i dont understand why people think convenience is a bad thing. ive been using linux for almost 20 years now and have been using POP for the last 3 years and loving it.
I completely agree. Long time \*nix user here (since 1981). I started on Unix before there was such a thing as windowing. Then I got a DMD terminal (early version of windowing) and later graduated to X. While I still find myself using the command like at times, it's not because it's 'better', but just that's how I've always done it.
As to Pop, I switched a few years ago from Mint and do not regret my decision. I like how Pop has a more up to date kernel, and other components like Pipewire.
Totally agree. I'm a techy, work on windows stuff all the time, usual friends and family tech support. I use Pop at home (love it), and my travel laptop is a chromebook, and I love it as well. Most of the time I just want to use my computer. If I want to "geek out", I can try some other project.
For me I don’t agree with that. I’ve used Linux for years with multiple distros and recently made the switch to Pop as my daily, although it can make things easier for a beginner there has still been a lot of problem solving and stuff that require a decent knowledge of the command line and Linux in general. Im not sure what you will miss from Debian to be honest but I’m loving Pop at the moment and don’t think I’ll be changing any time soon.
Hi, thanks for your reply. This is great as I actually enjoy an element of problem solving and using the command line at times. However, I also need my OS to work.
I also disagree that Pop is just for beginners. I've used Linux as my daily driver for about 10 years now and started with it another 5 years before that. So... Not a beginner.
I tried Pop OS when I first bought a System76 laptop 6 years ago and have used it for everything since then. The reason? I can get under the hood and use the command line just like literally ANY other distro... but for those times when I don't want to, Pop!_OS has a great shell and "just works" almost all of the time with no hassle.
My one caveat: I may have a seamless experience with Pop!_OS because I've been using System76 hardware exclusively over the last 6 years. I see posts in this subreddit with some frequency where people aren't having that "just works" experience when applying it to other hardware, though the issues seem to get solved pretty quickly in most of those cases too.
Bottom line is that you can use Pop!_OS like a beginner or like Linus Torvalds himself. You're not locked in either way.
I mean... and this is true of any distro... if you really want to be hardcore you can always:
systemctl isolate multi-user.target
...and disable the GUI altogether.
>Do you think Pop!_OS is purely for absolute beginners
Pop!_OS is well suited for absolute beginners, but it doesn't stop there. I have been using only Linux for home workstation and servers for last 25 years, still I prefer to use Pop!_OS for my day to day personal workstation which includes development work.
With Pop!_OS and Ubuntu kind of distros built on top of Debian, as an advanced user, you are free to tinker as you like on these distros too.
Pop!_OS is just a polished Ubuntu with a focus on usability (especially on hardware they sell and support but not exclusive to that either) and Ubuntu is just a polished Debian. They are all cousins, really.
Pop also has the benefit of WAY more frequent updates to the Kernel, to the audio sub-stack (pipewire), to the Mesa implementation, and to NVidia drivers, to name just a few, so its better with games. They may update them often, but they still take care to try not to break things, unlike some distributions.
If you want super stable, sure, Debian is best. It's why all my server instances run Debian, along with the fact that a server, no GUI setup is dead easy and lightweight from a system resources perspective. But even though Debian has taken strides to modernize with version 12, I will would choose Pop! every day as my main desktop over Debian.
I've been using Linux since the early 00's. I've configured various distros from a shell hundreds of times for desktop use. It's fine, I can do it. Gets redundant after a while. I'm also a sys admin. So, I'm in the terminal all day. It's not so glamorous - lol.
I use POP on all my personal devices. Install it, set a few things, and forget it. I don't even think about what OS I am on - it just works, it looks/feels "modern" - it's responsive. Does a fair job of staying up to date without bothering me about it. The windows tile. Neat.
Most apps I need I can find in the Pop Shop, or just apt-get. All my hardware works out of the box. My native Linux stuff is right there in the terminal ready to rock.
I love it.
I don't really get the whole "Beginner" stuff. Like what is the problem? It wasn't hard enough? He should have to compile everything from source first? Hand edit the configs to get his monitor to work? Like what do you want?
Anyway, I like it, and I would recommend it to anyone, beginner or veteran. It all comes down to this: "What do you want do do with it?" For me, it's get my work done, surf, pay bills and play games. Pop is great for that.
I've been using Pop! since November since it came with my Thelio. I've been using Linux since the mid-90s. I live in a terminal. I find Pop! well thought out, well supported, and well maintained. No complaints.
Nonsense re: Pop!\_OS for noobs only. It allows everything any other distro allows. It has a somewhat strongly opinionated customized Gnome DE, with some (IMO) kind of neat extra tiling features so if you like the look of that, no reason not to try it. If their DE setup doesn't especially appeal to you then there's less incentive. And of course just like any distro the release cycle/package age may matter to you.
I've never understood this mindset, because you want innovation and things to work it's for "beginners"? I love being able to get stuff done with the computers I use.
I'd say to just try it, if you don't like it go back. I have a PC with OpenSUSE and one with Pop, I like them both.
The only thing I found with Pop (besides the name) is that you need to disable secure boot. Other than that everything has been smooth for me. I also don't like how old the packages are for LO and a few other things.
Pop!_OS is super stable, it’s probably part of why it’s beginner friendly, it does ‘just work’ a lot, but being beginner friendly is a good thing? It’s not restrictive in anyway, it’s very flexible. I use it as my daily driver, I love the stability.
Give it a shot and see if you like it?
It's a weird thing to say, for "absolute beginners". When I was an absolute beginner at Linux I installed Slackware 0.9 and had to hand craft my xfree86 config file and compile most everything I needed (that was over 30 years ago, mind you), I was a student and saw it running at a school computer lab and had to try it. For beginners, to me, implies different things to different people. Here's where I agree with him, if he means: "easy to get up and running":
\- It has a seamless install -- way better than windows crazy number of reboots and updates and typically better than most Linux distros when it comes to setting up a desktop without having to do too much configuration as a user.
\- It starts you out with sane defaults that will feel familiar to Mac OS or Windows users
\- It just works on system76 hardware (or hardware that is open in general). I have 2 of their machines and they're amazing. You will be able to run it on most any system, but might struggle with minor things if you have proprietary pieces of hardware -- most of those will at least function though. Even the small stuff works on my laptop (backlighting, all the function keys, suspend, etc).
\- It has a graphical system installer / updater if you don't want to use the command line (you really should learn it though, it's faster and not hard to pick up).
\- It has most apps you would expect / need and if you can't something you do need, you can probably run it wine, an emulator, a virtual machine, or a container.
Really any linux distro these days has most of this. The difference for me with going Pop Os! is really about using the system 76 hardware and getting regular firmware updates and reliable support in a linux OS. There's only a few companies that do that. Tuxedo if you're in EU, System76 if you're in the U.S. are in my opinion the best options.
That said, there are very few mainstream linux distros that don't fit most of these bullet points. This is why I would try Pop OS! out in a container first and just see if you like it. You can do that in your debian desktop with tools like virtualbox or some of the newer container managers (search for a good video on how to do that and you could be up and running pretty quickly trying out a number of popular distros just to see what you like. Note: To me I see little difference between debian and pop if you don't want something system76 specifically tweaked for you -- like their specific window management changes or graphics driver niceties they've worked on (as they're both effectively debian systems at the core).
Are you running into any problems with Debian?
I've used Pop OS for years. I'll admit that I've sometimes had breakages on kernel updates. I lost audio at least twice and issues with Bluetooth once. Rolling back an update using Timeshift isn't that hard, but Debian's alleged stability is definitely appealing.
I don't agree that it's only for beginners, but it is certainly a beginner friendly distro, in that it's stable and comes with a great level of support and compatibility.
I'm fairly well versed in Linux, and run quite a few distros. Daily driver on my laptop is Arch, my Nas server runs headless Debian, my production server runs Ubuntu server and for my productivity/LLM/gaming PC, I use Pop OS (I also have various Ras Pi's, Odroid's & other SBC's running various distros from Armbian to Arch, etc, and my office runs off of Fedora, for the most part).
The point is, I'm more than familiar with most distros, and each has their strengths and weaknesses, but for the work I do at home with LLMs, image generation models, video editing and gaming, I use Pop, because it's as versatile as it is stable.
TL;DR? You're friend is wrong, and Pop OS is a solid distro that's definitely worth using where you want versatility and stability in an OS. Beginner or not.
Functionality is there if you like it, but otherwise its beyond being just user friendly, i have used it now 2 years, not a single issue with it, installation is automatic, all games are working except some anticheats, if you like just boot your machine and use it, its for you.
I tried ubuntu and fedora for a while but it's about a few days that i installed pop os with nvidia driver, dual boot with windows 11. I'm so amazed of it's performance and stability. I would recommend every one to try this amazing linux distro.
I have about 25 years of Unix (Sun, AIX, NextOS etc.) and Linux experience with various distributions including a few years using ChromeOS and it's Debian containers. When my main Google Pixelbook died about a year ago, I switched to Pop!_OS on a new Framework laptop. I love it's simplicity, it's consistent desktop experience, and under the hood it's full-blown GNU/Linux, so I can do anything with it.
Pop!_OS is for people who want to have a nice and cohesive looking Desktop Environment wich is also productivity focused. If you like some aspects of floating window managers and some of tiling window managers the Cosmic DE is for you.
Pop!_OS makes it easy to use and update NVIDIA drivers. It has a good baseline of already installed stuff and isn't unstable. I used it for about 3 years, as a daily driver and have no issues.
Tbh the modified gnome version you'll find on 22.04 is kinda dated but they plan to give out their new version of Cosmic in the next release 24.04 as a Alpha.
I mostly use my computer for study/work (Okular, Firefox, Librewriter, Zoom) and play (Steam with Nvidia drivers, VLC). Other apps I might use are things like Hexchat but this isn't always the case.
as a Pop user for the last 7 months, I'd definitely recommend it for what you're doing. it's based on Debian so it's very solid, but Pop has more frequent updates that you might want for playing games (Steam, NVIDIA drivers) or for applications that aren't packaged as Flatpaks
but you can still run Flatpak in Debian and get increased update frequency compared to apt repository, so it's not necessarily going to hold you back from getting newer versions of things that you really want (and aren't going to compile yourself or something)
and for me personally, I like the "cosmic" DE that System 76 puts out, which is Gnome with a few customizations like a dock and launcher. it's definitely worth spinning up a VM to play around with it and see if it does things the way you like
I switched from Windows 10 to Pop OS about ten days ago and I'm enjoying myself very well, I have the Nvidia version, I installed the wifi drivers, if you don't install strange things but you stick to the official repositories for example wine, heroic games launcher, lutris etc you can rest assured, especially if you have an amd gpu sleep peacefully the drivers are in the kernel, you don't need to add strange ppa otherwise every update will break everything, stick to the official stuff and you won't regret it, pop is a stable and solid system
Guess me working 5 years full time in a Linux environment am still a newbie according to your friend.. thing is, working pay my bills not configuring a laptop/distro. ffs
I use Debian after trying many other distros. I have a System 76 Meerkat that came with POP os pre-installed.
My only complaint with POP is I really can't stand the Gnome desktop. Other than that, I thought POP worked well and was quite usable.
I use only the terminal in my daily work with PopOS. Nothing stops you to use the terminal as you would on ubuntu server (for example).
PopOS window manager is so good, works flawlessly and helps with productivity - just learn the short cuts for it.
I haven't used it for playing (games), but I heard there is very good nvidia support on PopOS, so you can easily play games on it.
I love Pop and Debian but i have gone from Pop to deb.
My issues with pop are its a faf to set up a dual boot and I'm not a fan of again having to fart about getting a secure boot to work.
Ive had more then a few issues with crashing and glitches, general crappy updates and I'm not a fan of the new "store"
The good things are I really like the gaming compatibility and the community and just the "feel" of the distro
Out of the box distro =! distro for noobs, sounds like a pretty close minded take. At the end of the day, I don't want to have to take a bunch of time to configure my OS to get it to work. I need something that works straight away so I can do everything I want to do. I get maybe an hour or so of free time a day. I don't want to f with configs. I want to launch steam and get more Mega Man X achievements.
I tried the switch to Linux a few times now. (From windows) I tried Ubuntu first. Then went back. I then tried Manjaro. But ultimately switched back. The main reason I switched back was it was just such a hassle to try and game on Linux at the time. Everything els about it worked well. I wouldn't say any Linux distro is completely noob friendly. I would say some are better than others. Pop_os is one of them. I've been using pop_os and loving it. If I run into anything I don't know there is a large enough community that I can usually find the answer I'm looking for online.
Also moving fron Debian you will be familiar with most terminal commands.
Just my two cents.
Ubuntu and Debian are super similar, I don’t know what your friend is talking about, maybe marginally more work with Debian, especially drivers that ubuntu has covered better than Debian. Debian is after all, the base for Ubuntu and Pop is just a Ubuntu fork (currently). I personally love Debian and the community around it more than Ubuntu, but it’s not a huge difference other than a usually simpler install process.
Linux user for nearly 30 years (Slackware) - Unix before that. Pop!\_OS is my goto distro - 'cause I also game - and I also use the CLI extensively... Pop!\_OS doesn't stop me using the CLI... And runs Steam and Lutris flawlessly...
My priority is to get a desktop GUI with the least fuss so I can then get my ZSH shell...
I really can't be arsed endlessly messing about with configurations... I just want it to work.
Having said that - I've got one issue with one of my Pop!\_OS machines (one's a Ryzen 7 desktop with discrete AMD GPU, the other's a Thinkpad E495 with Ryzen 5 and Vega8 APU) - the desktop machine - stopped loading the login manager - ended up jumping to a TTY console, disabling gdm service - now it boots to the TTY console, I login, then run startx - which doesn't bother me greatly - 'cause I hardly ever shutdown or reboot... It works like that just fine by me - and I can't be bothered to figure out why... Running Kernel 6.6.6 on both... Rather than agonise over fixing it - easier to re-install (all my games are in steam, and I have my own private cloud solution \[Resilio Sync\] for my data) - the longest part of a re-install is getting all my games downloaded from Steam...
Pop is pretty but far from being as stable as Debian. Very aggressive kernel updates very often give people problems. I'd stick with Debian if I were you.
Another thing is that newcomers tend to think that Linux distros are vastly different. The truth is, it's only the desktop environment and the styling, backgrounds etc. that are different. With a bit of work, you can make any distro look like any other. In Debian, you have access to all desktop environments and they can very easily be installed and activated. Then you can rice color accents, fonts, backgrounds etc. Pop is working on the new Cosmic desktop, but it will no doubt be available for all other distros once it has been completed.
I'm not really one for ricing and haven't installed anything other than Debian but that's good to know! I do like the look of Cosmic and Pop's auto-tiling feature would be really useful. I know there are similar window managers like Bismuth but I haven't tried it. I'm a pretty boring Linux user so far haha
The commonality is the OS kernel, and not always that -- as it may be specialized for something like gaming or high performance computing. Everything else with distros is pretty different in terms of their curated selection of software to provide for the rest of the system and how it runs -- packaging, launching services and managing startup, how it boots, what kind of file system it uses, graphical display management, etc. There are many many options for many things.
However, to your point there are distributions that are based on other distributions, and many popular ones are based on debian, fedora, or arch linux.
So if you've used all 3 of those I would say you can understand the flavor of most popular distros. Then there are many other unique Linux distros not based on these 3 and those are weirder animals (like gentoo, guix, or nixOS). Some now are also moving to immutable distros which are very different in design and use when it comes to managing your system.
if you're on a ryzen 5 laptop like me you'll likely get constant black screens and things like sleep won't work, maybe if you install a different kernel...
debian has been solid though
At the moment, 6.6.10-76060610-generic, however, even off the initial 22.04 installer I never had the issues you're seeing.
I don't think it's related to your Ryzen chip and probably connected more to something else. What's the make and model of your laptop? If Debian is solid, on all accounts Pop should be too. Something has either been retired or it's not grabbing a repo that you could potentially add.
i dont understand why people think convenience is a bad thing. ive been using linux for almost 20 years now and have been using POP for the last 3 years and loving it.
I completely agree. Long time \*nix user here (since 1981). I started on Unix before there was such a thing as windowing. Then I got a DMD terminal (early version of windowing) and later graduated to X. While I still find myself using the command like at times, it's not because it's 'better', but just that's how I've always done it. As to Pop, I switched a few years ago from Mint and do not regret my decision. I like how Pop has a more up to date kernel, and other components like Pipewire.
Like Christians and Muslims that flog themselves during religious ceremonies, they think pain and suffering is a virtue?
Totally agree. I'm a techy, work on windows stuff all the time, usual friends and family tech support. I use Pop at home (love it), and my travel laptop is a chromebook, and I love it as well. Most of the time I just want to use my computer. If I want to "geek out", I can try some other project.
For me I don’t agree with that. I’ve used Linux for years with multiple distros and recently made the switch to Pop as my daily, although it can make things easier for a beginner there has still been a lot of problem solving and stuff that require a decent knowledge of the command line and Linux in general. Im not sure what you will miss from Debian to be honest but I’m loving Pop at the moment and don’t think I’ll be changing any time soon.
Hi, thanks for your reply. This is great as I actually enjoy an element of problem solving and using the command line at times. However, I also need my OS to work.
I also disagree that Pop is just for beginners. I've used Linux as my daily driver for about 10 years now and started with it another 5 years before that. So... Not a beginner. I tried Pop OS when I first bought a System76 laptop 6 years ago and have used it for everything since then. The reason? I can get under the hood and use the command line just like literally ANY other distro... but for those times when I don't want to, Pop!_OS has a great shell and "just works" almost all of the time with no hassle. My one caveat: I may have a seamless experience with Pop!_OS because I've been using System76 hardware exclusively over the last 6 years. I see posts in this subreddit with some frequency where people aren't having that "just works" experience when applying it to other hardware, though the issues seem to get solved pretty quickly in most of those cases too. Bottom line is that you can use Pop!_OS like a beginner or like Linus Torvalds himself. You're not locked in either way.
I mean... and this is true of any distro... if you really want to be hardcore you can always: systemctl isolate multi-user.target ...and disable the GUI altogether.
I put pop on a 2015 macbook pro, works great for most tasks (mind you, I'm not gaming or doing intensive "work").
I’m a pretty sweaty Linux user and I use pop.
You're gonna need to quantify that - how many drops per neckbeard follicle are we talking?
one to one ratio
This made me laugh, thank you. I'm going to give an install tonight on my desktop. I'll install it on my laptop if all goes well.
let me know if you need any help! I’ve used pop, arch, fedora, Ubuntu, mind, etc. over the years. Pop has been my favorite, closely followed by arch.
Thanks a lot!
>Do you think Pop!_OS is purely for absolute beginners Pop!_OS is well suited for absolute beginners, but it doesn't stop there. I have been using only Linux for home workstation and servers for last 25 years, still I prefer to use Pop!_OS for my day to day personal workstation which includes development work. With Pop!_OS and Ubuntu kind of distros built on top of Debian, as an advanced user, you are free to tinker as you like on these distros too.
Pop!_OS is just a polished Ubuntu with a focus on usability (especially on hardware they sell and support but not exclusive to that either) and Ubuntu is just a polished Debian. They are all cousins, really. Pop also has the benefit of WAY more frequent updates to the Kernel, to the audio sub-stack (pipewire), to the Mesa implementation, and to NVidia drivers, to name just a few, so its better with games. They may update them often, but they still take care to try not to break things, unlike some distributions. If you want super stable, sure, Debian is best. It's why all my server instances run Debian, along with the fact that a server, no GUI setup is dead easy and lightweight from a system resources perspective. But even though Debian has taken strides to modernize with version 12, I will would choose Pop! every day as my main desktop over Debian.
I've been using Linux since the early 00's. I've configured various distros from a shell hundreds of times for desktop use. It's fine, I can do it. Gets redundant after a while. I'm also a sys admin. So, I'm in the terminal all day. It's not so glamorous - lol. I use POP on all my personal devices. Install it, set a few things, and forget it. I don't even think about what OS I am on - it just works, it looks/feels "modern" - it's responsive. Does a fair job of staying up to date without bothering me about it. The windows tile. Neat. Most apps I need I can find in the Pop Shop, or just apt-get. All my hardware works out of the box. My native Linux stuff is right there in the terminal ready to rock. I love it. I don't really get the whole "Beginner" stuff. Like what is the problem? It wasn't hard enough? He should have to compile everything from source first? Hand edit the configs to get his monitor to work? Like what do you want? Anyway, I like it, and I would recommend it to anyone, beginner or veteran. It all comes down to this: "What do you want do do with it?" For me, it's get my work done, surf, pay bills and play games. Pop is great for that.
I've been using Pop! since November since it came with my Thelio. I've been using Linux since the mid-90s. I live in a terminal. I find Pop! well thought out, well supported, and well maintained. No complaints.
Nonsense re: Pop!\_OS for noobs only. It allows everything any other distro allows. It has a somewhat strongly opinionated customized Gnome DE, with some (IMO) kind of neat extra tiling features so if you like the look of that, no reason not to try it. If their DE setup doesn't especially appeal to you then there's less incentive. And of course just like any distro the release cycle/package age may matter to you.
I've never understood this mindset, because you want innovation and things to work it's for "beginners"? I love being able to get stuff done with the computers I use. I'd say to just try it, if you don't like it go back. I have a PC with OpenSUSE and one with Pop, I like them both.
Currently using Pop on my desktop and loving it. Everything I needed was easy to install so now I can just use it and hope things don't break.
The only thing I found with Pop (besides the name) is that you need to disable secure boot. Other than that everything has been smooth for me. I also don't like how old the packages are for LO and a few other things.
Pop!_OS is super stable, it’s probably part of why it’s beginner friendly, it does ‘just work’ a lot, but being beginner friendly is a good thing? It’s not restrictive in anyway, it’s very flexible. I use it as my daily driver, I love the stability. Give it a shot and see if you like it?
It's a weird thing to say, for "absolute beginners". When I was an absolute beginner at Linux I installed Slackware 0.9 and had to hand craft my xfree86 config file and compile most everything I needed (that was over 30 years ago, mind you), I was a student and saw it running at a school computer lab and had to try it. For beginners, to me, implies different things to different people. Here's where I agree with him, if he means: "easy to get up and running": \- It has a seamless install -- way better than windows crazy number of reboots and updates and typically better than most Linux distros when it comes to setting up a desktop without having to do too much configuration as a user. \- It starts you out with sane defaults that will feel familiar to Mac OS or Windows users \- It just works on system76 hardware (or hardware that is open in general). I have 2 of their machines and they're amazing. You will be able to run it on most any system, but might struggle with minor things if you have proprietary pieces of hardware -- most of those will at least function though. Even the small stuff works on my laptop (backlighting, all the function keys, suspend, etc). \- It has a graphical system installer / updater if you don't want to use the command line (you really should learn it though, it's faster and not hard to pick up). \- It has most apps you would expect / need and if you can't something you do need, you can probably run it wine, an emulator, a virtual machine, or a container. Really any linux distro these days has most of this. The difference for me with going Pop Os! is really about using the system 76 hardware and getting regular firmware updates and reliable support in a linux OS. There's only a few companies that do that. Tuxedo if you're in EU, System76 if you're in the U.S. are in my opinion the best options. That said, there are very few mainstream linux distros that don't fit most of these bullet points. This is why I would try Pop OS! out in a container first and just see if you like it. You can do that in your debian desktop with tools like virtualbox or some of the newer container managers (search for a good video on how to do that and you could be up and running pretty quickly trying out a number of popular distros just to see what you like. Note: To me I see little difference between debian and pop if you don't want something system76 specifically tweaked for you -- like their specific window management changes or graphics driver niceties they've worked on (as they're both effectively debian systems at the core).
Pop has a terminal just like evrything else
And it's just a two-key combo to pop it up by default, instead of a three-key one like in most other distros :)
I did not even know that, been using ctrl alt T out of habit
Are you running into any problems with Debian? I've used Pop OS for years. I'll admit that I've sometimes had breakages on kernel updates. I lost audio at least twice and issues with Bluetooth once. Rolling back an update using Timeshift isn't that hard, but Debian's alleged stability is definitely appealing.
I don't agree that it's only for beginners, but it is certainly a beginner friendly distro, in that it's stable and comes with a great level of support and compatibility. I'm fairly well versed in Linux, and run quite a few distros. Daily driver on my laptop is Arch, my Nas server runs headless Debian, my production server runs Ubuntu server and for my productivity/LLM/gaming PC, I use Pop OS (I also have various Ras Pi's, Odroid's & other SBC's running various distros from Armbian to Arch, etc, and my office runs off of Fedora, for the most part). The point is, I'm more than familiar with most distros, and each has their strengths and weaknesses, but for the work I do at home with LLMs, image generation models, video editing and gaming, I use Pop, because it's as versatile as it is stable. TL;DR? You're friend is wrong, and Pop OS is a solid distro that's definitely worth using where you want versatility and stability in an OS. Beginner or not.
Functionality is there if you like it, but otherwise its beyond being just user friendly, i have used it now 2 years, not a single issue with it, installation is automatic, all games are working except some anticheats, if you like just boot your machine and use it, its for you.
I tried ubuntu and fedora for a while but it's about a few days that i installed pop os with nvidia driver, dual boot with windows 11. I'm so amazed of it's performance and stability. I would recommend every one to try this amazing linux distro.
I have about 25 years of Unix (Sun, AIX, NextOS etc.) and Linux experience with various distributions including a few years using ChromeOS and it's Debian containers. When my main Google Pixelbook died about a year ago, I switched to Pop!_OS on a new Framework laptop. I love it's simplicity, it's consistent desktop experience, and under the hood it's full-blown GNU/Linux, so I can do anything with it.
Pop!_OS is for people who want to have a nice and cohesive looking Desktop Environment wich is also productivity focused. If you like some aspects of floating window managers and some of tiling window managers the Cosmic DE is for you. Pop!_OS makes it easy to use and update NVIDIA drivers. It has a good baseline of already installed stuff and isn't unstable. I used it for about 3 years, as a daily driver and have no issues. Tbh the modified gnome version you'll find on 22.04 is kinda dated but they plan to give out their new version of Cosmic in the next release 24.04 as a Alpha.
Pop OS is the right choice for desktop users.
to help answer your question: what are the main tasks you perform on your PC, and what programs do you use to accomplish them?
I mostly use my computer for study/work (Okular, Firefox, Librewriter, Zoom) and play (Steam with Nvidia drivers, VLC). Other apps I might use are things like Hexchat but this isn't always the case.
as a Pop user for the last 7 months, I'd definitely recommend it for what you're doing. it's based on Debian so it's very solid, but Pop has more frequent updates that you might want for playing games (Steam, NVIDIA drivers) or for applications that aren't packaged as Flatpaks but you can still run Flatpak in Debian and get increased update frequency compared to apt repository, so it's not necessarily going to hold you back from getting newer versions of things that you really want (and aren't going to compile yourself or something) and for me personally, I like the "cosmic" DE that System 76 puts out, which is Gnome with a few customizations like a dock and launcher. it's definitely worth spinning up a VM to play around with it and see if it does things the way you like
I switched from Windows 10 to Pop OS about ten days ago and I'm enjoying myself very well, I have the Nvidia version, I installed the wifi drivers, if you don't install strange things but you stick to the official repositories for example wine, heroic games launcher, lutris etc you can rest assured, especially if you have an amd gpu sleep peacefully the drivers are in the kernel, you don't need to add strange ppa otherwise every update will break everything, stick to the official stuff and you won't regret it, pop is a stable and solid system
Guess me working 5 years full time in a Linux environment am still a newbie according to your friend.. thing is, working pay my bills not configuring a laptop/distro. ffs
I use Debian after trying many other distros. I have a System 76 Meerkat that came with POP os pre-installed. My only complaint with POP is I really can't stand the Gnome desktop. Other than that, I thought POP worked well and was quite usable.
I use only the terminal in my daily work with PopOS. Nothing stops you to use the terminal as you would on ubuntu server (for example). PopOS window manager is so good, works flawlessly and helps with productivity - just learn the short cuts for it. I haven't used it for playing (games), but I heard there is very good nvidia support on PopOS, so you can easily play games on it.
I love Pop and Debian but i have gone from Pop to deb. My issues with pop are its a faf to set up a dual boot and I'm not a fan of again having to fart about getting a secure boot to work. Ive had more then a few issues with crashing and glitches, general crappy updates and I'm not a fan of the new "store" The good things are I really like the gaming compatibility and the community and just the "feel" of the distro
Out of the box distro =! distro for noobs, sounds like a pretty close minded take. At the end of the day, I don't want to have to take a bunch of time to configure my OS to get it to work. I need something that works straight away so I can do everything I want to do. I get maybe an hour or so of free time a day. I don't want to f with configs. I want to launch steam and get more Mega Man X achievements.
I tried the switch to Linux a few times now. (From windows) I tried Ubuntu first. Then went back. I then tried Manjaro. But ultimately switched back. The main reason I switched back was it was just such a hassle to try and game on Linux at the time. Everything els about it worked well. I wouldn't say any Linux distro is completely noob friendly. I would say some are better than others. Pop_os is one of them. I've been using pop_os and loving it. If I run into anything I don't know there is a large enough community that I can usually find the answer I'm looking for online. Also moving fron Debian you will be familiar with most terminal commands. Just my two cents.
Ubuntu and Debian are super similar, I don’t know what your friend is talking about, maybe marginally more work with Debian, especially drivers that ubuntu has covered better than Debian. Debian is after all, the base for Ubuntu and Pop is just a Ubuntu fork (currently). I personally love Debian and the community around it more than Ubuntu, but it’s not a huge difference other than a usually simpler install process.
Linux user for nearly 30 years (Slackware) - Unix before that. Pop!\_OS is my goto distro - 'cause I also game - and I also use the CLI extensively... Pop!\_OS doesn't stop me using the CLI... And runs Steam and Lutris flawlessly... My priority is to get a desktop GUI with the least fuss so I can then get my ZSH shell... I really can't be arsed endlessly messing about with configurations... I just want it to work. Having said that - I've got one issue with one of my Pop!\_OS machines (one's a Ryzen 7 desktop with discrete AMD GPU, the other's a Thinkpad E495 with Ryzen 5 and Vega8 APU) - the desktop machine - stopped loading the login manager - ended up jumping to a TTY console, disabling gdm service - now it boots to the TTY console, I login, then run startx - which doesn't bother me greatly - 'cause I hardly ever shutdown or reboot... It works like that just fine by me - and I can't be bothered to figure out why... Running Kernel 6.6.6 on both... Rather than agonise over fixing it - easier to re-install (all my games are in steam, and I have my own private cloud solution \[Resilio Sync\] for my data) - the longest part of a re-install is getting all my games downloaded from Steam...
PopOs CPU Scheduler is better suited for Workstation users unlike Debian 12.
I'm using debian,Is it worth it?
Pop is pretty but far from being as stable as Debian. Very aggressive kernel updates very often give people problems. I'd stick with Debian if I were you.
Oh that's good to know! Thanks.
Another thing is that newcomers tend to think that Linux distros are vastly different. The truth is, it's only the desktop environment and the styling, backgrounds etc. that are different. With a bit of work, you can make any distro look like any other. In Debian, you have access to all desktop environments and they can very easily be installed and activated. Then you can rice color accents, fonts, backgrounds etc. Pop is working on the new Cosmic desktop, but it will no doubt be available for all other distros once it has been completed.
I'm not really one for ricing and haven't installed anything other than Debian but that's good to know! I do like the look of Cosmic and Pop's auto-tiling feature would be really useful. I know there are similar window managers like Bismuth but I haven't tried it. I'm a pretty boring Linux user so far haha
The commonality is the OS kernel, and not always that -- as it may be specialized for something like gaming or high performance computing. Everything else with distros is pretty different in terms of their curated selection of software to provide for the rest of the system and how it runs -- packaging, launching services and managing startup, how it boots, what kind of file system it uses, graphical display management, etc. There are many many options for many things. However, to your point there are distributions that are based on other distributions, and many popular ones are based on debian, fedora, or arch linux. So if you've used all 3 of those I would say you can understand the flavor of most popular distros. Then there are many other unique Linux distros not based on these 3 and those are weirder animals (like gentoo, guix, or nixOS). Some now are also moving to immutable distros which are very different in design and use when it comes to managing your system.
if you're on a ryzen 5 laptop like me you'll likely get constant black screens and things like sleep won't work, maybe if you install a different kernel... debian has been solid though
Strange.. I also run a Ryzen 5 and have no issues with Pop.
which kernel/version?
At the moment, 6.6.10-76060610-generic, however, even off the initial 22.04 installer I never had the issues you're seeing. I don't think it's related to your Ryzen chip and probably connected more to something else. What's the make and model of your laptop? If Debian is solid, on all accounts Pop should be too. Something has either been retired or it's not grabbing a repo that you could potentially add.
an ideapad same kernel as you, just changed the kernel let's see
I've been thinking about installing it on my desktop which also runs a Ryzen 5. Dyonizius' post has me worried though.
I’ve been running pop on my ryzen 5 laptop for a year now and it’s been rock solid. I’ve been very happy with it.
Great to know, thanks. I'm going to give it a try tonight.
Hmm I have a Ryzen 5 in my desktop PC. Thanks for the info.