10 ms·

Pop_OS 19.10

192 points by surfsvammel 7y ago

lousken 7y ago
Last time I've tried popos the installer didn't allow me to install with custom LVM on LUKS encrypted drive, is that fixed now?
marmaduke 7y ago
I recently installed CentOS 7.7 onto a Dell Latitude 5290 (Dell's equivalent of the ThinkPad x280) and found everything (audio, suspend wake, wifi, caméra, nvme) just works, and it gets twice the battery life as on Windows 10. I'm happy to see really nice marketing on Linux as a desktop OS but it seems over the top these days.
- passthejoe 7y ago
  Many things happen in the Linux kernel. It doesn't matter which distro you use as long as the kernel supports your hardware. Lots of distros have taken credit for things that happen outside of what they do.
  - bardworx 7y ago
    Can you expand on your answer, please. I haven’t been following Linux kernel updates and wondering if you’re implying that they did a better job at supporting hardware or was there an organized push to support more hardware? Also, just out of curiosity, did additional hardware support take away from other areas of development or was this just natural since more Linux kernel devs just use different hardware and saw direct benefit?
    - passthejoe 7y ago
      A distribution like Ubuntu, Debian, Pop!_OS, Fedora, etc., is a collection of programs from many, many other projects and places. Almost every distribution configures things a slightly different way, but almost any other distribution can be configured that same way. Distros include a unique set of packages, but after installation you can remove what you don't want and add what you do. The single biggest factor in terms of sheer compatibility with your hardware is the Linux kernel, and every distribution has one. Some are older than others. Some projects remove things from the kernel and recompile. Others add things. But by and large, the Linux kernel is the same from distro to distro. Some ship newer kernels, to be sure, and some ship older ones. The Linux kernel developers maintain a few different kernels at the same time, some older with security patches, some newer with the latest features and drivers. Fedora ships new kernels all the time. If you have new hardware and have parts that are not working so great, new kernels will often solve your problems. It's not the distributions doing this, it's the kernel team. If you have old, stable hardware that works great with an old kernel, you might want to run something like Debian or CentOS -- if you like that sort of thing. Fedora or Arch are both great ways to get new hardware working its best, but that's because the Linux kernel developers are doing this work at the kernel level, and these distributions pick up new kernels very soon after they are released. If distro developers contribute back to the Linux kernel -- and many do, from Ubuntu and Fedora for sure, but for others, too -- everybody benefits from those improvements when a new kernel is released for the use of all distributions that want to package it.
      - jammygit 7y ago
        So why is it so many programs support/recommend Ubuntu rather than generic Linux? Is it primarily the testing environment that the devs use and the packaging formats the different distros use? I ask because I’m deciding between fedora and some Ubuntu flavour for my next OS and have used Ubuntu for the last 2 years
        bardworx 7y ago
        Linux is just a shell [0], all the distos add their own GUI + specific mods. I’m guessing Ubuntu is recommended because it’s most widely available or has the least amount of “under the hood” mods that make others more challenging. [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux
        grawprog 7y ago
        Testing environment does play a part. Different distros do sometimes use different paths for shared libraries and configs and such. They also sometimes have different versions of libraries in their repos. The programs may be written in a way that don't take this into account and may use an incompatible library or try and look for things in the wrong places.
        passthejoe 7y ago
        It all comes down to preference, including what works for your hardware and your use case(s). Before GNOME 3, Ubuntu, Debian and Fedora all used GNOME 2, and they were more alike than different. I'd say the same is true today with these three and GNOME 3, though Ubuntu skins it somewhat differently. They really are more alike than you'd think.
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
    - Elv13 7y ago
      Most hardware these day is designed for Linux first, then ported to Windows. Linux has a dominant market share in servers, IoT and mobile. While the Android kernel (and it's "drivers") isn't really Linux anymore, it usually doesn't matter much. The driver will exist and they will be implemented by the manufacturer (most of the time) or RedHat/IBM. If a chip (like wireless) has any use outside of laptops, then it's going to have some kind of support. Lenovo, Dell, Huawei and HP sell laptops with Linux pre-installed and supported.
      - pjmlp 7y ago
        On servers yes. IoT, we have plenty of embedded OS to chose from, with the FOSS alternatives going with MIT derived licenses. Android since Treble, classical Linux drivers hardly count. And anything graphics related is hardly Linux first, if ever.
  - marmaduke 7y ago
    Maybe but CentOS is still on 3.10
phren0logy 7y ago
I have found this to be a great option for local deep learning. Painless install of nVidia drivers, CUDA, tensorflow, etc. Also works well for playing games through Steam.
proverbialbunny 7y ago
For anyone who has used Pop OS how does it compare to Mint?
- xrd 7y ago
  I'm not a power user. But I've been using Linux as my main desktop UI, usually Ubuntu, for the past dozen years or more. And I absolutely love PopOS on my system76 machine. It works flawlessly.
- alexis_fr 7y ago
  Pop OS uses Gnome 3.
- dguaraglia 7y ago
  In my experience it was slightly better, but then most of my problems with Mint were because of Cinnamon. Not sure if drivers or just Cinnamon’s compositor, but Cinnamon would become really choppy at times. Pop is smooth and painless to install. I ended up moving to Manjaro and Plasma eventually, but I’d recommend.
  - jammygit 7y ago
    Ever try Manjaro for games?
  - proverbialbunny 7y ago
    It's cpu vsync. It sucks. It's the only thing I change on Mint. I install my graphics drivers (nvidia), go to the nvidia settings control panel, turn on full composition (run the desktop through the gpu) which enables vsync on the graphics card. I then go into general (settings) and set vsync to none, disabling cpu vsync. This makes Mint as smooth as butter. It also improves youtube playback quite a bit.
    - dguaraglia 7y ago
      Oh, that makes sense. It definitely affects Plasma to a certain extent too. The default compositor uses OpenGL 2.0 and I could feel some amount of subperceptual lag that annoyed the crap of me after a bit. Switched to XRender and things have been great since.
ahbyb 7y ago
>We’re building an OS for the software developer, maker, and computer science professional who uses their computer as a tool to discover and create. Then have a simpler website... This website doesn't look like it's trying to appeal to a computer scientist.
- rch 7y ago
  The system is rather nice to use, but nothing about the branding of this distro appeals to anyone, as far as I can tell.
  - unethical_ban 7y ago
    I have no idea what you or the GP post mean. The site loads pretty quickly, does the whole static background scoll thingy, and explains how you can use it and what its highlights are.
    - ahbyb 7y ago
      Let's say that it looks more like the Apple website, when I expect it to look like the Void Linux website.
tony 7y ago
Wanted to chime in and say Pop!_OS is the leader when it comes to HiDPI on Linux I believe. Especially if you have 4K monitors or a 3K/4K mix where the monitors need a different DPI set. PopOS uses a system to manage the scaling very well. https://support.system76.com/articles/hidpi-multi-monitor/ https://support.system76.com/articles/hidpi-multi-monitor/ The closest comparison I've seen elsewhere is fractional scaling in Gnome 3.32+: https://wiki.gnome.org/Initiatives/FracionalScaling https://wiki.gnome.org/Initiatives/FracionalScaling If you have a configuration / workflow for HiDPI on Linux, it'd be nice to see if there were other options / any other things out there.
- minxomat 7y ago
  Thanks for that info. If the OS is pleasent otherwise, I'll switch immediately from elementary OS. Their position on fractional scaling is: - it's bad because pixel perfectness! - you're wrong for wanting it - we don't care that MacOS does it well So annoying.
  - benologist 7y ago
    You can enable fractional scaling in the elementary settings: https://elementaryos.stackexchange.com/questions/15057/can-i-scale-everything-at-125 https://elementaryos.stackexchange.com/questions/15057/can-i...
    - ac29 7y ago
      That's just fractional scaling of text. It does make a useful difference, but its not full fractional scaling.
  - jancsika 7y ago
    > - we don't care that MacOS does it well At least in 2017 they claimed MacOS didn't do it well[1]. Do you have a link to something more recent where they changed their position? 1: https://medium.com/elementaryos/top-3-misconceptions-about-hidpi-f5ef493d7bf8 https://medium.com/elementaryos/top-3-misconceptions-about-h...
currymj 7y ago
use it every day, very pleasant distribution for a scientific workstation, especially the great nvidia driver support. the overall design seems to be for a knowledgeable computer user, but one who has no interest in configuring things.
- jakebol 7y ago
  Made the jump from OSX and for scientific users who don't to endlessly chase a working laptop setup PopOS and it's nvidia driver support (on a thinkpad) has been fantastic, highly recommend as well.
ydau 7y ago
Lambda Stack is an alternative to Pop!_OS's tensorman, which doesn't use containers: https://lambdalabs.com/lambda-stack-deep-learning-software https://lambdalabs.com/lambda-stack-deep-learning-software This is a one-line apt/aptitude installation for TensorFlow, PyTorch, CUDA, cuDNN, etc. When NVIDIA releases a new version of CUDA, you can simply apt-get upgrade to the latest version. Disclosure: I work for Lambda Labs.
- mmstick 7y ago
  Do you support the 19.10 release? The inability to compile or package every version and variant of TF, and GCC9 conflicts with both the CUDA SDK and Tensorflow, is precisely why we created Tensorman.
  - ydau 7y ago
    Lambda Stack supports 16.04 and 18.04 at the moment. It's value prop is to enable people to easily install TensorFlow / PyTorch and their dependencies in a container-less fashion. Though it doesn't provide the isolation of containers. What I've learned from talking to customers is that many people don't care that much about handling multiple versions of the same framework. I wouldn't be surprised if you find that, like Lambda Stack, people are mainly using this product to easily get started with TensorFlow/Pytorch. Now that TensorFlow 2.0 is out, we will see a much more stable API. People won't have to change their code if TensorFlow bumps up a dependency version. For many, this will reduce the impetus for moving to containers.
    - zwaps 7y ago
      Install of PyTorch and CUDA is literally one line in anaconda. I don't remember what I did for tensorflow, but I have it up and running and I am quite the computer phillistine so it could not have been much harder. Maybe the second part is more of a value prop or good point of focus?
- seabrookmx 7y ago
  What does this have to do with the parent post?
anewguy9000 7y ago
just popping in to say thank you to the dev team if youre seeing this. pop os is slick. i ditched win10 for it and it gives me a hope for the linux desktop i havent felt since 1999!
- mackrevinack 7y ago
  I just switched to pop from Windows 2 weeks ago. i had been trying out various distros on another laptop over the last few years but I would only mess around for a few days and then go back to windows. switching over completely has worked out a lot better because it is forcing me to learn a lot faster. having Windows running in a vm is a lot better for my mental health as well. I don't have to worry about it taking control over my computer at random hours to do some updates
kraig911 7y ago
I'm seriously thinking about it. I'm just addicted to creative cloud for stuff. Anyone know how to get it working with after effects and adobe xd?
- techntoke 7y ago
  1. Have two video cards and run Windows on the pass-through via KVM. 2. Dual-boot 3. Keep asking that Adobe make their software compatible with Linux.
  - ulkesh 7y ago
    Or PCI-Passthrough which, while not as easy to set up as it should be, works amazingly well.
    - anewguy9000 7y ago
      can someone explain dual card kvm or pci passthrough? I'm dual booting but if there's a way to ease the pain id love to hear it
      - asymptotically2 7y ago
        You can give a virtual machine full control of one of your graphics cards. https://wiki.debian.org/VGAPassthrough https://wiki.debian.org/VGAPassthrough
  - kraig911 7y ago
    I just use a laptop. I meet with people in person all the time in my consulting. Change things in front of them literally on the fly.
- Klonoar 7y ago
  Here's an alternative hot take on this. You gotta cut the Creative Cloud addiction. Unless you're a full-time designer (especially if working in print or something), alternative tools exist, and it's about figuring out how to move and work in them. No, GIMP isn't in the conversation. People complain about web tech, but I've found that it's honestly really the best bet for new design technology. Figma et all are good enough for most stuff, many have PSD support, and better collaboration stories on top of all that. My two cents, at least. I could be wrong, but this is what I'm trying to do - my logic became "if I'm gonna pay monthly for this shit, why am I paying Adobe?". They're not even truly native on macOS and it's run worse for me with each update.
islanderfun 7y ago
Just finished updating my laptop as I make this comment. Super smooth, loving it!
tracker1 7y ago
Hopefully this means navi is fully supported... already drained enough hours trying to get things all working. Wound up reverting to the last Ubuntu LTS.
stanislavb 7y ago
Is there someone here who migrated from Mac OS to Pop!_OS? If yes, what was your experience and what did you miss?
- neor 7y ago
  I switched recently and I love it. Clean interface, and some good tweaks on top of Ubuntu. Main reason for switching was better docker support/performance. Don’t really miss anything. Some say Pop is the best for HiDPI screens, but personally I’ve disabled the entire HiDPI Daemon, with a triple monitor setup it was really buggy and slow so I decided to just take the shortcut and change the resolution of my laptop screen to make it readable.
- bmoyles 7y ago
  I switched from a Mac to a Thinkpad running Pop a bit over a year ago. I miss the Mac trackpad and gestures. I miss the trackpad size and the surface itself. Wiring up libinput-gestures helps some things but you still don't get things like pinch to zoom in Chrome, for example, and the overall experience is not nearly as polished. I miss Mac OS HiDPI support as well. Fractional scaling helps a bit, but switching from HiDPI to LoDPI and vice-versa (docking/undocking) can leave some apps scaled incorrectly, make a mess of your desktop, and I haven't been able to get a mixed configuration working where only my laptop monitor is scaled while my external display is not. I end up running this 1440p laptop screen at 1600x900 or 1920x1080 instead just to forgo the headache. The VPN clients we use at work were much more pleasant to use on macOS. We have the option of using one of two different OpenVPN solutions as alternatives, and they're fine, but again, the polish isn't there (little things like automatically reconnecting to the VPN without my intervention would be nice). I can't really think of anything else I'm really missing these days, though. Things I explicitly DON'T miss: Docker on Mac is a poor experience compared to natively running on Linux... Having a real Linux userspace by default is SO much more pleasant than dealing with Homebrew (which is great if you absolutely need it but I'm happier not having to deal with it at all anymore). I don't miss the Mac keyboard and touchbar. I don't miss troubleshooting things on macOS... it is incredibly opaque in comparison. Overall, I don't think I'll be switching back any time soon, but would love to see more attention to the overall fit and finish as far as the desktop experience goes.
darren0 7y ago
I have almost a violent reaction to gnome application UX. I find it terrible. It is so hard to figure out how to do anything.
- Barrin92 7y ago
  I felt the same way but I love it these days, I just used it wrong for a long time. It's very opinionated and you kind of have to adjust to the workflow. It makes more sense to treat it more like a tiling window manager than a traditional UI and use the keyboard extensively. I've reconfigured switching between workspaces to simpler hotkeys and together with the overview you can keep a lot of stuff open and navigate without things feeling cluttered.
Havoc 7y ago
Just support ubuntu. Given how short the cycle is between the two ( < 48 hrs apparently) I find it hard to believe any real value is added here. And no I'm not using a OS where just typing the OS name is dependent on keyboard layout. WTF is wrong with you people? Thats insane. No
- ulkesh 7y ago
  Who are you arguing with?
  - Havoc 7y ago
    >Who are you arguing with? Who's arguing? It's top level comment on a hn submission. Occasionally people post their opinions. Who am I arguing with? I didn't realize us vs them mindset is compulsory here.
    - ulkesh 7y ago
      Maybe you should re-read the comment. It reads as if you’re angry about something with little to no context as to what point you’re trying to make. Whatever works for you, I suppose.
      - dajohnson89 7y ago
        I sensed no anger in the comment, and it was a fairly well-made point. relax.
    - ben509 7y ago
      I suspect it was read as an argument because you wrote a few opinions in the form of a response, e.g. "And no I'm not using a OS where..."
    - joombaga 7y ago
      > And no I'm not using a OS where just typing the OS name is dependent on keyboard layout. WTF is wrong with you people? Thats insane. No That seems like a negative response to an implied suggestion. Taken together, and considering your tone, I think it's fair to call the suggestion and your response an argument, and it's understandable that one would question with whom you are arguing.
klysm 7y ago
Great project, but adjacent punctuation hurts me
jasoneckert 7y ago
I'll chime in here to show my support for Pop!_OS. Simply put, I like it so much, that it's been the host OS on my 2013 Mac Pro tube since early this year: https://triosdevelopers.com/jason.eckert/blog/Entries/2019/3/4_Pop!_OS__The_first_real_Linux_desktop.html https://triosdevelopers.com/jason.eckert/blog/Entries/2019/3...
- robbya 7y ago
  Great picture post. I've been curious about Pop for a while and I've had similar frustrations to what you mention. I also appreciate the mention that it works better outside a VM, I'll skip that.
blfr 7y ago
Since it's based on Ubuntu, can I just add a repo and install their desktop?
- ulkesh 7y ago
  Yes you can, I’ve done it in the past. I don’t recall the info, but you can search for it and should find it easily.
johnday 7y ago
No real indictment on the quality of the OS nor on the effort that people have put into the project, but why, oh why, did they pick a name which has two different special characters in it? It looks like they're trying hard to push this OS but they seem to have hurt their chances of SEO by creating a name which is both unpronouncable (pop exclamation mark underscore OS) and unsearchable.
- colonwqbang 7y ago
  While I agree the name is silly, it seems to work in Google. Both "pop os" and "pop!_os" returned their page as the first result for me.
  - dajohnson89 7y ago
    as a programmer, I really wish they're was a google setting that respected special characters. in general the algorithm seems to throw them all out discriminately. perhaps they're not indexed at all, for performance reasons?
- dajohnson89 7y ago
  it's something of a trend in music, to have special characters in the artist's name. especially with "underground" acts, it's almost like the more unpronounceable or SEO-able the name is, the cooler you are. at any rate, Yahoo! worked out ok, until it didn't.
- mattl 7y ago
  I thought maybe to match the length of “Ubuntu” but I guess not.
- fuzzfactor 7y ago
  It gets worse. When mounting the Intel ISO in Windows the resulting CASPER_P.10_ folder does not match the /casper_pop-os_19.10_amd64_intel_debug_21/ path designation for vmlinuz, initrd, & live-media-path found in boot\grub\grub.cfg & isolinux\isolinux.cfg IOW, mounts as a disk fileset of questionable bootability, confirmed fundamentally failing by SYSLINUX over USB. Even though it boots when burned to optical disk. This is an insidious defect, not present in the underlying Ubuntu distribution. Long folder names and/or special characters do not seem to be an ideal approach.
zwaps 7y ago
I have been using PopOS on my secondary, private laptop for two years. I installed it on a whim, and it just works for me. Nothing spectacular, just polished. Always been happy with it. Perhaps that's the biggest compliment for an OS?
c3534l 7y ago
I tried it last release. I don't see how it's any different than Ubuntu other than the company also makes laptops. I must be missing something.
- mackrevinack 7y ago
  I havnt used ubuntu in years so I'm not sure how they compare, but i think pop has different keyboard shortcuts, has nvidia drivers included, it uses a different app store gui, has a better/easier install walk-through with an option for full disk encryption. its basically just a lot if small things that make it easier to use right out of the box. that's what it seems like to me anyway
norswap 7y ago
Is it me or is it so weird that this "OS" (Linux distro) made by a laptop seller (admittedly, with a nerd clientele in mind) has for top selling point bundling a tool to manage your tensorflow installation? Also mentions of blockchain and IoT make this page look like a buzzword bingo.
- andrepd 7y ago
  Truly is a buzzword bingo. This paragraph: Imagine Development as a First-Class Citizen The cloud and devices of the future are running Linux. Accelerate your productivity by developing on the same platform that you deploy to. Your tools and programming languages are supported natively and only a command away. ??? I scrolled all the way down and I'm still not sure what the heck is this supposed to be. The selling points are window snapping, workspaces, and... a script to install tensorflow? It's all so bizarre.
andrepd 7y ago
Imagine Development as a First-Class Citizen The cloud and devices of the future are running Linux. Accelerate your productivity by developing on the same platform that you deploy to. Your tools and programming languages are supported natively and only a command away. ??? I scrolled all the way down and I'm still not sure what the heck is this supposed to be. The selling points are window snapping, workspaces, and... a script to install tensorflow? It's all so bizarre. We’re focusing on you in a different way than anyone else. Our approach centers on user testing and careful analysis with the singular goal of delivering the most productive and gorgeous platform for developing your next creation. It’s not just about making the easiest tool, it’s about making the best tool. And we’re just getting started. Nope, still not making sense. Discover what’s possible at the cross-roads of IOT and AI. Oh, please just stop.
- dubcanada 7y ago
  Its a Ubuntu distribution or OS.
- zelly 7y ago
  Took me a while to figure out it was a fork of Ubuntu. Does System76 maintain its own aptitude repos? What custom software does it come with (if any)? What architectures does it support? What is the default desktop environment? There's no detail anywhere. No screenshots either.
m463 7y ago
I wasn't sure what Pop!_OS was but found this page: https://pop.system76.com/docs/difference-between-pop-ubuntu/ https://pop.system76.com/docs/difference-between-pop-ubuntu/
7thaccount 7y ago
I've been using Pop_OS for ~6 months and have found it to be very nice.
earthboundkid 7y ago
I would be interested if anyone has put Pop on a Pixelbook Go and used it for web development.
0xdeadb00f 7y ago
What is it with Desktop oriented Linux and the disgusting default brown/grey UI? Dear Ubuntu, you're not doing anyone a favour by having such a gross color as the default. I can guarantee a lot of Mac + Windows users looking to switch see that gross color and discard Linux as a whole because of it. Remember, when regular users ask what Linux to pick, or google it, the first one to show up is usually Ubuntu. (These aren't technical people I'm talking about, they probably don't know or don't care that you can change the colors). How about a clean white, like OSX? or sleek, neat Black?
- pcr0 7y ago
  Kubuntu (KDE) has their blue/silver theme and Mint is a distinctive green. Ubuntu looks pretty drab in comparison.
- mackrevinack 7y ago
  zorin has a whiter than white ui and its the distro i always recommend zorin for windows users instead of ubuntu because it's laid out similar to windows. the first time I tried out ubuntu i kept clicking the right side of the window for the X and minimise buttons and lasted maybe half and hour then switched to mint
  - asymptotically2 7y ago
    >the first time I tried out ubuntu i kept clicking the right side of the window for the X and minimise buttons You can change this, but the option is hidden away somewhere (gnome-tweak-tool or some dconf option maybe).
spiraldancing 7y ago
I've been using Mint and Ubuntu for the past 5 years. Installed Pop on a spare laptop 18 months ago, to experiment with. Switched to Pop as my primary OS 3 months ago. There isn't much that's radically different ... it's just better, cleaner, more polished, smooth.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
kstenerud 7y ago
TBH, I took one look at the marketroid speak on the landing page and said "Hell no." But then I skimmed the HN discussion and found the following links: https://triosdevelopers.com/jason.eckert/blog/Entries/2019/3/4_Pop!_OS__The_first_real_Linux_desktop.html https://triosdevelopers.com/jason.eckert/blog/Entries/2019/3... https://pop.system76.com/docs/difference-between-pop-ubuntu/ https://pop.system76.com/docs/difference-between-pop-ubuntu/ Now I'm intrigued, and will try installing it on my laptop today.
- johnisgood 7y ago
  > The feedback from power users has been amazing - I’ll agree with the popular slogan for Pop!_OS as “the best OS for developers” wholeheartedly. I can install it and start working. No need to install Nvidia drivers, worry about LUKS disk encryption or customizing my desktop at all. It’s perfect, and I am faster than on Pop!_OS for general productivity than on Windows (and a LOT faster than on macOS). Oh come on. I will never understand this. For your desktop, surely you can afford to spend an hour configuring your system that should work for over a decade. I lost it at installing NVIDIA drivers, is it that difficult or time-consuming or what the heck? :D As far as full disk encryption goes, I would rather do it manually using Arch's wiki than trust someone else with it, especially because there are MANY ways to do it, and they probably had no plausible deniability in mind, which is a nope for anyone who is serious about it. There are lots of different layouts, parameters, and so on. But OK, for people who cannot install NVIDIA drivers or are not willing to spend a minute doing that, then yeah, sure, why not...
  - kstenerud 7y ago
    Why would I spend an hour configuring a machine when I don't have to? I don't spend an hour fiddling with a car before it's usable for me. Why should a computer be different? Why would I want plausible deniability with my encryption? I'm a developer, not a cia agent. I need to keep my company's code safe from random strangers, not governments.
    - johnisgood 7y ago
mmcnl 7y ago
I get that Pop!_OS is nice, but Ubuntu 19.10 is super polished out of the box as well. Even though System76 is arguing it is much more than just a reskinned Ubuntu, my final verdict is that it is just a reskinned Ubuntu.
playpause 7y ago
Styling it “Pop!_OS” seems like a bad idea if they want wide adoption. Should I type it like that every time? Or maybe omit the explanation mark, as in the HN submission title? Or just type it the same way as I am (presumably) supposed to pronounce it, “Pop OS”? I bet all three variants will be used regularly (and probably other, erroneous ones like “Pop_OS!” and “Pop_!OS”). What is the point in making a name ambiguous and difficult to get right? Why not just call it Pop OS?
tormeh 7y ago
Recently tried installing Ubuntu 19.04. The ISO thumb drive didn't work. Don't remember the details, but I tried nomodeset and some other usual(!) tricks. After 30 minutes I decided to just give Pop a whirl even though it's not as popular as Ubuntu. Worked with no fuss. That's the best argument I can think of. It's Pop OS for me from here on.
- marsrover 7y ago
  I’ve never had to try “usual” tricks to get Ubuntu installed, and I’ve installed it many times in the last 12 years. In fact, I’ve been installing Linux for around 18 years total and the instal has always been pretty smooth from what I can remember. I understand the gripes of people that say Linux doesn’t work out of the box and requires constant tweaking, but if you’re having usual problems even getting it installed, I’m curious what you’re doing during the install.
  - tormeh 7y ago
    No no, I'm not doing anything weird during the install, I'm having issues getting to the install. Self-built desktop with (in this case) AMD CPU and GPU, but nothing special.
    - marsrover 7y ago
      Have you tried using your onboard video card during install and installing AMD drivers after you get in? I’ve never actually used AMD components so maybe they make it more difficult to get the drivers or something.

192 points by surfsvammel 7y ago

Last time I've tried popos the installer didn't allow me to install with custom LVM on LUKS encrypted drive, is that fixed now?

marmaduke 7y ago

I recently installed CentOS 7.7 onto a Dell Latitude 5290 (Dell's equivalent of the ThinkPad x280) and found everything (audio, suspend wake, wifi, caméra, nvme) just works, and it gets twice the battery life as on Windows 10. I'm happy to see really nice marketing on Linux as a desktop OS but it seems over the top these days.

passthejoe 7y ago
Many things happen in the Linux kernel. It doesn't matter which distro you use as long as the kernel supports your hardware. Lots of distros have taken credit for things that happen outside of what they do.
- bardworx 7y ago
  Can you expand on your answer, please. I haven’t been following Linux kernel updates and wondering if you’re implying that they did a better job at supporting hardware or was there an organized push to support more hardware? Also, just out of curiosity, did additional hardware support take away from other areas of development or was this just natural since more Linux kernel devs just use different hardware and saw direct benefit?
  - passthejoe 7y ago
    A distribution like Ubuntu, Debian, Pop!_OS, Fedora, etc., is a collection of programs from many, many other projects and places. Almost every distribution configures things a slightly different way, but almost any other distribution can be configured that same way. Distros include a unique set of packages, but after installation you can remove what you don't want and add what you do. The single biggest factor in terms of sheer compatibility with your hardware is the Linux kernel, and every distribution has one. Some are older than others. Some projects remove things from the kernel and recompile. Others add things. But by and large, the Linux kernel is the same from distro to distro. Some ship newer kernels, to be sure, and some ship older ones. The Linux kernel developers maintain a few different kernels at the same time, some older with security patches, some newer with the latest features and drivers. Fedora ships new kernels all the time. If you have new hardware and have parts that are not working so great, new kernels will often solve your problems. It's not the distributions doing this, it's the kernel team. If you have old, stable hardware that works great with an old kernel, you might want to run something like Debian or CentOS -- if you like that sort of thing. Fedora or Arch are both great ways to get new hardware working its best, but that's because the Linux kernel developers are doing this work at the kernel level, and these distributions pick up new kernels very soon after they are released. If distro developers contribute back to the Linux kernel -- and many do, from Ubuntu and Fedora for sure, but for others, too -- everybody benefits from those improvements when a new kernel is released for the use of all distributions that want to package it.
    - jammygit 7y ago
      So why is it so many programs support/recommend Ubuntu rather than generic Linux? Is it primarily the testing environment that the devs use and the packaging formats the different distros use? I ask because I’m deciding between fedora and some Ubuntu flavour for my next OS and have used Ubuntu for the last 2 years
      - bardworx 7y ago
        Linux is just a shell [0], all the distos add their own GUI + specific mods. I’m guessing Ubuntu is recommended because it’s most widely available or has the least amount of “under the hood” mods that make others more challenging. [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux
      - grawprog 7y ago
        Testing environment does play a part. Different distros do sometimes use different paths for shared libraries and configs and such. They also sometimes have different versions of libraries in their repos. The programs may be written in a way that don't take this into account and may use an incompatible library or try and look for things in the wrong places.
      - passthejoe 7y ago
        It all comes down to preference, including what works for your hardware and your use case(s). Before GNOME 3, Ubuntu, Debian and Fedora all used GNOME 2, and they were more alike than different. I'd say the same is true today with these three and GNOME 3, though Ubuntu skins it somewhat differently. They really are more alike than you'd think.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
  - Elv13 7y ago
    Most hardware these day is designed for Linux first, then ported to Windows. Linux has a dominant market share in servers, IoT and mobile. While the Android kernel (and it's "drivers") isn't really Linux anymore, it usually doesn't matter much. The driver will exist and they will be implemented by the manufacturer (most of the time) or RedHat/IBM. If a chip (like wireless) has any use outside of laptops, then it's going to have some kind of support. Lenovo, Dell, Huawei and HP sell laptops with Linux pre-installed and supported.
    - pjmlp 7y ago
      On servers yes. IoT, we have plenty of embedded OS to chose from, with the FOSS alternatives going with MIT derived licenses. Android since Treble, classical Linux drivers hardly count. And anything graphics related is hardly Linux first, if ever.
- marmaduke 7y ago
  Maybe but CentOS is still on 3.10

phren0logy 7y ago

I have found this to be a great option for local deep learning. Painless install of nVidia drivers, CUDA, tensorflow, etc. Also works well for playing games through Steam.

proverbialbunny 7y ago

For anyone who has used Pop OS how does it compare to Mint?

xrd 7y ago
I'm not a power user. But I've been using Linux as my main desktop UI, usually Ubuntu, for the past dozen years or more. And I absolutely love PopOS on my system76 machine. It works flawlessly.
alexis_fr 7y ago
Pop OS uses Gnome 3.
dguaraglia 7y ago
In my experience it was slightly better, but then most of my problems with Mint were because of Cinnamon. Not sure if drivers or just Cinnamon’s compositor, but Cinnamon would become really choppy at times. Pop is smooth and painless to install. I ended up moving to Manjaro and Plasma eventually, but I’d recommend.
- jammygit 7y ago
  Ever try Manjaro for games?
- proverbialbunny 7y ago
  It's cpu vsync. It sucks. It's the only thing I change on Mint. I install my graphics drivers (nvidia), go to the nvidia settings control panel, turn on full composition (run the desktop through the gpu) which enables vsync on the graphics card. I then go into general (settings) and set vsync to none, disabling cpu vsync. This makes Mint as smooth as butter. It also improves youtube playback quite a bit.
  - dguaraglia 7y ago
    Oh, that makes sense. It definitely affects Plasma to a certain extent too. The default compositor uses OpenGL 2.0 and I could feel some amount of subperceptual lag that annoyed the crap of me after a bit. Switched to XRender and things have been great since.

ahbyb 7y ago

>We’re building an OS for the software developer, maker, and computer science professional who uses their computer as a tool to discover and create. Then have a simpler website... This website doesn't look like it's trying to appeal to a computer scientist.

rch 7y ago
The system is rather nice to use, but nothing about the branding of this distro appeals to anyone, as far as I can tell.
- unethical_ban 7y ago
  I have no idea what you or the GP post mean. The site loads pretty quickly, does the whole static background scoll thingy, and explains how you can use it and what its highlights are.
  - ahbyb 7y ago
    Let's say that it looks more like the Apple website, when I expect it to look like the Void Linux website.

tony 7y ago

Wanted to chime in and say Pop!_OS is the leader when it comes to HiDPI on Linux I believe. Especially if you have 4K monitors or a 3K/4K mix where the monitors need a different DPI set. PopOS uses a system to manage the scaling very well. https://support.system76.com/articles/hidpi-multi-monitor/ https://support.system76.com/articles/hidpi-multi-monitor/ The closest comparison I've seen elsewhere is fractional scaling in Gnome 3.32+: https://wiki.gnome.org/Initiatives/FracionalScaling https://wiki.gnome.org/Initiatives/FracionalScaling If you have a configuration / workflow for HiDPI on Linux, it'd be nice to see if there were other options / any other things out there.

minxomat 7y ago
Thanks for that info. If the OS is pleasent otherwise, I'll switch immediately from elementary OS. Their position on fractional scaling is: - it's bad because pixel perfectness! - you're wrong for wanting it - we don't care that MacOS does it well So annoying.
- benologist 7y ago
  You can enable fractional scaling in the elementary settings: https://elementaryos.stackexchange.com/questions/15057/can-i-scale-everything-at-125 https://elementaryos.stackexchange.com/questions/15057/can-i...
  - ac29 7y ago
    That's just fractional scaling of text. It does make a useful difference, but its not full fractional scaling.
- jancsika 7y ago
  > - we don't care that MacOS does it well At least in 2017 they claimed MacOS didn't do it well[1]. Do you have a link to something more recent where they changed their position? 1: https://medium.com/elementaryos/top-3-misconceptions-about-hidpi-f5ef493d7bf8 https://medium.com/elementaryos/top-3-misconceptions-about-h...

currymj 7y ago

use it every day, very pleasant distribution for a scientific workstation, especially the great nvidia driver support. the overall design seems to be for a knowledgeable computer user, but one who has no interest in configuring things.

jakebol 7y ago
Made the jump from OSX and for scientific users who don't to endlessly chase a working laptop setup PopOS and it's nvidia driver support (on a thinkpad) has been fantastic, highly recommend as well.

ydau 7y ago

Lambda Stack is an alternative to Pop!_OS's tensorman, which doesn't use containers: https://lambdalabs.com/lambda-stack-deep-learning-software https://lambdalabs.com/lambda-stack-deep-learning-software This is a one-line apt/aptitude installation for TensorFlow, PyTorch, CUDA, cuDNN, etc. When NVIDIA releases a new version of CUDA, you can simply apt-get upgrade to the latest version. Disclosure: I work for Lambda Labs.

mmstick 7y ago
Do you support the 19.10 release? The inability to compile or package every version and variant of TF, and GCC9 conflicts with both the CUDA SDK and Tensorflow, is precisely why we created Tensorman.
- ydau 7y ago
  Lambda Stack supports 16.04 and 18.04 at the moment. It's value prop is to enable people to easily install TensorFlow / PyTorch and their dependencies in a container-less fashion. Though it doesn't provide the isolation of containers. What I've learned from talking to customers is that many people don't care that much about handling multiple versions of the same framework. I wouldn't be surprised if you find that, like Lambda Stack, people are mainly using this product to easily get started with TensorFlow/Pytorch. Now that TensorFlow 2.0 is out, we will see a much more stable API. People won't have to change their code if TensorFlow bumps up a dependency version. For many, this will reduce the impetus for moving to containers.
  - zwaps 7y ago
    Install of PyTorch and CUDA is literally one line in anaconda. I don't remember what I did for tensorflow, but I have it up and running and I am quite the computer phillistine so it could not have been much harder. Maybe the second part is more of a value prop or good point of focus?
seabrookmx 7y ago
What does this have to do with the parent post?

anewguy9000 7y ago

just popping in to say thank you to the dev team if youre seeing this. pop os is slick. i ditched win10 for it and it gives me a hope for the linux desktop i havent felt since 1999!

mackrevinack 7y ago
I just switched to pop from Windows 2 weeks ago. i had been trying out various distros on another laptop over the last few years but I would only mess around for a few days and then go back to windows. switching over completely has worked out a lot better because it is forcing me to learn a lot faster. having Windows running in a vm is a lot better for my mental health as well. I don't have to worry about it taking control over my computer at random hours to do some updates

kraig911 7y ago

I'm seriously thinking about it. I'm just addicted to creative cloud for stuff. Anyone know how to get it working with after effects and adobe xd?

techntoke 7y ago
1. Have two video cards and run Windows on the pass-through via KVM. 2. Dual-boot 3. Keep asking that Adobe make their software compatible with Linux.
- ulkesh 7y ago
  Or PCI-Passthrough which, while not as easy to set up as it should be, works amazingly well.
  - anewguy9000 7y ago
    can someone explain dual card kvm or pci passthrough? I'm dual booting but if there's a way to ease the pain id love to hear it
    - asymptotically2 7y ago
      You can give a virtual machine full control of one of your graphics cards. https://wiki.debian.org/VGAPassthrough https://wiki.debian.org/VGAPassthrough
- kraig911 7y ago
  I just use a laptop. I meet with people in person all the time in my consulting. Change things in front of them literally on the fly.
Klonoar 7y ago
Here's an alternative hot take on this. You gotta cut the Creative Cloud addiction. Unless you're a full-time designer (especially if working in print or something), alternative tools exist, and it's about figuring out how to move and work in them. No, GIMP isn't in the conversation. People complain about web tech, but I've found that it's honestly really the best bet for new design technology. Figma et all are good enough for most stuff, many have PSD support, and better collaboration stories on top of all that. My two cents, at least. I could be wrong, but this is what I'm trying to do - my logic became "if I'm gonna pay monthly for this shit, why am I paying Adobe?". They're not even truly native on macOS and it's run worse for me with each update.

islanderfun 7y ago

Just finished updating my laptop as I make this comment. Super smooth, loving it!

tracker1 7y ago

Hopefully this means navi is fully supported... already drained enough hours trying to get things all working. Wound up reverting to the last Ubuntu LTS.

stanislavb 7y ago

Is there someone here who migrated from Mac OS to Pop!_OS? If yes, what was your experience and what did you miss?

neor 7y ago
I switched recently and I love it. Clean interface, and some good tweaks on top of Ubuntu. Main reason for switching was better docker support/performance. Don’t really miss anything. Some say Pop is the best for HiDPI screens, but personally I’ve disabled the entire HiDPI Daemon, with a triple monitor setup it was really buggy and slow so I decided to just take the shortcut and change the resolution of my laptop screen to make it readable.
bmoyles 7y ago
I switched from a Mac to a Thinkpad running Pop a bit over a year ago. I miss the Mac trackpad and gestures. I miss the trackpad size and the surface itself. Wiring up libinput-gestures helps some things but you still don't get things like pinch to zoom in Chrome, for example, and the overall experience is not nearly as polished. I miss Mac OS HiDPI support as well. Fractional scaling helps a bit, but switching from HiDPI to LoDPI and vice-versa (docking/undocking) can leave some apps scaled incorrectly, make a mess of your desktop, and I haven't been able to get a mixed configuration working where only my laptop monitor is scaled while my external display is not. I end up running this 1440p laptop screen at 1600x900 or 1920x1080 instead just to forgo the headache. The VPN clients we use at work were much more pleasant to use on macOS. We have the option of using one of two different OpenVPN solutions as alternatives, and they're fine, but again, the polish isn't there (little things like automatically reconnecting to the VPN without my intervention would be nice). I can't really think of anything else I'm really missing these days, though. Things I explicitly DON'T miss: Docker on Mac is a poor experience compared to natively running on Linux... Having a real Linux userspace by default is SO much more pleasant than dealing with Homebrew (which is great if you absolutely need it but I'm happier not having to deal with it at all anymore). I don't miss the Mac keyboard and touchbar. I don't miss troubleshooting things on macOS... it is incredibly opaque in comparison. Overall, I don't think I'll be switching back any time soon, but would love to see more attention to the overall fit and finish as far as the desktop experience goes.

darren0 7y ago

I have almost a violent reaction to gnome application UX. I find it terrible. It is so hard to figure out how to do anything.

Barrin92 7y ago
I felt the same way but I love it these days, I just used it wrong for a long time. It's very opinionated and you kind of have to adjust to the workflow. It makes more sense to treat it more like a tiling window manager than a traditional UI and use the keyboard extensively. I've reconfigured switching between workspaces to simpler hotkeys and together with the overview you can keep a lot of stuff open and navigate without things feeling cluttered.

Havoc 7y ago

Just support ubuntu. Given how short the cycle is between the two ( < 48 hrs apparently) I find it hard to believe any real value is added here. And no I'm not using a OS where just typing the OS name is dependent on keyboard layout. WTF is wrong with you people? Thats insane. No

ulkesh 7y ago
Who are you arguing with?
- Havoc 7y ago
  >Who are you arguing with? Who's arguing? It's top level comment on a hn submission. Occasionally people post their opinions. Who am I arguing with? I didn't realize us vs them mindset is compulsory here.
  - ulkesh 7y ago
    Maybe you should re-read the comment. It reads as if you’re angry about something with little to no context as to what point you’re trying to make. Whatever works for you, I suppose.
    - dajohnson89 7y ago
      I sensed no anger in the comment, and it was a fairly well-made point. relax.
  - ben509 7y ago
    I suspect it was read as an argument because you wrote a few opinions in the form of a response, e.g. "And no I'm not using a OS where..."
  - joombaga 7y ago
    > And no I'm not using a OS where just typing the OS name is dependent on keyboard layout. WTF is wrong with you people? Thats insane. No That seems like a negative response to an implied suggestion. Taken together, and considering your tone, I think it's fair to call the suggestion and your response an argument, and it's understandable that one would question with whom you are arguing.

klysm 7y ago

Great project, but adjacent punctuation hurts me

jasoneckert 7y ago

I'll chime in here to show my support for Pop!_OS. Simply put, I like it so much, that it's been the host OS on my 2013 Mac Pro tube since early this year: https://triosdevelopers.com/jason.eckert/blog/Entries/2019/3/4_Pop!_OS__The_first_real_Linux_desktop.html https://triosdevelopers.com/jason.eckert/blog/Entries/2019/3...

robbya 7y ago
Great picture post. I've been curious about Pop for a while and I've had similar frustrations to what you mention. I also appreciate the mention that it works better outside a VM, I'll skip that.

blfr 7y ago

Since it's based on Ubuntu, can I just add a repo and install their desktop?

ulkesh 7y ago
Yes you can, I’ve done it in the past. I don’t recall the info, but you can search for it and should find it easily.

johnday 7y ago

No real indictment on the quality of the OS nor on the effort that people have put into the project, but why, oh why, did they pick a name which has two different special characters in it? It looks like they're trying hard to push this OS but they seem to have hurt their chances of SEO by creating a name which is both unpronouncable (pop exclamation mark underscore OS) and unsearchable.

colonwqbang 7y ago
While I agree the name is silly, it seems to work in Google. Both "pop os" and "pop!_os" returned their page as the first result for me.
- dajohnson89 7y ago
  as a programmer, I really wish they're was a google setting that respected special characters. in general the algorithm seems to throw them all out discriminately. perhaps they're not indexed at all, for performance reasons?
dajohnson89 7y ago
it's something of a trend in music, to have special characters in the artist's name. especially with "underground" acts, it's almost like the more unpronounceable or SEO-able the name is, the cooler you are. at any rate, Yahoo! worked out ok, until it didn't.
mattl 7y ago
I thought maybe to match the length of “Ubuntu” but I guess not.
fuzzfactor 7y ago
It gets worse. When mounting the Intel ISO in Windows the resulting CASPER_P.10_ folder does not match the /casper_pop-os_19.10_amd64_intel_debug_21/ path designation for vmlinuz, initrd, & live-media-path found in boot\grub\grub.cfg & isolinux\isolinux.cfg IOW, mounts as a disk fileset of questionable bootability, confirmed fundamentally failing by SYSLINUX over USB. Even though it boots when burned to optical disk. This is an insidious defect, not present in the underlying Ubuntu distribution. Long folder names and/or special characters do not seem to be an ideal approach.

zwaps 7y ago

I have been using PopOS on my secondary, private laptop for two years. I installed it on a whim, and it just works for me. Nothing spectacular, just polished. Always been happy with it. Perhaps that's the biggest compliment for an OS?

c3534l 7y ago

I tried it last release. I don't see how it's any different than Ubuntu other than the company also makes laptops. I must be missing something.

mackrevinack 7y ago
I havnt used ubuntu in years so I'm not sure how they compare, but i think pop has different keyboard shortcuts, has nvidia drivers included, it uses a different app store gui, has a better/easier install walk-through with an option for full disk encryption. its basically just a lot if small things that make it easier to use right out of the box. that's what it seems like to me anyway

norswap 7y ago

Is it me or is it so weird that this "OS" (Linux distro) made by a laptop seller (admittedly, with a nerd clientele in mind) has for top selling point bundling a tool to manage your tensorflow installation? Also mentions of blockchain and IoT make this page look like a buzzword bingo.

andrepd 7y ago
Truly is a buzzword bingo. This paragraph: Imagine Development as a First-Class Citizen The cloud and devices of the future are running Linux. Accelerate your productivity by developing on the same platform that you deploy to. Your tools and programming languages are supported natively and only a command away. ??? I scrolled all the way down and I'm still not sure what the heck is this supposed to be. The selling points are window snapping, workspaces, and... a script to install tensorflow? It's all so bizarre.

andrepd 7y ago

Imagine Development as a First-Class Citizen The cloud and devices of the future are running Linux. Accelerate your productivity by developing on the same platform that you deploy to. Your tools and programming languages are supported natively and only a command away. ??? I scrolled all the way down and I'm still not sure what the heck is this supposed to be. The selling points are window snapping, workspaces, and... a script to install tensorflow? It's all so bizarre. We’re focusing on you in a different way than anyone else. Our approach centers on user testing and careful analysis with the singular goal of delivering the most productive and gorgeous platform for developing your next creation. It’s not just about making the easiest tool, it’s about making the best tool. And we’re just getting started. Nope, still not making sense. Discover what’s possible at the cross-roads of IOT and AI. Oh, please just stop.

dubcanada 7y ago
Its a Ubuntu distribution or OS.
zelly 7y ago
Took me a while to figure out it was a fork of Ubuntu. Does System76 maintain its own aptitude repos? What custom software does it come with (if any)? What architectures does it support? What is the default desktop environment? There's no detail anywhere. No screenshots either.

m463 7y ago

I wasn't sure what Pop!_OS was but found this page: https://pop.system76.com/docs/difference-between-pop-ubuntu/ https://pop.system76.com/docs/difference-between-pop-ubuntu/

7thaccount 7y ago

I've been using Pop_OS for ~6 months and have found it to be very nice.

earthboundkid 7y ago

I would be interested if anyone has put Pop on a Pixelbook Go and used it for web development.

0xdeadb00f 7y ago

What is it with Desktop oriented Linux and the disgusting default brown/grey UI? Dear Ubuntu, you're not doing anyone a favour by having such a gross color as the default. I can guarantee a lot of Mac + Windows users looking to switch see that gross color and discard Linux as a whole because of it. Remember, when regular users ask what Linux to pick, or google it, the first one to show up is usually Ubuntu. (These aren't technical people I'm talking about, they probably don't know or don't care that you can change the colors). How about a clean white, like OSX? or sleek, neat Black?

pcr0 7y ago
Kubuntu (KDE) has their blue/silver theme and Mint is a distinctive green. Ubuntu looks pretty drab in comparison.
mackrevinack 7y ago
zorin has a whiter than white ui and its the distro i always recommend zorin for windows users instead of ubuntu because it's laid out similar to windows. the first time I tried out ubuntu i kept clicking the right side of the window for the X and minimise buttons and lasted maybe half and hour then switched to mint
- asymptotically2 7y ago
  >the first time I tried out ubuntu i kept clicking the right side of the window for the X and minimise buttons You can change this, but the option is hidden away somewhere (gnome-tweak-tool or some dconf option maybe).

spiraldancing 7y ago

I've been using Mint and Ubuntu for the past 5 years. Installed Pop on a spare laptop 18 months ago, to experiment with. Switched to Pop as my primary OS 3 months ago. There isn't much that's radically different ... it's just better, cleaner, more polished, smooth.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

kstenerud 7y ago

TBH, I took one look at the marketroid speak on the landing page and said "Hell no." But then I skimmed the HN discussion and found the following links: https://triosdevelopers.com/jason.eckert/blog/Entries/2019/3/4_Pop!_OS__The_first_real_Linux_desktop.html https://triosdevelopers.com/jason.eckert/blog/Entries/2019/3... https://pop.system76.com/docs/difference-between-pop-ubuntu/ https://pop.system76.com/docs/difference-between-pop-ubuntu/ Now I'm intrigued, and will try installing it on my laptop today.

johnisgood 7y ago
> The feedback from power users has been amazing - I’ll agree with the popular slogan for Pop!_OS as “the best OS for developers” wholeheartedly. I can install it and start working. No need to install Nvidia drivers, worry about LUKS disk encryption or customizing my desktop at all. It’s perfect, and I am faster than on Pop!_OS for general productivity than on Windows (and a LOT faster than on macOS). Oh come on. I will never understand this. For your desktop, surely you can afford to spend an hour configuring your system that should work for over a decade. I lost it at installing NVIDIA drivers, is it that difficult or time-consuming or what the heck? :D As far as full disk encryption goes, I would rather do it manually using Arch's wiki than trust someone else with it, especially because there are MANY ways to do it, and they probably had no plausible deniability in mind, which is a nope for anyone who is serious about it. There are lots of different layouts, parameters, and so on. But OK, for people who cannot install NVIDIA drivers or are not willing to spend a minute doing that, then yeah, sure, why not...
- kstenerud 7y ago
  Why would I spend an hour configuring a machine when I don't have to? I don't spend an hour fiddling with a car before it's usable for me. Why should a computer be different? Why would I want plausible deniability with my encryption? I'm a developer, not a cia agent. I need to keep my company's code safe from random strangers, not governments.
  - johnisgood 7y ago

mmcnl 7y ago

I get that Pop!_OS is nice, but Ubuntu 19.10 is super polished out of the box as well. Even though System76 is arguing it is much more than just a reskinned Ubuntu, my final verdict is that it is just a reskinned Ubuntu.

playpause 7y ago

Styling it “Pop!_OS” seems like a bad idea if they want wide adoption. Should I type it like that every time? Or maybe omit the explanation mark, as in the HN submission title? Or just type it the same way as I am (presumably) supposed to pronounce it, “Pop OS”? I bet all three variants will be used regularly (and probably other, erroneous ones like “Pop_OS!” and “Pop_!OS”). What is the point in making a name ambiguous and difficult to get right? Why not just call it Pop OS?

tormeh 7y ago

Recently tried installing Ubuntu 19.04. The ISO thumb drive didn't work. Don't remember the details, but I tried nomodeset and some other usual(!) tricks. After 30 minutes I decided to just give Pop a whirl even though it's not as popular as Ubuntu. Worked with no fuss. That's the best argument I can think of. It's Pop OS for me from here on.

marsrover 7y ago
I’ve never had to try “usual” tricks to get Ubuntu installed, and I’ve installed it many times in the last 12 years. In fact, I’ve been installing Linux for around 18 years total and the instal has always been pretty smooth from what I can remember. I understand the gripes of people that say Linux doesn’t work out of the box and requires constant tweaking, but if you’re having usual problems even getting it installed, I’m curious what you’re doing during the install.
- tormeh 7y ago
  No no, I'm not doing anything weird during the install, I'm having issues getting to the install. Self-built desktop with (in this case) AMD CPU and GPU, but nothing special.
  - marsrover 7y ago
    Have you tried using your onboard video card during install and installing AMD drivers after you get in? I’ve never actually used AMD components so maybe they make it more difficult to get the drivers or something.