[ 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?

suodrazah ,

I like their window manager, pop-shell, and use it on Fedora. I used to daily Pop but just can't stand Ubuntu.

VerseAndVermin ,

As someone newer who has only used Ubuntu and Mint, what do you get elsewhere?

PerogiBoi ,
@PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca avatar

Why can’t you stand Ubuntu?

krash ,

I imagine it being about snaps. People seems to hate snap with a passion.

I still use Ubuntu in certain cases. Their LTS offerings are excellent.

PerogiBoi ,
@PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca avatar

Yea but why?

stargazingpenguin ,
@stargazingpenguin@lemmy.zip avatar

I like it! It was the first distro I used when I started using Linux full time. It just works most of the time, (other than the Pop Shop) and fixes most of the issues I have with Gnome. I'm looking forward to seeing how Cosmic works once it is ready to go, and I'm hoping their new shop I just read about works well!

When I first started using it I wanted something that was far away from the Windows look, and it does it well. Maybe it's weird, but having it look wildly different from Windows put me in a different mindset and helped me learn the Linux way of doing things rather than trying to make Linux work like Windows.

I'm still running it on my main gaming rig, but I've been doing a lot of experimenting on my other computers. I've gotten to really like both Budgie and Plasma since then, and I'm using distros with those DEs on them on two of my other computers.

mmstick , (edited )
@mmstick@lemmy.world avatar

Pop Shop

Install the cosmic-store (with cosmic-icons) and try it out!

stargazingpenguin ,
@stargazingpenguin@lemmy.zip avatar

I didn't realize it could be installed already, I'll give that a go. Thanks!

mmstick ,
@mmstick@lemmy.world avatar

Yeah, it's in the Pop!_OS 22.04 repositories, this Fedora 40 COPR, and on the AUR.

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.

Bizarroland ,

My problem with Pop OS is that on the two different machines I've installed it on it was very slow.

One of them made sense because it was an older mini Lenovo box, but the second machine I installed it on was a 10th gen Intel core i7 laptop with a Nvidia 2060 and 32 gigs of RAM and a decent one terabyte nvme SSD, and there would still be a massive pause with every click, somewhere between half a second and a second before anything would respond, and when updating or launching Firefox or anything it would always spin for a while and then pop up the sign saying this app is taking too long to respond.

Both of the devices were Lenovo devices, maybe there's some sort of fundamental incompatibility or missing driver or something but I couldn't cope with the lagginess of the OS.

Fedora worked swimmingly on both of them, for comparison.

possiblylinux127 ,
@possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip avatar

Pop Shop eats all resources. Try going to system monitor and killing it.

mmstick , (edited )
@mmstick@lemmy.world avatar

I'd just remove it with sudo apt remove pop-shop, and install cosmic-store (with cosmic-icons) instead.

governorkeagan ,

I used Pop!_OS when transitioning from Windows 11 to Linux and ran it for about 3/4 months before deciding to try EndeavourOS. I had absolutely no issues with Pop and it really made the transition super easy.

I'm super excited to try out their new (cosmic) DE! I will probably install Pop on my 2nd SSD to test and play around with it.

lal309 ,

I’ve been thinking about running EndeavorOS but seeing people here complain about Arch breaking when the AUR is used, makes me shy away from EOS. Do you use packages from AUR and have you had any issues with the OS? Running Tumbleweed right now.

governorkeagan ,

Any problems I've had have been my own doing or a weird Nvidia driver issue. Having said that though, I've had very very few issues, it has been rock solid!

I've got a couple of packages from the AUR but I don't recall ever having any issues with any of them.

The only real "issue" I've had has been related to the Linux Kernel on my main machine (Ryzen 5 3600 & Nvidia GTX1660 TI). For some reason, only the LTS and mainline kernel work, if I try any other kernel I get an error (something to do with Nvidia and my GPU).

lal309 ,

Awesome! Thanks for the reply. Next time my machine needs to be wiped, I’m heading towards EOS to give it a try.

governorkeagan ,

So…I’ve just updated my laptop with EOS and now my /efi partition won’t mount. Things definitely can break…unfortunately

KrapKake , (edited )

I think their current modified gnome is the best desktop that exists anywhere. Cosmic is a full desktop environment with an actual (auto) tiling window manager... a combo I think should be more common in desktops. The way they implement the tiling makes it really easy for beginners to use because you can turn it on/off by keyboard shortcut or clicking the plugin icon, and because you can just drag n drop windows to change their tiled positions (along with keyboard shortcuts if preferred). It's hard to go back regular "window managers".

The System76 devs have good ideas, they seem really cool, and sane! They have been a net positive for the Linux community and desktop development IMO. I am SO hyped for the new Cosmic DE!

MalReynolds ,
@MalReynolds@slrpnk.net avatar

You realise KDE's had tiling for years, right? (Bismuth and then native)

folkrav ,

Bismuth (and Krohnkite before) never worked nearly as well for me, and AFAIK are both abandoned. The built in tiling is closer to FancyTiles/tiling zones, not auto-tiling like Pop Shell. Pop Shell also has been here for “years” by that metric lol

MalReynolds ,
@MalReynolds@slrpnk.net avatar

Fair cop, a matter of definition of good enough, I guess.

mmstick , (edited )
@mmstick@lemmy.world avatar

There's a very large gap between having tiling, and having excellent auto-tiling capabilities with intuitive shortcuts and behaviors. COSMIC's autotiling was designed from the ground up to be just as usable with a mouse as it is with a keyboard.

KrapKake ,

Well not really because I never stuck around on KDE very long. But I'm aware you can have tiling on any DE if you want. Its about the out of box experience you get on Pop. Its also important (for me) that the tiling is done automatically, no fiddling.

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.

YIj54yALOJxEsY20eU ,

My only experience was on a shared machine (the $5,000 prebuilt offering) where one of the less tech literate people messed with nvidia drivers for data science. Worse, I was remote and it had some software from IT running.

Basically some combination of those things meant we ended up running it in recovery mode and all shared the same user. I think I downplay how shit that job was in my head.

The support from the company was ASS and I'm doubtful there was a human responding for the first few messages. I gave them very detailed logs of the issue, with links to their own documentation, and their response suggested they didn't read past the first sentence. Really can't imagine why I wouldn't just stick to debian when the company support is worthless even after giving them 5k.

gregorum OP ,
@gregorum@lemm.ee avatar

What year was this? Very rarely, I have heard bad experiences like this, but they were from a long time ago. From everything I’ve heard since (I’ve never had to contact their support, myself), their support - and their hardware - has massively improved.

Edit: I also have heard (unconfirmed) that they have a separate B2B unit now that has a separate support unit, too.

YIj54yALOJxEsY20eU ,

About a year and a half ago. I am the anxious bug filling type as well, I make my questions very clear and provide all the info I anticipate they may need. That does not help when the info is not read. I had to copy and paste quite a bit from previous emails. This is while I was at a pretty significant institution as well.

gregorum OP ,
@gregorum@lemm.ee avatar

Really? That recently? I’m really quite surprised. Especially at the low quality of customer support you received.

Of course, this should never have happened. A live install medium should never make alterations to an internal drive. I really just don’t know how that could’ve happened. Or why it happened. It must obviously have been a bug of some sort. My mind is boggled.

YIj54yALOJxEsY20eU ,

I'm not the one who mentioned the instal medium but yeah I was pretty surprised as well. I'm sure I could've sorted things if I was on premise and could have IT reinstall their software.

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.

joojmachine ,

It used to be one of if not the greatest entry point for new Linux users, nowadays they got too worked up on their beef with GNOME, are trying to do their own thing and it honestly looks kinda pathetic.

mmstick , (edited )
@mmstick@lemmy.world avatar

If COSMIC is pathetic, then GNOME must be abysmally unusable.
COSMIC was already planned long before there was any beef with GNOME.
We listen to user feedback and prioritize development of features that our developers and users want.
Good luck trying to replicate COSMIC's theming and tiling capabilities in GNOME.
Let alone the overall stability and performance of COSMIC.
COSMIC Store is the fastest app store on Linux now. I'd recommend everyone to try it out.
sudo apt install cosmic-store

joojmachine , (edited )

My comment did sound way more aggressive than I intended, and I apologize for that, but getting this defensive as an answer when the question asked for an opinion definitely isn't any less pathetic. I have a lot of respect on the work of the Pop team, and Pop was the first distro I have used, but none of your points are... good?

  • Gradience fills the need for theming in an individual level for those that want it without breaking the look and feel of apps without the developers' intent at a distribution level;
  • Forge replicates most of Pop's tiling capabilities, picking up the great work your team did over the years without intending to drop it for your own thing;
  • Performance is something that isn't necessarily lacking in other DEs and stable is a bold statement for a product still in alpha. Hopefully it really is whenever it gets a stable release though, I'm not rooting against your work;
  • Also, it isn't hard to say your app store is the fastest when it doesn't have the years of crust other ones gathered from all the work put into it. I would get worried if it wasn't.
mmstick , (edited )
@mmstick@lemmy.world avatar

Speaking of being defensive, not only are you being far more defensive than I, but these bullet points are both misleading and wildly inaccurate. It's also telling that you think none of my points are good, when they are the truth. Could you possibly be even more a hypocrite?

joojmachine ,

If they are so misleading and inaccurate, then I'm all ears to why.

Again, I'm not against the project or the team, I just don't like the direction S76 went for their own thing, instead of improving other existing projects. Having a full Rust stack is potentially pretty great though, and I'm all in for what it might become in the future, but this attitude about even the slightest of criticism speaks volumes about the people working on it.

possiblylinux127 ,
@possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip avatar

Solid but occasionally buggy

COSMIC looks cool

crusa187 ,

I’m a pop_os enjoyer, the window manager is great especially on a small laptop screen. Also have it running in the living room on a media pc (streaming, light gaming, music etc) and it’s been fantastic for that application as well. Excited for the upcoming switch to cosmicDE, think that will be chef kiss for me.

Father_Redbeard ,
@Father_Redbeard@lemmy.ml avatar

I really like it. I tried several distros for my first dedicated desktop Linux machine and pop was the one that clicked. I like that it's not trying to mimick windows UI, and only sorta behaves like macOS. Everyone else was too close to win10. Which I understand is a selling point, so to speak, but I'm so sick of windows that I wanted it to look and act differently.

Muffi ,

Made the switch to Pop!_OS from Win10 half a year ago, and my machine's been purring like a happy cat ever since. All my games still run (thanks, Proton!) and some even had a significant performance boost (RDR2 being the best example) with a 3090. Only problem I had was getting DaVinci Resolve to work properly, but I caved and bought the Studio version which runs perfectly.

governorkeagan ,

Your story is almost a carbon copy of mine. Really enjoyed using Pop.

HereIAm ,

I've only used DaVinci for small projects, so I don't know their eco system too well, but what made you buy a product when you were having problems getting it to work? :O Does the studio version offer better hardware acceleration or something like that?

Muffi ,

It had to do with encoding which works out-of-the-box in the Studio version, and not at all in the free version on Linux. I could've solved it by using something like Handbrake, but I didn't want to add the extra step to my workflow. I also bought my Blackmagic 6K second-hand, so I've been wanting to properly pay them for their awesome products for a while now anyway.

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