[ 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?

BaldProphet ,
@BaldProphet@kbin.social avatar

For some reason, referring to a computer or VM that runs Linux as a "Linux box" triggers me.

burgermeister ,

Visuals were striking, but on non-System 76 hardware the thing as a whole broke several times cuz updates. Would love to try out some System76 hardware one of these days though.

azron ,

Ive had good success across three non system 76 machines. It is Ubuntu under the covers. I'd expect most of it to work as well as ubuntu does.

gregorum OP ,
@gregorum@lemm.ee avatar

Personally, I’ve installed it on at least a couple of dozen machines that definitely weren’t from system 76, and not one of them them had a problem.

I’m curious, what sort of issues did you have?

burgermeister ,

Simple updates brought the system down, it was long enough ago that I do not remember the exact cause but I remember the frustration lol.

haui_lemmy ,
@haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com avatar

Funny. I‘m using it on an asus a15 and its rocksolid so far. Sorry you made that experience though.

overload ,

Is good, I got bored though as they haven't released a major update since 2022. On opensuse tumbleweed now.

Not having the bugs of using gnome extensions for customisations is nice.

starman ,
@starman@programming.dev avatar

I really appreciate that they're working on new desktop environment. I'll probably switch from Hyprland to Cosmic once it's available on NixOS

mmstick ,
@mmstick@lemmy.world avatar

I think it already it is available on NixOS

starman ,
@starman@programming.dev avatar

Yeah, but sort of unofficially... I wait for this: https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/259641

Octorine ,

Ive been using it for several years. I hardly think about it at all, which is pretty high praise.

WastedJobe ,

Used it for a good while, but I moved to Nobara for more up to date packages. Might look into it again when Cosmic releases, it looks promising. I just hope they have some way to use Gnome extensions (or a replacement).

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

GNOME Shell extensions are JavaScript monkey patch injections to gnome-shell's JavaScript process. They're only compatible with the exact version of gnome-shell that they target because most of them require to override private internals of gnome-shell that are sensitive to order of injection and names of private variables and methods.

COSMIC uses a modern Wayland-based approach to shell interface design with layer-shell applets. Each applet is its own process, using the layer-shell Wayland protocol to render their windows as shell components, and communicating with the compositor securely with the security context Wayland protocol. The protocols they use are standardized, so they will be stable across COSMIC releases. Other Wayland compositors could integrate with them if they desire to.

CrabAndBroom ,

I like it, I think it's a better Ubuntu than Ubuntu is these days, if you know what I mean. And I'm really interested to see how the COSMIC desktop environment works out.

Also I really like their laptops. I want to get a Pangolin one day lol.

1984 ,
@1984@lemmy.today avatar

This sounds like written by an Ai or some marketing person...

Ordinary people don't use phrases like "box maker System 76" or "highly anticipated by the Linux community"...:)

gregorum OP ,
@gregorum@lemm.ee avatar

I’m sorry you think that.

Get out more.

Tattorack ,
@Tattorack@lemmy.world avatar

No, he's right. You sound like you're writing a corporate ad.

helpmyusernamewontfi ,

greg just fucking cooked

WastedJobe ,

He's got a point though, these sound more like 'online article on tech website' phrases, less like a community post. Not meant to be insulting, I just like to analyse language.

dtrain ,

I thought the exact same thing.
It’s written like the uncanny valley of English.

MigratingtoLemmy ,

I wish they based it on Debian. It definitely earns my personal recommendation for default distros alongside LMDE

haui_lemmy ,
@haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com avatar

I dont understand why they didnt. Debian with gnome is essentially the same imo.

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

Ubuntu is Debian with more up-to-date packages and a lot of additional third party packages. There's a lot of companies who produce development toolkits, frameworks, and applications that are explicitly built for the Ubuntu base. Some governmental agencies and organizations also require access to packages and repositories that have been audited by security agencies, which Ubuntu has gone through the process of getting certification for certain kernels and their Ubuntu Pro repositories. All of which are useful for real world customers.

Regardless of shortcomings in Snap, Pop does not rely on Snaps, and offers its own packaging for things that would otherwise require Snap on Ubuntu.

haui_lemmy ,
@haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com avatar

Thanks for elaborating. Learn something new every day. :)

I use pop os extensively so I knew about that but the government/security stuff was interesting. The main reason I went away from ubuntu was snap and pop is very useful.

acockworkorange ,

If a company with some resources makes a good Debian unstable based distro with a decent release cycle (could even be yearly), they’ll dominate the desktop market.

jjlinux ,

I have a Gazelle 16 laptop, and was in PopOS for a while too, even before this laptop, when I had a 17" Alienware. However, I've moved on to Fedora now, and can't go back to anything Ubuntu or Ubuntu based again. Fedora is just too great a balance between stable and cutting edge, Ubuntu feels old real quick, and so do all it's derivatives and downstreams.

I loved the Gnome based Cosmic, best Tweak of Gnome ever in my opinion, but other than that, I just can't leave Fedora behind anymore. Even Ublue distros are amazing.

gregorum OP ,
@gregorum@lemm.ee avatar

Care to elaborate on what really sold you on fedora?

Also, the new cosmic DE will be available for all distros

gigatexal ,
@gigatexal@mastodon.social avatar

@gregorum @jjlinux newer packages and it wasn’t arch. Plus I like dnf.

different_base ,

Not OP, but my reasons for choosing Fedora is, it just works. I use the Atomic version of it which is an image based operating system. Installing packages or updates does not leave the system unstable. I can simply rollback to previous version. Also Fedora pushes entire Linux community forward by adopting potential technologies like Flatpak, PipeWire, Wayland etc earlier compared to other distros.

(I also run NixOS which I believe has more potential and solves many problems than Fedora).

Having said that there are two downsides to Fedora.

  • Fedora is closely associated with Red Hat. I wish it is purely community driven.
  • Fedora does not offer LTS kernels (Maybe it would threaten Red Hat, if Fedora is too stable).
jjlinux ,

First, an integral distaste for everything remotely associated with Ubuntu, on a principle as well as on a stability and usability front. As I mentioned, the best balance between stability and cutting edge tech is on Fedora and other Fedora based distros. No other come close to that balance. See some people mention DNF, but for me that's just another packager, could not care less.

As for the atomic versions that I see many mention regularly, I'm giving them a try, even have bazzite running on my laptop right now trying to see if I can actually like it, but it's not looking promising. Atomic versions I've tried seem to be slower than regular distros for boot an apps launch (work fast enough after, though). Then there's the fact that, while they are great for "fire and forget", that same feature makes them very convoluted to achieve some system level stuff,reqyiring morework and tinkering than with a regular distro.

jjlinux ,

First, an integral distaste for everything remotely associated with Ubuntu, on a principle as well as on a stability and usability front. As I mentioned, the best balance between stability and cutting edge tech is on Fedora and other Fedora based distros. No other come close to that balance. See some people mention DNF, but for me that's just another packager, could not care less.

As for the atomic versions that I see many mention regularly, I'm giving them a try, even have bazzite running on my laptop right now trying to see if I can actually like it, but it's not looking promising. Atomic versions I've tried seem to be slower than regular distros for boot an apps launch (work fast enough after, though). Then there's the fact that, while they are great for "fire and forget", that same feature makes them very convoluted to achieve some system level stuff,reqyiring morework and tinkering than with a regular distro.

Fizz ,
@Fizz@lemmy.nz avatar

I like their company and what they do for Linux. I wish I had a use for a laptop but then I would be stuck between system76 or framework.

haui_lemmy ,
@haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com avatar

And tuxedo. Depending on your country.

haui_lemmy ,
@haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com avatar

I use pop for my nvidia laptop and it works great. System76 seems to be on the right track and I‘m curious what they have in store for the future.

azron ,

I generally find it to be a family friendly sheen on top of ubuntu so I've been installing it for friends and family lately. I would prefer debian based but shrug. They'll probably get there eventually.

JoMiran ,
@JoMiran@lemmy.ml avatar

I have used it on my Lenovo X1 Extreme as my daily driver for years. Bulletproof.

hperrin ,

The UI seemed like it wasted a lot of space. I hope that Cosmic is better in that regard.

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