Developer of Solus will work full-time on Linux distro Serpent OS

Ikey Doherty, one of the main developers of Linux distribution Solus, will work full-time on Serpent OS. That is a Linux distribution that focuses mainly on modern hardware. Doherty says he wants to start raising funding.

Developer Ikey Doherty writes in a blog post that he quits his current job to focus entirely on Linux distro Serpent OS. Doherty currently works at Codethink, but writes that he will start working for himself full-time in July. “My focus and passion are with Serpent OS,” he writes. Doherty was already building his Serpent OS, but had too little time to develop it seriously. He was one of the lead developers of Solus OS, a distro with its own desktop environment called Budgie. After Doherty retired from Solus, he was already targeting Serpent OS as a spiritual successor, but so far that project hasn’t gotten off the ground.

Serpent OS uses, among other things x86_64-v2 binaries and, according to the makers, is mainly focused on performance. There are several benchmark tools in the OS, and it includes a mechanism the makers call Smart System Management that allows multiple packages to be installed at once while keeping the system small.

Doherty does not write anything about the roadmap for the distro in his blog post. He does say that he wants to start increasing the community around the project. He also hopes to reduce costs and seek new financial support.