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?
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I really don’t like that underscore.
The correct way of saying it out loud is “pop exclamation point underscore O S”
I’m reasonably sure it’s the popping sound you make with your mouth oh ess.
Agreed
PopOSwould be better (IMO)I quite like “Pop!OS”.
Or perhaps a play on IBM: OS/Pop!
Now that I think about it. It’s just the !_ being beside each other that bugs me: OS_Pop! is cool.
You and me both. I’d rather it just be Pop!OS. Or just, Pop. Or the better term: Soda.
Me a programmer has a bigger issue with !
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.
Your story is almost a carbon copy of mine. Really enjoyed using Pop.
I like their window manager, pop-shell, and use it on Fedora. I used to daily Pop but just can’t stand Ubuntu.
Why can’t you stand Ubuntu?
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.
Yea but why?
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.
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.
And tuxedo. Depending on your country.
Use it on my lenovo carbon x1 flawlessly. Love it.
A semi-rolling distribution, with access to Ubuntu’s many PPA’s, and easily removable extensions that reveal the lovely vanilla Gnome experience, it’s great!
Also they are making a Rust desktop, which I am currently running, though not daily driving.
How are you running COSMIC? I’m on Fedora.
There’s a COPR repo
ryanabx/cosmic-epochAnd it works and seems to be regularly updated! Thanks for bringing this to my attention!
I am on Pop!_OS, I ran
sudo apt install cosmic*.Don’t worry, you’re not missing out on much, running video games, or any OpenGL thing including 2D games and GPU-accelerated terminal emulators is a bad experience, and alt+f4 isn’t implemented, and f11 to fullscreen is janky, and theming for buttons and such is clearly alpha.
The promise of an Arabic-supporting, Rust based, GPU-accelerated terminal is too attractive, however, as I was teared between multilingual terminal, Wezterm, Alacritty and Kitty for a while.
The first is horrible at everything but supporting languages, the second is really janky, the third doesn’t support tabs, the fourth has bad theming and customization.
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You’re not missing out on much
Seems that you’re right. It’s almost usable currently, but it lacks some essential things for me, mainly some further snappiness and customisable key binds (old habits die hard and I’m not adapting my habits and workflow to new keybinds).
But after these get fixed, I can see myself potentially running COSMIC. This makes me even more excited for what the future will bring.
Edit: Also, sloppy focus aka focus-follows-mouse
And an option for static workspaces i.e a set number of workspaces that are constantly there, instead of dynamic workspaces that close with your windows and change your workflow because you closed the window on Workspace 4 so workspace 5 is now workspace 4 so when you go looking for the window on workspace 5, it’s not there.
Also, sloppy focus aka focus-follows-mouse
It’s one of those features I always wanted to try, but always forget to look up how to actually enable and start using it, so I never actually tried it.
Highly recommend trying it, especially on a tiling window manager! (doesn’t seem to be available for COSMIC yet, and I don’t think it’s in other DEs either, but I know floating WMs like Openbox had sloppy focus iirc.
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.
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.
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?
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.
Funny. I‘m using it on an asus a15 and its rocksolid so far. Sorry you made that experience though.
Solid but occasionally buggy
COSMIC looks cool
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.
Lemme guess: arch? ;)
😀 I sure sound like it. Debian these days though. I’m too lazy for Arch anymore.
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.
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
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
You sound like the target audience for Bluefin. I’m running it and it’s excellent.
Stop it, you
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).
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.
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.
I have used it on my Lenovo X1 Extreme as my daily driver for years. Bulletproof.
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.
