10 ms·

Pop_OS by System76

60 points by plg 9y ago

mistahchris 9y ago
Isn't there a System 76 guy building the Rust based OS (redox, if I recall correctly)? Personally, that seems more interesting to me. With this, why not just stick with existing distros?
- steveklabnik 9y ago
  Yes, that is true. (I don't know anything about Pop_OS, so can't comment there)
- jackpot51 9y ago
  That's me
robinduckett 9y ago
Some great visuals of Gnome there guys.
- teekert 9y ago
  Yeah I wonder if the Gnome guys can use all this material for their commercials. I didn't really see any non-Gnome fancy-ness.
yock 9y ago
This seems to have some interesting tools baked into it. Is S76 really innovating here or is this just a remix and reskin of tools already available?
- digikata 9y ago
  Along the same lines, I'd love to know if they have power savings, fan control, or other configuration refinements baked into this (or available to pull into other distros) for their hardware line.
saikatsg 9y ago
Looks like Ubuntu minus few apps plus new theme {-:
yahna 9y ago
"We're developing an OS" "It's linux" Boring.
- jdmoreira 9y ago
  I don’t know why you were downvoted because you are right. This is a distro. It’s not even a new userland as far as I understand... it’s just a linux distro.
  - jdlyga 9y ago
    What they do have is a nice marketing team. Gnome should have nice gifs like that.
    - slim 9y ago
      GNOME could just use those gifs. It's plain gnome, I have this in Debian 9, or am I missing something?
pornel 9y ago
That looks neat. Is there a downside to using a non-mainstream distribution?
- craftyguy 9y ago
  > Is there a downside to using a non-mainstream distribution? There are three things I can think of immediately that would make me skeptical about using a new distro vs one of the more established ones: 1) I would be worried about the maintainers supporting it with timely updates (especially around security) 2) I would be interested in how it is configured out of the box, from a security perspective and if it's a derivative of one of the mainstream distros then what changes are they making? 3) I would be interested in how they plan to work with upstream communities (i.e. that they do NOT follow the Canonical/Ubuntu model). > The OS is based on Ubuntu Oh. That's too bad.
- justin66 9y ago
  > That looks neat. Is there a downside to using a non-mainstream distribution? The useless, information-free response to a lot of end user requests for help on Linux tends to be "try a different distribution." If that happens 20% of the time to users of a popular distribution who ask a question online - that figure is just a guess - I can only imagine how often it will happen to users of an obscure distro.
PascLeRasc 9y ago
I wonder what that website says. Every time I tried to scroll it got stuck for four seconds, put my CPU to 100%, and then jumped way further up/down than I'd expect.
bobcallme 9y ago
Yet another bloated distro based upon ubuntu with no tangible value brought to you by a company who (for the longest time) required a support package to be installed on top of stock ubuntu. I suspect them rolling this distro is due to the fact that many of their offerings have discrete graphics and non-free wifi.
vaskas 9y ago
No mention of GNOME at all? Is this part of the marketing strategy? Wondering what the GNOME folks think about this.
lytol 9y ago
What's the benefit/reasoning here for another distro? I just want rock-solid hardware with strong Linux compatibility. It seems like the man-hours would be better spent contributing to drivers to ensure stability and accessibility across all Linux distributions.
- pjmlp 9y ago
  Which is why the year of desktop Linux will never happen, because everyone wants to differentiate their product. The way things went with netbooks and nowadays with Android, Jolla, Tizen,... shows what happens when OEMs try to sell Linux distributions. I can clearly imagine Dell Linux, HP Linux, MS Linux, Huawei Linux, Samsung Linux, .... each with their own "value added" and update policies.
  - reitanqild 9y ago
    Dell has been pushing plain Ubuntu for a while I think.
    - pjmlp 9y ago
      Their 13 XPS laptops are always out of stock in Germany, so I never managed to try them out. ASUS used to sell 1215B ones with Ubuntu on the German Amazon store, which I managed to get for travel purposes. But in spite of those two examples, I don't see most OEMs would play ball regarding OEM distributions and updates.
  - snorremd 9y ago
    Did this not work for Android? I seem to recall that every Android phone manufacturer shipped their own customized Android with different home screens, navigation, widgets, apps, etc. Did not stop consumers from buying the phones. Even today the number of Android phones released with stock Android each year is laughably low.
    - pjmlp 9y ago
      Not at all, unless you mean that the current situation of only getting updates when paying at least 800 € for 2 + 1 model is a good one. Imagine getting a OEM Linux with such update model, using closed source drivers bound to the distribution kernel.
d1egoaz 9y ago
New definition of OS: theme + shortcuts + Linux. I understand that they want to control the UI, why not just release a package that anyone can install on top of the preferred Linux distro?
kentt 9y ago
I had a system76 so I'd definitely never try this. Fooled me once.
dz0ny 9y ago
It's just standard Gnome with user installable theme and icons. Well that they preinstall. I would not call this OS but more like UI bundle.
hisyam 9y ago
That webpage made my Chrome crawled to a halt. Had to use Safari instead.
tym0 9y ago
They seem to be pitching Linux to Windows/Mac user, I don't think people on HN are the target market.
flohofwoe 9y ago
The mission goal is right and honorable, but I hope they don't let their web designers anywhere near the operating system UIs. I would like to see a more radical approach towards a productivity/creativity OS though, so far it looks like just another Linux distro.

60 points by plg 9y ago

Isn't there a System 76 guy building the Rust based OS (redox, if I recall correctly)? Personally, that seems more interesting to me. With this, why not just stick with existing distros?

steveklabnik 9y ago
Yes, that is true. (I don't know anything about Pop_OS, so can't comment there)
jackpot51 9y ago
That's me

robinduckett 9y ago

Some great visuals of Gnome there guys.

teekert 9y ago
Yeah I wonder if the Gnome guys can use all this material for their commercials. I didn't really see any non-Gnome fancy-ness.

yock 9y ago

This seems to have some interesting tools baked into it. Is S76 really innovating here or is this just a remix and reskin of tools already available?

digikata 9y ago
Along the same lines, I'd love to know if they have power savings, fan control, or other configuration refinements baked into this (or available to pull into other distros) for their hardware line.

saikatsg 9y ago

Looks like Ubuntu minus few apps plus new theme {-:

yahna 9y ago

"We're developing an OS" "It's linux" Boring.

jdmoreira 9y ago
I don’t know why you were downvoted because you are right. This is a distro. It’s not even a new userland as far as I understand... it’s just a linux distro.
- jdlyga 9y ago
  What they do have is a nice marketing team. Gnome should have nice gifs like that.
  - slim 9y ago
    GNOME could just use those gifs. It's plain gnome, I have this in Debian 9, or am I missing something?

pornel 9y ago

That looks neat. Is there a downside to using a non-mainstream distribution?

craftyguy 9y ago
> Is there a downside to using a non-mainstream distribution? There are three things I can think of immediately that would make me skeptical about using a new distro vs one of the more established ones: 1) I would be worried about the maintainers supporting it with timely updates (especially around security) 2) I would be interested in how it is configured out of the box, from a security perspective and if it's a derivative of one of the mainstream distros then what changes are they making? 3) I would be interested in how they plan to work with upstream communities (i.e. that they do NOT follow the Canonical/Ubuntu model). > The OS is based on Ubuntu Oh. That's too bad.
justin66 9y ago
> That looks neat. Is there a downside to using a non-mainstream distribution? The useless, information-free response to a lot of end user requests for help on Linux tends to be "try a different distribution." If that happens 20% of the time to users of a popular distribution who ask a question online - that figure is just a guess - I can only imagine how often it will happen to users of an obscure distro.

PascLeRasc 9y ago

I wonder what that website says. Every time I tried to scroll it got stuck for four seconds, put my CPU to 100%, and then jumped way further up/down than I'd expect.

bobcallme 9y ago

Yet another bloated distro based upon ubuntu with no tangible value brought to you by a company who (for the longest time) required a support package to be installed on top of stock ubuntu. I suspect them rolling this distro is due to the fact that many of their offerings have discrete graphics and non-free wifi.

vaskas 9y ago

No mention of GNOME at all? Is this part of the marketing strategy? Wondering what the GNOME folks think about this.

lytol 9y ago

What's the benefit/reasoning here for another distro? I just want rock-solid hardware with strong Linux compatibility. It seems like the man-hours would be better spent contributing to drivers to ensure stability and accessibility across all Linux distributions.

pjmlp 9y ago
Which is why the year of desktop Linux will never happen, because everyone wants to differentiate their product. The way things went with netbooks and nowadays with Android, Jolla, Tizen,... shows what happens when OEMs try to sell Linux distributions. I can clearly imagine Dell Linux, HP Linux, MS Linux, Huawei Linux, Samsung Linux, .... each with their own "value added" and update policies.
- reitanqild 9y ago
  Dell has been pushing plain Ubuntu for a while I think.
  - pjmlp 9y ago
    Their 13 XPS laptops are always out of stock in Germany, so I never managed to try them out. ASUS used to sell 1215B ones with Ubuntu on the German Amazon store, which I managed to get for travel purposes. But in spite of those two examples, I don't see most OEMs would play ball regarding OEM distributions and updates.
- snorremd 9y ago
  Did this not work for Android? I seem to recall that every Android phone manufacturer shipped their own customized Android with different home screens, navigation, widgets, apps, etc. Did not stop consumers from buying the phones. Even today the number of Android phones released with stock Android each year is laughably low.
  - pjmlp 9y ago
    Not at all, unless you mean that the current situation of only getting updates when paying at least 800 € for 2 + 1 model is a good one. Imagine getting a OEM Linux with such update model, using closed source drivers bound to the distribution kernel.

d1egoaz 9y ago

New definition of OS: theme + shortcuts + Linux. I understand that they want to control the UI, why not just release a package that anyone can install on top of the preferred Linux distro?

kentt 9y ago

I had a system76 so I'd definitely never try this. Fooled me once.

dz0ny 9y ago

It's just standard Gnome with user installable theme and icons. Well that they preinstall. I would not call this OS but more like UI bundle.

hisyam 9y ago

That webpage made my Chrome crawled to a halt. Had to use Safari instead.

tym0 9y ago

They seem to be pitching Linux to Windows/Mac user, I don't think people on HN are the target market.

flohofwoe 9y ago

The mission goal is right and honorable, but I hope they don't let their web designers anywhere near the operating system UIs. I would like to see a more radical approach towards a productivity/creativity OS though, so far it looks like just another Linux distro.