Solus 4.2 Release: Updated Budgie, GNOME, MATE and KDE Plasma

Solus is an independently developed Linux distribution for x86-64 architecture and features the homegrown Budgie desktop environment, GNOME, MATE or KDE Plasma as the desktop environment.

Now, the Solus team has released a new version of Solus 4 ‘Fortitude’ series, Solus 4.2 which follows on the heels of the previous version 4.1 with updates for the software stacks, multimedia, and hardware enablement.

Solus 4.2 offers different audio and video multimedia playback software out-of-the-box that caters specifically for each edition. With Budgie, GNOME, and MATE editions shipped with Rhythmbox for audio playback, MATE ships with VLC for video playback and KDE Plasma ships with Elisa for audio playback and SMPlayer for video playback.

What's New in Solus 4.2 Release?

Solus 4.2 ships with Linux kernel 5.10.12, which enables provide support for a range of the newer hardware, including AMD Ryzen 5th generation processors and Intel Comet Lake CPUs, such as Intel Core i9-10850K.

And Solus 4.2 also ships with the latest release of Budgie 10.5.2, GNOME 3.38 Stack (3.38.3), MATE 1.24, and Plasma Desktop 5.20.5, KDE Frameworks 5.78, KDE Applications 20.12.1 and QT 5.15.2, which brings several many new features. Other new features and hardware capabilities, include:

Support for Solarflare NICs
Improved exFAT file system support
Enabled ACPI and HID ambient light sensors
Realtek 8723DE and 8821CD PCI wireless network adapters
Support for setup / unlock / lock Locking ranges for SED devices using the Opal protocol
Enabled various modules required for software such as CTParental, Mininet, and ROCm
Several new USB cameras
XFS Online Repair

Additionally, Mesa has been upgraded to 20.3.3 and Solus 4.2 also introduces support for new GPUs, Vulkan 1.2 API support, with numerous fixes for the latest gaming titles, and ACO shader compilation is enabled by default for the RADV Vulkan driver.

How to Download or Upgrade to Solus 4.2

If you wish to try out the latest release of Solus v4.2, you can download the ISO image of your chosen edition here.

You can follow the Installation guide to determine what software to use to burn or write the Solus ISO to a DVD or USB drive. And if your system is UEFI-enabled, it is recommended that you follow the UEFI guide.