[ META ] What is the community's opinion of Pop!_OS?

It’s an Ubuntu downstream maintained by Linux box maker System76 which is targeted for both general usability and design/media applications. They will soon be debuting their own home-spun desktop environment, Cosmic DE, which is highly anticipated by the Linux community.

How does the community here feel about this distribution and the company that has brought it to us? How do you feel about the projects that they’re working on, and their goals for the distribution moving forward?

Anarchistcowboy ,

Pop is sick and absolutely shines on laptop.

todd_bonzalez ,

Pop! Is a solid Ubuntu-based distro. I use it on my MSI gaming PC and my System76 laptop.

The S76 (Lemur Pro) laptop is nice, but it isn't excellent, especially not for the price. I'm happy with it, but I probably won't buy another one unless they make significant improvements to the screen and chassis.

Lettuceeatlettuce ,
@Lettuceeatlettuce@lemmy.ml avatar

I'm interested to try their Cosmic desktop later this year.

Overall, seems like a solid company, I've heard good things about their laptops, although I've never had one myself.

Pop_OS as a distro, heard generally good things about. The few times I've messed around with it have been fine. The folks that stick with it seem to like it.

MoonMelon ,

Bought a lemur pro 9 a few years ago and have it as a daily driver since. Pop OS works great for the most part but, as other people have mentioned, PopShop is slow/buggy and I often just resort to apt instead. My spouse plays a lot of PC games so when she got sick of Windows I migrated her over, and she's had very few problems. Every once in awhile a game won't run but usually that gets figured out in a few weeks by the Proton community.

A few content creation linux apps only officially support Redhat, so getting them to run is a bit of a pain but that would be the case with any Debian based distro. So overall I haven't seen the need to distro hop to Mint or something similar.

ulkesh ,
@ulkesh@beehaw.org avatar

I love the fact that System76 is an American company pushing Linux forward (well to certain degrees, anyway). I know they use hardware produced in other countries (for chassis at minimum, not sure about the rest of the components), but it’s still nice to see.

Next time I’m in the market for a laptop, I’ll certainly give them a solid look (hopefully the form factors of the more powerful systems will be less…girthy…by then).

Pop!_OS is quite solid. I’ve used it from time to time. However, I’m partial to Arch because I like to be closer to the bleeding edge (currently using Garuda for my gaming rig).

Darkraisisi ,
@Darkraisisi@feddit.nl avatar

It is where i started my linux journey 3 years ago. And where i stayed all this time. It had a nice environment setup and for me with cuda accelerated ML it is amazing with the easy drivers.

zod000 ,

Even though I wasn't a fan of their modified Gnome DE, I really like the distro as a whole. It made it seamless to use both AMD and Nvidia cards, Steam worked out of the box, and I had no issues with using Ubuntu or Debian repos. I'm not sure whether I'll use Cosmic or not, but I'll probably give it a fair try eventually.

Sylvartas ,

I have only used it for a little more than a day so far, but I'm already in love with it because it basically required 0 tinkering to get my Nvidia GPU to work, and the few games I have tried have been running almost flawlessly.

LeFantome ,

Their new COSMIC desktop is generating a tonne of buzz. It may spill over to the distro in general.

I am not a PopOS user but, watching the evolution of COSMIC, System76 seems very user focussed and makes sensible decisions. That bodes well for the overall OS.

vizzi ,

I installed this on my touchscreen laptop after trying and failing to get many other distros to work with the touchscreen.

With Pop! it just worked.

Dumpdog ,

POP is an excellent distro for a number of use cases. I can't speak to System 76 hardware but Pop is definitely one of the good Distros. I have used it for about 5ish years to run Davinci Resolve on video editing laptops and workstations. Another use case for POP was for breaking Mac OS acclimated relatives out of their walled gardens. Relatives as old as 80 have had very little problem adjusting to it after having help installing it.
Looking forward to Cosmic but I will make sure I have backups and other stuff to tinker with during the transition - was the same way during Wayland transition on my other machines.

Positives

  • Davinci Resolve working with a little bit of fiddling and continues to run solidly.
  • No hassle with Nvidia drivers on editing laptop.
  • 4-5 years daily driver on Thinkpads (t460,13) and other older laptops (daily use)
  • Gaming on Nvidia good.
  • Elder folks adjust easily from Mac OS. Its basically Macbuntu for them without the complete pile of shit that is Snaps.

Negatives

  • POP Shop was kinda shite. Had a few problems years ago. Wasn't patient during upgrades or used terminal. A couple of shitty things happening recently but looking forward to testing out everything Cosmic (I have a rock solid edit station that will remain AMD on Endeavour OS to make sure I can still work).
  • Name doesn't bother me, but would be better as just POP OS
z00s ,

I suspect it will replace Ubuntu as the new noob distro, which is a good thing. Doesn't run as fast on older hardware as mint w cinnamon, but that's not a big deal. I'm hoping the new DE will improve that.

Love how feature rich it is, especially love the switch to toggle tiling windows on the desktop.

glouriousgouda ,
@glouriousgouda@lemmy.myserv.one avatar

It was too far from the metal for me. But it is a great distribution. Especially if you're looking for fancy pants gaming ability or just turn-key ready to roll MS alternative.

gregorum OP ,
@gregorum@lemm.ee avatar

Lemme guess: arch? ;)

glouriousgouda ,
@glouriousgouda@lemmy.myserv.one avatar

😀 I sure sound like it. Debian these days though. I'm too lazy for Arch anymore.

gregorum OP ,
@gregorum@lemm.ee avatar

Right? I’m ok with my computer being a bit of a hobby, but it shouldn’t be a side-job unless I’m getting paid, goddammit.

glouriousgouda ,
@glouriousgouda@lemmy.myserv.one avatar

Absolutely! When I was 20ish and new, yeah. But it hit me about 3years ago thats ALL I do professionally is automate as much as I can to make life easier for users and companies. Why am I not doing that for me?

On a side note, I'm seriously loving the immutable distributions. I'm thinking that's my new direction.

Sorry to rattle on lol

gregorum OP ,
@gregorum@lemm.ee avatar

Like… I like to tinker and fiddle, but, at the end of the day, I want stable and reliable. So I love PopOS, but should I really be on Fedora or openSUSE Tumbleweed? Like… eh… am i old?

Lol

glouriousgouda ,
@glouriousgouda@lemmy.myserv.one avatar

😀

cflewis ,
@cflewis@programming.dev avatar

You sound like the target audience for Bluefin. I'm running it and it's excellent.

gregorum OP ,
@gregorum@lemm.ee avatar

Stop it, you

7rokhym ,

It's great, I use it on 3 machines. Gigabyte Intel laptop with Nvidia GPU, Alien AMD desktop with Nvidia, and a Lenovo Intel desktop with AMD GPU. The separate installer for Nvidia GPUs is an awesome idea and took away my biggest headache (Nvidia driver issues). Installs were a breeze, performance is great. Laptop sleep /wake is very reliable. Intuitive UI and minimal fiddling meant I could get to work instead of troubleshooting issues. I only use Windows occasionally now for a couple games and Windows apps. I highly recommend.

Railison ,

I love the tiling interface. I haven’t touched it since they decided to start developing COSMIC though.

I’m gonna wait until they get everything up to date before I use it again.

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