the usual shortcut. So just have a long, long keyboard cable, and Budgie/Gnome have a nice startup sound when you log in, which is always a nice touch. The Solus team have put a lot of care into the DE from what I've found.
>>>> 
>>>> Gnome:
>>>> 
>>>> It's Gnome. It's Gnome 40. Need I say more? One note is I couldn't get speech at a login manager on my system. It does have a nice startup sound to a la Budgie.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Mate:
>>>> 
>>>> Oh this is going to be disappointing. There's a few issues with Mate as far as Solus goes.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 1. The Orca shortcut isn't set. Which isn't a big deal since alt+f2 and orca sorts that then when you get the system installed it's two seconds work to set the shortcut and set Orca to autostart.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 2. THe much, much, MUCH bigger issue is the desktop loses focus and requires a GTK dialog to be loaded. Quit Chromium? Yeah Orca+H, F2, and then keep going. Now. If there's a compyz setting I've overlooked to fix this...then sure, I'll give it another shot. Don't get me wrong. Mate is fantastic when it works. It's just....when it breaks on Solus and needs workarounds, it's kind of a bugbear for me, as well as the bottom panel being unlabeled, but you can get around most of that As with Budgie it uses LightDM so you get Orca working on the login screen, again, stupidly loud. If the focus loss issue can be fixed, then I'm liable to switch back to Mate full time instead of Budgie.
>>>> 
>>>> And, there's no startup sound either which, really, disappointing given the other two have one and I don't know bout Plasma, but it feels to me like the Mate one isn't fully finished up vs the other DE.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> And related note, I'm hunting down an nmtui which doesn't seem to be shipped with Solus. I may just request it or ask on their forums if one's in and I'm using the wrong name.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Related note #2:
>>>> 
>>>> Somehow it's more stable for me than Ubuntu, which I didn't think possible.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> For installed things?
>>>> 
>>>> Mate didn't come with a mail client and came with Firefox which I've replaced with Brave, and installed Thunderbird. Each distro ships with Orca 40.0, but I've not tried building Orca from git yet, I'm wary of installing the build deps on an already working system
>>>> 
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