15 ms·

5 Years of Pop _OS

340 points by pbui 4y ago

bumblebritches5 4y ago
pipeline_peak 4y ago
bugfix-66 4y ago
I've owned three System76 desktops. Highly recommended if you want a Linux desktop computer.
- rebeccaskinner 4y ago
  I've had two system 76 laptops and I've been happy with them. The company seems to do a decent amount of work on upstreaming fixes they make to software and they generally seem to be good members of the open source community. I'm looking to buy my first new desktop in a long time as soon as the 4090's are available, and was originally planning to go with System76, but I've heard some people say the cooling in the desktop systems is really bad, to the point that it causes stability or thermal throttling issues. Since I've only seen a couple of data points, I'm curious if you have anything to add about the thermals and whether it's something worth considering as I'm looking around for a new desktop.
- atomicnumber3 4y ago
  I had one of their systems, a gazelle professional 4 if I recall right, it must've been around, oh say, 2013? And it was quite a nice machine, great linux compat, the 4-core i7 in it performed quite well and it let me load it up with RAM. It wasn't too heavy or anything and I liked the display. But the battery life. Good lord. 45 minutes, 55 if I messed and fussed with power settings and such. Basically gaming-laptop-tier "more like a UPS than a battery" battery performance. My next laptop was a thinkpad T440s and it had similarly good linux compat and it performed much better for battery life - I got an i5 in that one and saw 8ish hours of battery life, and it had a hot-swap feature where I could swap in a big-ass battery once I depleted the slim one and get an additional 20(!!) something hours of battery life on a single boot. Great for car trips and heavy all-day use like at conferences. But then superfish and I swore Lenovo had lost me for-ever. So my current laptop is an XPS13 and I get 8-10ish hours off one charge with it, and it is super thin and the only Linux issue I've had is needing a very new kernel when I bought it new a year and a half or so ago, new enough that Linux Mint didn't ship it OOTB and the live ISO couldn't get WiFi, so I installed Arch instead, where their latest install image did indeed have a sufficiently new kernel. So I'm a happy XPS user right now and I've found I like the 13" form factor. Would I be disappointed on battery performance if I went with a system76 machine for my next laptop?
  - acidburnNSA 4y ago
    I am on a Lemur Pro from them, and it gets 14 hours of battery life.
    - arthurcolle 4y ago
      That's amazing. Are you for real?
      - acidburnNSA 4y ago
        Yeah, I find it's totally as advertised. Charged it up for a flight last week. Worked the whole time. Turned it on in the hotel afterwards and it had 70% left. https://system76.com/laptops/lemur https://system76.com/laptops/lemur
        mattl 4y ago
        How’s the rest of it? The trackpad, the sound, microphones, webcam, etc? If I had one of these would I need a bunch of external stuff to make it decent?
        seibelj 4y ago
        The only issue I’ve had is randomly the trackpad will stop working, then I reboot. I think I also made a few tweaks a while ago to some config for them. Otherwise, top notch machine.
        mattl 4y ago
        That’s good to hear. In the past their laptops have been rebadged affairs and not great while their desktops were very solid.
        pxc 4y ago
        They haven't released their first in-house laptop yet. Some of their new laptops are reportedly quite good, but they're still rebadged Clevos with custom UEFIs and other firmware mods.
- jrootabega 4y ago
  I would have bought one long ago if they hadn't included binding arbitration in their terms of sale. It looks like they still do. https://system76.com/terms https://system76.com/terms (In that spirit, I need to look into moving off Ubuntu in response to self-promotion being added to system commands.)
agundy 4y ago
It sounds like they are taking a big bet on rewriting large components of the OS custom for Pop OS in Rust. I wish them the best but it sounds like a big commitment and I’m holding my breath for them to succeed. I’m curious how System76 sees Pop_OS fitting into their business model which is primarily hardware.
- stingraycharles 4y ago
  Yeah I never understood why they are spending so much time on this. Seems like they would be better off improving the hardware offering, or just making generic integrations which work on any Linux distribution?
  - tomschlick 4y ago
    > or just making generic integrations which work on any Linux distribution Thats how you make something that doesnt look good or function that well because you're focusing on too much. They are taking the Apple path with linux. Make the hardware and make the software tailored for the hardware for a great experience. Yes they support people installing on stuff other than their hardware, but they make sure their hardware is supported and runs well.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - stingraycharles 4y ago
      But you need to have a pretty large ecosystem / platform to be the size of Apple to be actually benefiting from the huge investment it takes to maintain an OS / distribution like that. Especially the rewrite to Rust, it just makes me wonder the costs / benefits of this. Isn't there a more reasonable middle-ground, e.g. just saying "we officially support Ubuntu / Fedora" or something like that, and making sure those two distros actually work well out of the box? As an anecdote, I have got my framework laptop this summer, and it works really well out of the box pretty much anywhere. I'd argue that framework is a pretty direct competitor to system76, except framework seems to be innovating on the hardware part rather than the Linux distro part. Which makes way more sense business-wise to me.
chatterhead 4y ago
Congrats! Pop_OS rebuilt in Rust?? Sounds pretty sweet. Really wish I had enough money for a System76 PC. Go on there at least 10 times a year and build out a PC or two just to dream... Sorry for abandoning my cart with ridiculous PC specs built for one of those hoodie wearing hackers in media photos. Edit: I'm posting too fast so for the person commenting on what boards they use... https://tech-docs.system76.com https://tech-docs.system76.com - here is your answer.
- listic 4y ago
  Are their desktop PCs built around standard boards? I presume their 'Thelio' is Mini-ITX form factor? It sounds condescending of them to omit the exact model names of their hardware in their 'tech specs' section. I, for one, would like to know what exact model of motherboard I would be getting when I choose 'AMD' or 'Intel Advanced' in the 'Platform' section. Same goes for RAM, SSD, etc.
  - twblalock 4y ago
    The exact model? That seems like a higher standard than other computer companies are expected to meet. It sounds like you ought to build your own PC if you care about every single component.
    - listic 4y ago
      Maybe you're right. I never bought a PC from any of the name brand 'computer companies' and maybe there's no sense to start now. Just wanted to compare their Thelio mini PC to my last PC setup in a NCASE M1* Mini-ITX case and found that their 'tech specs' page (intentionally?) lacking. *NCASE M1 cases are discontinued, but are widely available secondhand.
  - pbhjpbhj 4y ago
    I looked at a Thelios, they have great info on GitHub including top-down images of the system internals, https://media.githubusercontent.com/media/system76/tech-docs/master/src/pictures/thelio-major/thelio-major-b1/thelio-major-b1_internal-diagram_config.png https://media.githubusercontent.com/media/system76/tech-docs... On this one you can see they use a Gigabyte X299 Aorus Ultra Gaming Pro. However, it's common to do replacements, so am exact model is only going to be possible with bespoke systems IME. Did you try asking, most people only want a specific bundle of features and don't care about the model numbers per se.
rabbitofdeath 4y ago
Just a happy Pop user- been rock solid for me for 3 years- the features they add are really seamless and well thought out. Congrats on 5 years!
nu11ptr 4y ago
I really like Pop Os. I've always liked Debian descended distros, and prior to this I was using Ubuntu. While I like it, I always found a lot of rough edges esp. when it came to proprietary drivers, etc. where things didn't always work without some tweaking. Pop Os on the other hand seems to "just work" - it is like a polished version of Ubuntu with a nice selection of apps in the Pop Shop. Theme is pretty nice as well as a bonus.
- giancarlostoro 4y ago
  I'm always looking for a "developer" distro, and POP_OS! feels to be the only one that fits that niche for me.
- qbasic_forever 4y ago
  Yep I've had the exact same experience. I love that pop is setup out of the box to work well with flatpaks and flathub too--I rarely have to mess with out of date debs, the pain of snaps, etc. The gnome extensions they pack in for tiling windows, adding desktop icons, are fantastic too. It just works.
  - ekianjo 4y ago
    The fact that they include flatpaks together with normal packages is confusing though. They appear just the same in the pop_OS store and there are many duplicates because of that. Very inconsistent behavior for installation: flatpaks require no specific rights but normal packages require sudo password. Not a good UX in that regard.
    - nu11ptr 4y ago
      While I would prefer more debs personally, the flatpaks are clearly marked as such in the store
      - tehbeard 4y ago
        The confusion is there's no info on what's different between them presented to the user. I know vaguely that flatpak is "like docker" in terms of wrapping dependencies. I have no clue how that translates to missing features of compatibility issues with other apps. Even knowing which is more up to date isn't shown. Or why i should pick one over the other. The multiple packaging types confounded my efforts to debug an issue I had with VLC, as i initially thought it was a flatpak permissions problem.. No evidence, just hearsay by what i'd seen of flatpak in general online.
inetknght 4y ago
I have a Serval WS with Pop OS! using Cinnamon. Battery life sucks (~40 minutes) if I forget to turn off the discrete GPU. But without the discrete GPU, the battery life... still sucks at about 4 hours. Not bad for desktop-class hardware in a laptop form factor. I had a loaner laptop briefly when the screen went out. Loaner laptop battery lasted all day. I don't remember the model though
myself248 4y ago
I'm a Linux idiot, just got sick of Windows, and took the plunge in 2016. (After some ill-fated tinkering in 1996 with Slackware, but we don't speak of that.) I started with Ubuntu and had a pretty good time for a year or two, until a dist-upgrade broke everything. Luckily /home/ was easy to restore from backup. So I was fine for another two years on Ubuntu until another dist-upgrade broke everything again. Sensing a pattern, I decided to give Pop a try. I'm now about a year into Pop and sure enough, a few weeks ago a dist-upgrade broke a lot of things, but unlike Ubuntu, I was able to find System76's tech support page, I ran the commands it suggested, and everything's fine again! https://support.system76.com/articles/package-manager-ubuntu/ https://support.system76.com/articles/package-manager-ubuntu... Miraculous, I tell you. I still can't figure out why there are multiple versions of some things in the Pop Shop, but they all seem to work, so I'm not complaining, it's just weird. Someday I'll figure out this whole tiling-windows thing, but I think that's for people with bigger screens so I turned it off so my alt-tab reflexes work again. In general, it just works, and that's more than I can say for Windows or Ubuntu at this point.
- julianlam 4y ago
  I really tried to like the window tiling, and I definitely see the advantages, but didn't quite get to the point at which the shortcuts were second nature. There were also a couple janky bugs at the time, but perhaps they've been fixed now. The cool thing its it's so darn easy to switch back and forth!
- colordrops 4y ago
  If you look at my comment history, you'll see I'm a bit of a broken record, but my records don't break anymore after switching to NixOS. It was precisely the breakage after every upgrade that got me to try it. With declarative config-based reproduceable deployment that can be rolled-back, the broken OS doesn't need to be a thing anymore.
  - sanroot99 4y ago
    I just found peace in using debain with bootable btrfs snapshots
julianlam 4y ago
Been a happy Pop!_OS user since seeing it recommended here on HN. I feel like its polish combined with its hardline stance against snaps makes it an easy choice to switch to for Ubuntu users.
kccqzy 4y ago
I am quite a fan of their Pop!_Shell. I wanted to improve my desktop efficiency by using a tiling window manager; I tried i3wm and XMonad, but none of them really clicked with me. Finally, I decided to try the Pop!_Shell tiling mode and it was awesome. (Hardcore tiling window manager fans might not agree but Pop!_Shell is a lot more newbie-friendly.) Furthermore, you don't even have to install Pop!_OS to get Pop!_Shell. For example my preferred distribution is openSUSE Tumbleweed with GNOME, so I just need to sudo zypper install gnome-shell-extension-pop-shell wget https://github.com/pop-os/shell/raw/master_jammy/scripts/configure.sh # configure.sh mostly configures keyboard shortcuts. Inspect it before running. sh ./configure.sh And then enable it. That's all.
- Daegalus 4y ago
  it's the same on Fedora. I use Fedora Gnome with Pop Shell. works great. hopefully they keep maintaining it for gnome after they release cosmic.
  - ThatMedicIsASpy 4y ago
    I tried pop shell on fedora and ran into bugs. Trying to get nvidia drivers to work crashed the system so I just went back to pop
jeffnappi 4y ago
Been a happy PopOS user on Thinkpad X1 Extreme for about 3 years now. Big fan
- lioeters 4y ago
  Last year I finally replaced my old Macbook Pro with a Thinkpad running Pop OS. I'm so pleased with the operating system and the hardware. I want to support System76, but I read some not so positive anecdotes about their laptop's build quality, so went with the Thinkpad. I also wanted/needed a centered keyboard layout without numberpad, which they don't offer. Their desktop models look nice, but feel like a luxury when I can get a custom-built PC and just install Linux on it. Anyway, Pop OS is wonderful. I actually installed it on the old MBP too, and gave it new life. In addition: the Nordic theme makes for a beautiful interface, it's like what macOS should have become. https://github.com/EliverLara/Nordic https://github.com/EliverLara/Nordic
carom 4y ago
I was happy with my two S76s but the keyboard wore out on both.
donatj 4y ago
Coincidentally, the System76 blog RSS feed started 404-ing about midnight CST last night. https://blog.system76.com/rss https://blog.system76.com/rss They don't seem to have a replacement URL up.
jwrallie 4y ago
Pop OS is great, specially their system76-power package, which allows my Nvidia Optimus based laptop to run just fine. I prefer running KDE Plasma, so I'm using Kubuntu these days, I would love to see a Plasma spin-off of Pop, but I won't blame them if they prefer to stick to Gnome only and focus on consistency.
- brnt 4y ago
  I also element their lack of KDE option, but as I understand it, they're moving away from Gnome too, to their own DE.
blondin 4y ago
i am not happy with my galago pro. system76 is a name that often comes up when you ask about linux laptops. so i decided to try their galago pro. and i have to be honest here. as a long time macbook user, this is definitely a downgrade for the price. especially when you can get an M1 and a better experience for the same price. the trackpad is weird and does not work well. i apply too much pressure for my clicks to register. my taps, however, would register with me barely touching the pad, or finger scrolling. i have disabled tapping. and natural scrolling does not feel natural. now, having page-up and page-down keys above the left and right arrow keys is a bad idea. it gives a bad user experience. but of course, it's linux, you can remap the keys. you need a handful of commands for that. and since you are on a custom OS, you need to look at the base OSes. lucky me, someone wrote a blog post for ubuntu. system76's discord is not (in my experience) where you get help. it is full of people who will ignore you. my impression is that they live in a bubble and are all doing similar things. you get the silent treatment for not doing things their way. not sure what people are happy about with pop!_os. i spend my time looking through ubuntu and debian documentation. pop!_os docs are a series of articles and they are lacking. i am happy with what ubuntu and debian are doing! this custom OS does not make much difference in my opinion. all that said, i will continue to support system76.
- int_19h 4y ago
  Star Labs is another option if you want hardware assembled specifically to run Linux on it.
- woopwoop24 4y ago
  tl:dr not a big fan so much +1 for the worst possible alignment of the keys above the arrow keys, is why mine is not used anymore it just pisses me off constantly. (i reprogrammed the keyboard but it still is a bad experience even when disabled or remapped) the speakers on the bottom are also not doing a great either. i think i will get a framework as the next one. Also PopOS is confusing to configure, much rather have plain debian and live with the pain of setting it up, but it behaves deterministic.
robotburrito 4y ago
I liked pop_os for a while, but sadly gnome just freezes randomly on me now. I have seen it's an issue that many others have. Hopefully it's just my hardware or something and not indicative of a larger problem with the distro. When it is not crashing it's quite nice!
- agravier 4y ago
  I get that on Ubuntu after a few days of uptime.
NayamAmarshe 4y ago
I tried Pop!_OS a few years ago and I really like their marketing and how they push Pop!_OS as a big name in the distro game. The only thing I dislike is their shell, the ugly pastel colors are really off putting along with some weird design choices and it wasn't very stable the last time I tried it a few years ago. Makes me wonder why ZorinOS isn't as popular even though it has existed for twice as long. Maybe because of a lacking hardware company behind it? I think ZorinOS is a more consumer friendly distro than Pop!_OS (which I consider a nerd distro) and might have a better chance at being accepted as a mainstream distro than the others I've tried.
vmcmkg 4y ago
pjmlp 4y ago
And this is why the Linux desktop is domed to be a VM inside other OSes, or filled with Electron apps. Gtk, Qt, XFCE, GNOME and KDE applications will look out of place in the new desktop, and most likely they will never create a Rust based set of frameworks that can match the above ones on features, development tooling, and extensibility points for desktop developers.
- RealStickman_ 4y ago
  XFCE and Gnome are GTK, while KDE is QT. As long as they provide matching themes for QT and GTK it should be fine.
  - pjmlp 4y ago
    You are missing the picture that they provide full development experience stack for desktop development, similar to Framework/Kits/Components on major mainstream desktop and mobile OSes. Like always many of these experiences fail short by focusing on Look and leaving out the other 90% of the development experience.
    - smoldesu 4y ago
      GNOME and Qt both offer full-fledged UI frameworks. It sounds like you haven't given either a try before, but they're both quite capable. Programming for them doesn't feel any different than writing a Cocoa UI or an Android app or a website. It's just... another target.
      - pjmlp 4y ago
        They do, but Pop_OS new Rust based destkop doesn't, that is the point. Have been around the Linux world long enough, all the way back to Slackware 2.0, and when getting FOSS software meant buying CDs from Walnut Creek.
- tlamponi 4y ago
  I, and most people I worked with, couldn't care less if the border/title bar looks slightly odd, the same happens on Windows a lot. The issue ain't different WMs or toolkits, but a lock-in effort from Microsoft with HW and SW vendors, they still had to create WSL to actually improve their dev experience though, could not manage that without. Most people ain't technical experienced or interested in IT and just don't care enough to actively switch their OS, so they use what's shipped with it, if it was a Linux Distro they would just use that.
pabs3 4y ago
I wonder if COSMIC will get packaged in other distros like Ubuntu or Fedora.
faldore 4y ago
I have used Pop_os for the last year; it has enough bugs and wasted enough of my time that I finally switched to Windows just to see if I can put up with it; I'll probably revert to Ubuntu in a few months. WSL2 makes windows more livable but it's still janky. I'm a nerd but that doesn't mean I have time to mess with bugs.
amir734jj 4y ago
I love Pop OS and have been using it for the past 4 years now. But I am not a fan of the System76 laptop build quality. The shipping was fast, the OS and hardware haven't had any problems and the packaging is awesome. But the build quality comparing to my 2015 mac book pro is lacking. But I will probably buy system 76 again because I am so used to linux.
julienfr112 4y ago
I left Ubuntu for pop_os for the 22.04 release, on a Thinkpad p14s. Whent well, except mouse crashed sometime when suspend (left click anavailable !) And video crashing (geometric pattern all over the display). I'm not sure I made the good choice.
pSYoniK 4y ago
I've been meaning to fully switch to Linux on my desktop and laptop for some time, but I'm not the only person using them, so I had to account for that. After using Zorin OS for about 6-7 months (and paying for their pro version) I was having some difficulties with running games and drivers on it. I then tried out Pop Os on my desktop first and haven't had any issues. Once I spent time tweaking the remaining settings that I liked in Zorin OS (win key + number to access dash apps) and a few other tweaks, I fully switched to Pop Os on the desktop and the laptop. It's been a few months and I must say that it's what I've been looking for in a Linux distro. Something predictable, stable, that has good out of the box defaults and runs great for some games as well. For anyone looking to switch from Windows, I can't recommend it enough. Anyone else using the desktop/laptop also feel right at home starting up a few programs, editing a document or a picture and watching videos and pictures (that's really what most average users do anyway). It's also really great to be able to switch between tiling and non-tiling modes with one keyboard shortcut, which gives me a lot of the things I loved in i3wm/regolith while keeping it usable for average Joe (I'll never forget the confusion on the face of a friend opening up a picture and trying to resize the window as it was taking up half the screen next to Firefox). Great job to the Pop Os team!
MattPalmer1086 4y ago
Wow, has it is only been around for 5 years? Been using it for over 3. It's very polished and runs fine on my ThinkPad. Bluetooth sometimes won't connect to some things, but that was true of Ubuntu too. And I've never really relied on it for much anyway as I always find it a bit of a crap shoot whether devices in general will see each other or pair. So no great loss.
akagusu 4y ago
Pop_OS was great with Pop_Shell. It was a very pleasant experience; it was not perfect but could be polished. But they got NIH* syndrome and started this COSMIC desktop; UI changed, the whole experience changed, more bugs ruin our lives. And then they got "Let's rebuild everything in Rust" fever and the great experience of Pop_OS + Pop_Shell was lost forever. I understand the needs of creating unique experience for a product, but they could have built their desktop on top of Gnome like Ubuntu is doing or using the Gnome stack like Cinnamon, Elementary and many others. Or, if Gnome is a problem for them, they could have chosen the KDE stack, since KDE community is friendlier to outsiders. * Not invented here
- smoldesu 4y ago
  Pop is still building on top of GNOME for COSMIC, they're just re-writing significant portions of the code to create an original desktop. Honestly, I think this was the right move. The community needs a central GNOME fork to tinker on, and Pop can be the catalyst for those developments if they play their cards right.
  - akagusu 4y ago
    I agree the community needs a GNOME fork that serves the needs of the community and it could be feasible if System76 managed to bring other communities that build on top of GNOME like Cinnamon and Budgie, but this "re-writing significant portions" on their own without bring others is doomed. Canonical already tried this with Unity8 and failed in a time they had much more popularity and community support than System76.
q-base 4y ago
Are there any advantages of running Pop_Os instead of Ubuntu? I have an X1 Carbon Gen 9 and have had zero issues with 20.04 and latest upgrading to 22.04.
- JustSomeNobody 4y ago
  Create a VM and install it, see if you like it. It's based on Ubuntu/Debian, so it's not that different to Ubuntu proper. I like it, but to each their own.
hd99 4y ago
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hd99 4y ago
I will translate that very surprising comment whom made my choice : --start of comment-- [quote]does S76 announces they're targetting to recreate their own desktop from scratcch, or they "just modify things" whom are not really good with the gnome desktop of today, keeping the rest (running GTK if Im well)? [/quote] Official communication(1) says "we're doing to do our own desktop because gnome extensions are too breakable". Indeed, Cosmic-desktop was until there a gnome modified, with extensions, whom can by definition(2) be bugged/breaked/misfunctionnal at each gnome update. This decision could be comprehensible for a company who install it on computers to sell. But I think we might not forget the fuming writing(3) that Chris Davies published shortly afterwards. As explained, some S76 devs badmouth a bit regarding Gnome devs riding their bad reputation (not diserved at all imho) and of lost-minded nerds flooding the r/gnome subreddit and comments on OMGubuntu. The announce of Cosmic being rewrited in Rust has been then shown as a divorce between S76 and gnome, on the exclusive wrongdoing of that last one. It personnaly a view whom makes me sick, as some people said it here already. Budgie said more or less the same thing announcing last december they will re-write their desktop environnment in ELF(4), accusing the GtK project of being running for the particular interests of Gnome[teams]. It's very hard for me to see that as something else than a true and real bad faith. Few years earlier, Linux Mint and elementary, decided their own desktop environnment in replacement of Gnome, and the three projects has followed a distinct path while keeping a good harmony (and staying based on GTK!) it's very frustrating to see those quarrels blocking on the path of the linux desktop adoption, because it's really about it : we're not talking here about niche desktops like sway or lxqt, but about what can permit to a huge amount of users to emancipate of microsoft and Apple. If it's still considered as a relevant idea. 1: omgubuntu.co.uk/2021/11/system76-is-building-its-own-desktop-environment 2: wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey-Patch 3: linuxfr.org/users/anonyme/liens/system76-a-case-study-on-how-not-to-collaborate-with-upstream blogs.gnome.org/christopherdavis/2021/11/10/system76-how-not-to-collaborate/ 4: joshuastrobl.com/2021/09/14/building-an-alternative-ecosystem/ --end of comment-- this is the reason why, on my own, I litterally prefer LMDE, with openbsd and haiku to accompany.
deleted 4y ago
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hd99 4y ago
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hd99 4y ago
I will translate that very surprising comment whom made my choice : --start of comment-- [quote]does S76 announces they're targetting to recreate their own desktop from scratcch, or they "just modify things" whom are not really good with the gnome desktop of today, keeping the rest (running GTK if Im well)? [/quote] Official communication(1) says "we're doing to do our own desktop because gnome extensions are too breakable". Indeed, Cosmic-desktop was until there a gnome modified, with extensions, whom can by definition(2) be bugged/breaked/misfunctionnal at each gnome update. This decision could be comprehensible for a company who install it on computers to sell. But I think we might not forget the fuming writing(3) that Chris Davies published shortly afterwards. As explained, some S76 devs badmouth a bit regarding Gnome devs riding their bad reputation (not diserved at all imho) and of lost-minded nerds flooding the r/gnome subreddit and comments on OMGubuntu. The announce of Cosmic being rewrited in Rust has been then shown as a divorce between S76 and gnome, on the exclusive wrongdoing of that last one. It personnaly a view whom makes me sick, as some people said it here already. Budgie said more or less the same thing announcing last december they will re-write their desktop environnment in ELF(4), accusing the GtK project of being running for the particular interests of Gnome[teams]. It's very hard for me to see that as something else than a true and real bad faith. Few years earlier, Linux Mint and elementary, decided their own desktop environnment in replacement of Gnome, and the three projects has followed a distinct path while keeping a good harmony (and staying based on GTK!) it's very frustrating to see those quarrels blocking on the path of the linux desktop adoption, because it's really about it : we're not talking here about niche desktops like sway or lxqt, but about what can permit to a huge amount of users to emancipate of microsoft and Apple. If it's still considered as a relevant idea. 1: www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2021/11/system76-is-building-its-own-desktop-environment 2: fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey-Patch 3: linuxfr.org/users/anonyme/liens/system76-a-case-study-on-how-not-to-collaborate-with-upstream blogs.gnome.org/christopherdavis/2021/11/10/system76-how-not-to-collaborate/ 4: joshuastrobl.com/2021/09/14/building-an-alternative-ecosystem/ --end of comment-- this is the reason why, on my own, I litterally prefer LMDE, with openbsd and haiku to accompany.
forgotpwd16 4y ago
The additions Pop!_OS has made are nice and looking forward to upcoming COSMIC but still it's basically an Ubuntu remix, right?
e-clinton 4y ago
Pop was rock solid for me until it wasn’t. Wouldn’t recognize memory and throttled one of my NICs after I installed an NVidia card and drivers. Reinstalling didn’t help. Installed Ubuntu Budgie and has been smooth sailing since. I love Linux but wish it wasn’t such a pain and required blowing up installs every so often. By contrast, not once have I had to blow up a Mac OS instance to stabilize it.
- smoldesu 4y ago
  To be fair, if you tried running MacOS on the Nvidia hardware you'd have an even worse experience. Nvidia hardware and UNIX desktops go together like oil and water. Reserve your judgement until you try officially supported hardware, if you're willing to do the same for MacOS.
ThinkBeat 4y ago
>System76 first decided to develop an OS as a way to better shape our customers’ >experiences and harmonize the software with our hardware I dont like people saying that they have "developed an OS" when all they have done is to create derivative distribution of Ubuntu which itself rests on Debian. How about: """ We have created a great distribution of Linux and we have added some brand-new components to it and we think you will really like it. We think it is the best distribution for our customers and a great distribution for new users Since it is based upon the highly popular Ubuntu distribution a lot of experienced users will feel right at home as well. """ I hope their work on (a fork?) of GNOME becomes great. The bit about implementing NTP seems odd to me.

5 Years of Pop _OS

340 points by pbui 4y ago

bumblebritches5 4y ago

pipeline_peak 4y ago

bugfix-66 4y ago

I've owned three System76 desktops. Highly recommended if you want a Linux desktop computer.

rebeccaskinner 4y ago
I've had two system 76 laptops and I've been happy with them. The company seems to do a decent amount of work on upstreaming fixes they make to software and they generally seem to be good members of the open source community. I'm looking to buy my first new desktop in a long time as soon as the 4090's are available, and was originally planning to go with System76, but I've heard some people say the cooling in the desktop systems is really bad, to the point that it causes stability or thermal throttling issues. Since I've only seen a couple of data points, I'm curious if you have anything to add about the thermals and whether it's something worth considering as I'm looking around for a new desktop.
atomicnumber3 4y ago
I had one of their systems, a gazelle professional 4 if I recall right, it must've been around, oh say, 2013? And it was quite a nice machine, great linux compat, the 4-core i7 in it performed quite well and it let me load it up with RAM. It wasn't too heavy or anything and I liked the display. But the battery life. Good lord. 45 minutes, 55 if I messed and fussed with power settings and such. Basically gaming-laptop-tier "more like a UPS than a battery" battery performance. My next laptop was a thinkpad T440s and it had similarly good linux compat and it performed much better for battery life - I got an i5 in that one and saw 8ish hours of battery life, and it had a hot-swap feature where I could swap in a big-ass battery once I depleted the slim one and get an additional 20(!!) something hours of battery life on a single boot. Great for car trips and heavy all-day use like at conferences. But then superfish and I swore Lenovo had lost me for-ever. So my current laptop is an XPS13 and I get 8-10ish hours off one charge with it, and it is super thin and the only Linux issue I've had is needing a very new kernel when I bought it new a year and a half or so ago, new enough that Linux Mint didn't ship it OOTB and the live ISO couldn't get WiFi, so I installed Arch instead, where their latest install image did indeed have a sufficiently new kernel. So I'm a happy XPS user right now and I've found I like the 13" form factor. Would I be disappointed on battery performance if I went with a system76 machine for my next laptop?
- acidburnNSA 4y ago
  I am on a Lemur Pro from them, and it gets 14 hours of battery life.
  - arthurcolle 4y ago
    That's amazing. Are you for real?
    - acidburnNSA 4y ago
      Yeah, I find it's totally as advertised. Charged it up for a flight last week. Worked the whole time. Turned it on in the hotel afterwards and it had 70% left. https://system76.com/laptops/lemur https://system76.com/laptops/lemur
      - mattl 4y ago
        How’s the rest of it? The trackpad, the sound, microphones, webcam, etc? If I had one of these would I need a bunch of external stuff to make it decent?
        seibelj 4y ago
        The only issue I’ve had is randomly the trackpad will stop working, then I reboot. I think I also made a few tweaks a while ago to some config for them. Otherwise, top notch machine.
        mattl 4y ago
        That’s good to hear. In the past their laptops have been rebadged affairs and not great while their desktops were very solid.
        pxc 4y ago
        They haven't released their first in-house laptop yet. Some of their new laptops are reportedly quite good, but they're still rebadged Clevos with custom UEFIs and other firmware mods.
jrootabega 4y ago
I would have bought one long ago if they hadn't included binding arbitration in their terms of sale. It looks like they still do. https://system76.com/terms https://system76.com/terms (In that spirit, I need to look into moving off Ubuntu in response to self-promotion being added to system commands.)

agundy 4y ago

It sounds like they are taking a big bet on rewriting large components of the OS custom for Pop OS in Rust. I wish them the best but it sounds like a big commitment and I’m holding my breath for them to succeed. I’m curious how System76 sees Pop_OS fitting into their business model which is primarily hardware.

stingraycharles 4y ago
Yeah I never understood why they are spending so much time on this. Seems like they would be better off improving the hardware offering, or just making generic integrations which work on any Linux distribution?
- tomschlick 4y ago
  > or just making generic integrations which work on any Linux distribution Thats how you make something that doesnt look good or function that well because you're focusing on too much. They are taking the Apple path with linux. Make the hardware and make the software tailored for the hardware for a great experience. Yes they support people installing on stuff other than their hardware, but they make sure their hardware is supported and runs well.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - stingraycharles 4y ago
    But you need to have a pretty large ecosystem / platform to be the size of Apple to be actually benefiting from the huge investment it takes to maintain an OS / distribution like that. Especially the rewrite to Rust, it just makes me wonder the costs / benefits of this. Isn't there a more reasonable middle-ground, e.g. just saying "we officially support Ubuntu / Fedora" or something like that, and making sure those two distros actually work well out of the box? As an anecdote, I have got my framework laptop this summer, and it works really well out of the box pretty much anywhere. I'd argue that framework is a pretty direct competitor to system76, except framework seems to be innovating on the hardware part rather than the Linux distro part. Which makes way more sense business-wise to me.

chatterhead 4y ago

Congrats! Pop_OS rebuilt in Rust?? Sounds pretty sweet. Really wish I had enough money for a System76 PC. Go on there at least 10 times a year and build out a PC or two just to dream... Sorry for abandoning my cart with ridiculous PC specs built for one of those hoodie wearing hackers in media photos. Edit: I'm posting too fast so for the person commenting on what boards they use... https://tech-docs.system76.com https://tech-docs.system76.com - here is your answer.

listic 4y ago
Are their desktop PCs built around standard boards? I presume their 'Thelio' is Mini-ITX form factor? It sounds condescending of them to omit the exact model names of their hardware in their 'tech specs' section. I, for one, would like to know what exact model of motherboard I would be getting when I choose 'AMD' or 'Intel Advanced' in the 'Platform' section. Same goes for RAM, SSD, etc.
- twblalock 4y ago
  The exact model? That seems like a higher standard than other computer companies are expected to meet. It sounds like you ought to build your own PC if you care about every single component.
  - listic 4y ago
    Maybe you're right. I never bought a PC from any of the name brand 'computer companies' and maybe there's no sense to start now. Just wanted to compare their Thelio mini PC to my last PC setup in a NCASE M1* Mini-ITX case and found that their 'tech specs' page (intentionally?) lacking. *NCASE M1 cases are discontinued, but are widely available secondhand.
- pbhjpbhj 4y ago
  I looked at a Thelios, they have great info on GitHub including top-down images of the system internals, https://media.githubusercontent.com/media/system76/tech-docs/master/src/pictures/thelio-major/thelio-major-b1/thelio-major-b1_internal-diagram_config.png https://media.githubusercontent.com/media/system76/tech-docs... On this one you can see they use a Gigabyte X299 Aorus Ultra Gaming Pro. However, it's common to do replacements, so am exact model is only going to be possible with bespoke systems IME. Did you try asking, most people only want a specific bundle of features and don't care about the model numbers per se.

rabbitofdeath 4y ago

Just a happy Pop user- been rock solid for me for 3 years- the features they add are really seamless and well thought out. Congrats on 5 years!

nu11ptr 4y ago

I really like Pop Os. I've always liked Debian descended distros, and prior to this I was using Ubuntu. While I like it, I always found a lot of rough edges esp. when it came to proprietary drivers, etc. where things didn't always work without some tweaking. Pop Os on the other hand seems to "just work" - it is like a polished version of Ubuntu with a nice selection of apps in the Pop Shop. Theme is pretty nice as well as a bonus.

giancarlostoro 4y ago
I'm always looking for a "developer" distro, and POP_OS! feels to be the only one that fits that niche for me.
qbasic_forever 4y ago
Yep I've had the exact same experience. I love that pop is setup out of the box to work well with flatpaks and flathub too--I rarely have to mess with out of date debs, the pain of snaps, etc. The gnome extensions they pack in for tiling windows, adding desktop icons, are fantastic too. It just works.
- ekianjo 4y ago
  The fact that they include flatpaks together with normal packages is confusing though. They appear just the same in the pop_OS store and there are many duplicates because of that. Very inconsistent behavior for installation: flatpaks require no specific rights but normal packages require sudo password. Not a good UX in that regard.
  - nu11ptr 4y ago
    While I would prefer more debs personally, the flatpaks are clearly marked as such in the store
    - tehbeard 4y ago
      The confusion is there's no info on what's different between them presented to the user. I know vaguely that flatpak is "like docker" in terms of wrapping dependencies. I have no clue how that translates to missing features of compatibility issues with other apps. Even knowing which is more up to date isn't shown. Or why i should pick one over the other. The multiple packaging types confounded my efforts to debug an issue I had with VLC, as i initially thought it was a flatpak permissions problem.. No evidence, just hearsay by what i'd seen of flatpak in general online.

inetknght 4y ago

I have a Serval WS with Pop OS! using Cinnamon. Battery life sucks (~40 minutes) if I forget to turn off the discrete GPU. But without the discrete GPU, the battery life... still sucks at about 4 hours. Not bad for desktop-class hardware in a laptop form factor. I had a loaner laptop briefly when the screen went out. Loaner laptop battery lasted all day. I don't remember the model though

myself248 4y ago

I'm a Linux idiot, just got sick of Windows, and took the plunge in 2016. (After some ill-fated tinkering in 1996 with Slackware, but we don't speak of that.) I started with Ubuntu and had a pretty good time for a year or two, until a dist-upgrade broke everything. Luckily /home/ was easy to restore from backup. So I was fine for another two years on Ubuntu until another dist-upgrade broke everything again. Sensing a pattern, I decided to give Pop a try. I'm now about a year into Pop and sure enough, a few weeks ago a dist-upgrade broke a lot of things, but unlike Ubuntu, I was able to find System76's tech support page, I ran the commands it suggested, and everything's fine again! https://support.system76.com/articles/package-manager-ubuntu/ https://support.system76.com/articles/package-manager-ubuntu... Miraculous, I tell you. I still can't figure out why there are multiple versions of some things in the Pop Shop, but they all seem to work, so I'm not complaining, it's just weird. Someday I'll figure out this whole tiling-windows thing, but I think that's for people with bigger screens so I turned it off so my alt-tab reflexes work again. In general, it just works, and that's more than I can say for Windows or Ubuntu at this point.

julianlam 4y ago
I really tried to like the window tiling, and I definitely see the advantages, but didn't quite get to the point at which the shortcuts were second nature. There were also a couple janky bugs at the time, but perhaps they've been fixed now. The cool thing its it's so darn easy to switch back and forth!
colordrops 4y ago
If you look at my comment history, you'll see I'm a bit of a broken record, but my records don't break anymore after switching to NixOS. It was precisely the breakage after every upgrade that got me to try it. With declarative config-based reproduceable deployment that can be rolled-back, the broken OS doesn't need to be a thing anymore.
- sanroot99 4y ago
  I just found peace in using debain with bootable btrfs snapshots

julianlam 4y ago

Been a happy Pop!_OS user since seeing it recommended here on HN. I feel like its polish combined with its hardline stance against snaps makes it an easy choice to switch to for Ubuntu users.

kccqzy 4y ago

I am quite a fan of their Pop!_Shell. I wanted to improve my desktop efficiency by using a tiling window manager; I tried i3wm and XMonad, but none of them really clicked with me. Finally, I decided to try the Pop!_Shell tiling mode and it was awesome. (Hardcore tiling window manager fans might not agree but Pop!_Shell is a lot more newbie-friendly.) Furthermore, you don't even have to install Pop!_OS to get Pop!_Shell. For example my preferred distribution is openSUSE Tumbleweed with GNOME, so I just need to sudo zypper install gnome-shell-extension-pop-shell wget https://github.com/pop-os/shell/raw/master_jammy/scripts/configure.sh # configure.sh mostly configures keyboard shortcuts. Inspect it before running. sh ./configure.sh And then enable it. That's all.

Daegalus 4y ago
it's the same on Fedora. I use Fedora Gnome with Pop Shell. works great. hopefully they keep maintaining it for gnome after they release cosmic.
- ThatMedicIsASpy 4y ago
  I tried pop shell on fedora and ran into bugs. Trying to get nvidia drivers to work crashed the system so I just went back to pop

jeffnappi 4y ago

Been a happy PopOS user on Thinkpad X1 Extreme for about 3 years now. Big fan

lioeters 4y ago
Last year I finally replaced my old Macbook Pro with a Thinkpad running Pop OS. I'm so pleased with the operating system and the hardware. I want to support System76, but I read some not so positive anecdotes about their laptop's build quality, so went with the Thinkpad. I also wanted/needed a centered keyboard layout without numberpad, which they don't offer. Their desktop models look nice, but feel like a luxury when I can get a custom-built PC and just install Linux on it. Anyway, Pop OS is wonderful. I actually installed it on the old MBP too, and gave it new life. In addition: the Nordic theme makes for a beautiful interface, it's like what macOS should have become. https://github.com/EliverLara/Nordic https://github.com/EliverLara/Nordic

carom 4y ago

I was happy with my two S76s but the keyboard wore out on both.

donatj 4y ago

Coincidentally, the System76 blog RSS feed started 404-ing about midnight CST last night. https://blog.system76.com/rss https://blog.system76.com/rss They don't seem to have a replacement URL up.

jwrallie 4y ago

Pop OS is great, specially their system76-power package, which allows my Nvidia Optimus based laptop to run just fine. I prefer running KDE Plasma, so I'm using Kubuntu these days, I would love to see a Plasma spin-off of Pop, but I won't blame them if they prefer to stick to Gnome only and focus on consistency.

brnt 4y ago
I also element their lack of KDE option, but as I understand it, they're moving away from Gnome too, to their own DE.

blondin 4y ago

i am not happy with my galago pro. system76 is a name that often comes up when you ask about linux laptops. so i decided to try their galago pro. and i have to be honest here. as a long time macbook user, this is definitely a downgrade for the price. especially when you can get an M1 and a better experience for the same price. the trackpad is weird and does not work well. i apply too much pressure for my clicks to register. my taps, however, would register with me barely touching the pad, or finger scrolling. i have disabled tapping. and natural scrolling does not feel natural. now, having page-up and page-down keys above the left and right arrow keys is a bad idea. it gives a bad user experience. but of course, it's linux, you can remap the keys. you need a handful of commands for that. and since you are on a custom OS, you need to look at the base OSes. lucky me, someone wrote a blog post for ubuntu. system76's discord is not (in my experience) where you get help. it is full of people who will ignore you. my impression is that they live in a bubble and are all doing similar things. you get the silent treatment for not doing things their way. not sure what people are happy about with pop!_os. i spend my time looking through ubuntu and debian documentation. pop!_os docs are a series of articles and they are lacking. i am happy with what ubuntu and debian are doing! this custom OS does not make much difference in my opinion. all that said, i will continue to support system76.

int_19h 4y ago
Star Labs is another option if you want hardware assembled specifically to run Linux on it.
woopwoop24 4y ago
tl:dr not a big fan so much +1 for the worst possible alignment of the keys above the arrow keys, is why mine is not used anymore it just pisses me off constantly. (i reprogrammed the keyboard but it still is a bad experience even when disabled or remapped) the speakers on the bottom are also not doing a great either. i think i will get a framework as the next one. Also PopOS is confusing to configure, much rather have plain debian and live with the pain of setting it up, but it behaves deterministic.

robotburrito 4y ago

I liked pop_os for a while, but sadly gnome just freezes randomly on me now. I have seen it's an issue that many others have. Hopefully it's just my hardware or something and not indicative of a larger problem with the distro. When it is not crashing it's quite nice!

agravier 4y ago
I get that on Ubuntu after a few days of uptime.

NayamAmarshe 4y ago

I tried Pop!_OS a few years ago and I really like their marketing and how they push Pop!_OS as a big name in the distro game. The only thing I dislike is their shell, the ugly pastel colors are really off putting along with some weird design choices and it wasn't very stable the last time I tried it a few years ago. Makes me wonder why ZorinOS isn't as popular even though it has existed for twice as long. Maybe because of a lacking hardware company behind it? I think ZorinOS is a more consumer friendly distro than Pop!_OS (which I consider a nerd distro) and might have a better chance at being accepted as a mainstream distro than the others I've tried.

vmcmkg 4y ago

pjmlp 4y ago

And this is why the Linux desktop is domed to be a VM inside other OSes, or filled with Electron apps. Gtk, Qt, XFCE, GNOME and KDE applications will look out of place in the new desktop, and most likely they will never create a Rust based set of frameworks that can match the above ones on features, development tooling, and extensibility points for desktop developers.

RealStickman_ 4y ago
XFCE and Gnome are GTK, while KDE is QT. As long as they provide matching themes for QT and GTK it should be fine.
- pjmlp 4y ago
  You are missing the picture that they provide full development experience stack for desktop development, similar to Framework/Kits/Components on major mainstream desktop and mobile OSes. Like always many of these experiences fail short by focusing on Look and leaving out the other 90% of the development experience.
  - smoldesu 4y ago
    GNOME and Qt both offer full-fledged UI frameworks. It sounds like you haven't given either a try before, but they're both quite capable. Programming for them doesn't feel any different than writing a Cocoa UI or an Android app or a website. It's just... another target.
    - pjmlp 4y ago
      They do, but Pop_OS new Rust based destkop doesn't, that is the point. Have been around the Linux world long enough, all the way back to Slackware 2.0, and when getting FOSS software meant buying CDs from Walnut Creek.
tlamponi 4y ago
I, and most people I worked with, couldn't care less if the border/title bar looks slightly odd, the same happens on Windows a lot. The issue ain't different WMs or toolkits, but a lock-in effort from Microsoft with HW and SW vendors, they still had to create WSL to actually improve their dev experience though, could not manage that without. Most people ain't technical experienced or interested in IT and just don't care enough to actively switch their OS, so they use what's shipped with it, if it was a Linux Distro they would just use that.

pabs3 4y ago

I wonder if COSMIC will get packaged in other distros like Ubuntu or Fedora.

faldore 4y ago

I have used Pop_os for the last year; it has enough bugs and wasted enough of my time that I finally switched to Windows just to see if I can put up with it; I'll probably revert to Ubuntu in a few months. WSL2 makes windows more livable but it's still janky. I'm a nerd but that doesn't mean I have time to mess with bugs.

amir734jj 4y ago

I love Pop OS and have been using it for the past 4 years now. But I am not a fan of the System76 laptop build quality. The shipping was fast, the OS and hardware haven't had any problems and the packaging is awesome. But the build quality comparing to my 2015 mac book pro is lacking. But I will probably buy system 76 again because I am so used to linux.

julienfr112 4y ago

I left Ubuntu for pop_os for the 22.04 release, on a Thinkpad p14s. Whent well, except mouse crashed sometime when suspend (left click anavailable !) And video crashing (geometric pattern all over the display). I'm not sure I made the good choice.

pSYoniK 4y ago

I've been meaning to fully switch to Linux on my desktop and laptop for some time, but I'm not the only person using them, so I had to account for that. After using Zorin OS for about 6-7 months (and paying for their pro version) I was having some difficulties with running games and drivers on it. I then tried out Pop Os on my desktop first and haven't had any issues. Once I spent time tweaking the remaining settings that I liked in Zorin OS (win key + number to access dash apps) and a few other tweaks, I fully switched to Pop Os on the desktop and the laptop. It's been a few months and I must say that it's what I've been looking for in a Linux distro. Something predictable, stable, that has good out of the box defaults and runs great for some games as well. For anyone looking to switch from Windows, I can't recommend it enough. Anyone else using the desktop/laptop also feel right at home starting up a few programs, editing a document or a picture and watching videos and pictures (that's really what most average users do anyway). It's also really great to be able to switch between tiling and non-tiling modes with one keyboard shortcut, which gives me a lot of the things I loved in i3wm/regolith while keeping it usable for average Joe (I'll never forget the confusion on the face of a friend opening up a picture and trying to resize the window as it was taking up half the screen next to Firefox). Great job to the Pop Os team!

MattPalmer1086 4y ago

Wow, has it is only been around for 5 years? Been using it for over 3. It's very polished and runs fine on my ThinkPad. Bluetooth sometimes won't connect to some things, but that was true of Ubuntu too. And I've never really relied on it for much anyway as I always find it a bit of a crap shoot whether devices in general will see each other or pair. So no great loss.

akagusu 4y ago

Pop_OS was great with Pop_Shell. It was a very pleasant experience; it was not perfect but could be polished. But they got NIH* syndrome and started this COSMIC desktop; UI changed, the whole experience changed, more bugs ruin our lives. And then they got "Let's rebuild everything in Rust" fever and the great experience of Pop_OS + Pop_Shell was lost forever. I understand the needs of creating unique experience for a product, but they could have built their desktop on top of Gnome like Ubuntu is doing or using the Gnome stack like Cinnamon, Elementary and many others. Or, if Gnome is a problem for them, they could have chosen the KDE stack, since KDE community is friendlier to outsiders. * Not invented here

smoldesu 4y ago
Pop is still building on top of GNOME for COSMIC, they're just re-writing significant portions of the code to create an original desktop. Honestly, I think this was the right move. The community needs a central GNOME fork to tinker on, and Pop can be the catalyst for those developments if they play their cards right.
- akagusu 4y ago
  I agree the community needs a GNOME fork that serves the needs of the community and it could be feasible if System76 managed to bring other communities that build on top of GNOME like Cinnamon and Budgie, but this "re-writing significant portions" on their own without bring others is doomed. Canonical already tried this with Unity8 and failed in a time they had much more popularity and community support than System76.

q-base 4y ago

Are there any advantages of running Pop_Os instead of Ubuntu? I have an X1 Carbon Gen 9 and have had zero issues with 20.04 and latest upgrading to 22.04.

JustSomeNobody 4y ago
Create a VM and install it, see if you like it. It's based on Ubuntu/Debian, so it's not that different to Ubuntu proper. I like it, but to each their own.

hd99 4y ago

[dead]

hd99 4y ago

I will translate that very surprising comment whom made my choice : --start of comment-- [quote]does S76 announces they're targetting to recreate their own desktop from scratcch, or they "just modify things" whom are not really good with the gnome desktop of today, keeping the rest (running GTK if Im well)? [/quote] Official communication(1) says "we're doing to do our own desktop because gnome extensions are too breakable". Indeed, Cosmic-desktop was until there a gnome modified, with extensions, whom can by definition(2) be bugged/breaked/misfunctionnal at each gnome update. This decision could be comprehensible for a company who install it on computers to sell. But I think we might not forget the fuming writing(3) that Chris Davies published shortly afterwards. As explained, some S76 devs badmouth a bit regarding Gnome devs riding their bad reputation (not diserved at all imho) and of lost-minded nerds flooding the r/gnome subreddit and comments on OMGubuntu. The announce of Cosmic being rewrited in Rust has been then shown as a divorce between S76 and gnome, on the exclusive wrongdoing of that last one. It personnaly a view whom makes me sick, as some people said it here already. Budgie said more or less the same thing announcing last december they will re-write their desktop environnment in ELF(4), accusing the GtK project of being running for the particular interests of Gnome[teams]. It's very hard for me to see that as something else than a true and real bad faith. Few years earlier, Linux Mint and elementary, decided their own desktop environnment in replacement of Gnome, and the three projects has followed a distinct path while keeping a good harmony (and staying based on GTK!) it's very frustrating to see those quarrels blocking on the path of the linux desktop adoption, because it's really about it : we're not talking here about niche desktops like sway or lxqt, but about what can permit to a huge amount of users to emancipate of microsoft and Apple. If it's still considered as a relevant idea. 1: omgubuntu.co.uk/2021/11/system76-is-building-its-own-desktop-environment 2: wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey-Patch 3: linuxfr.org/users/anonyme/liens/system76-a-case-study-on-how-not-to-collaborate-with-upstream blogs.gnome.org/christopherdavis/2021/11/10/system76-how-not-to-collaborate/ 4: joshuastrobl.com/2021/09/14/building-an-alternative-ecosystem/ --end of comment-- this is the reason why, on my own, I litterally prefer LMDE, with openbsd and haiku to accompany.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

hd99 4y ago

[dead]

hd99 4y ago

I will translate that very surprising comment whom made my choice : --start of comment-- [quote]does S76 announces they're targetting to recreate their own desktop from scratcch, or they "just modify things" whom are not really good with the gnome desktop of today, keeping the rest (running GTK if Im well)? [/quote] Official communication(1) says "we're doing to do our own desktop because gnome extensions are too breakable". Indeed, Cosmic-desktop was until there a gnome modified, with extensions, whom can by definition(2) be bugged/breaked/misfunctionnal at each gnome update. This decision could be comprehensible for a company who install it on computers to sell. But I think we might not forget the fuming writing(3) that Chris Davies published shortly afterwards. As explained, some S76 devs badmouth a bit regarding Gnome devs riding their bad reputation (not diserved at all imho) and of lost-minded nerds flooding the r/gnome subreddit and comments on OMGubuntu. The announce of Cosmic being rewrited in Rust has been then shown as a divorce between S76 and gnome, on the exclusive wrongdoing of that last one. It personnaly a view whom makes me sick, as some people said it here already. Budgie said more or less the same thing announcing last december they will re-write their desktop environnment in ELF(4), accusing the GtK project of being running for the particular interests of Gnome[teams]. It's very hard for me to see that as something else than a true and real bad faith. Few years earlier, Linux Mint and elementary, decided their own desktop environnment in replacement of Gnome, and the three projects has followed a distinct path while keeping a good harmony (and staying based on GTK!) it's very frustrating to see those quarrels blocking on the path of the linux desktop adoption, because it's really about it : we're not talking here about niche desktops like sway or lxqt, but about what can permit to a huge amount of users to emancipate of microsoft and Apple. If it's still considered as a relevant idea. 1: www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2021/11/system76-is-building-its-own-desktop-environment 2: fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey-Patch 3: linuxfr.org/users/anonyme/liens/system76-a-case-study-on-how-not-to-collaborate-with-upstream blogs.gnome.org/christopherdavis/2021/11/10/system76-how-not-to-collaborate/ 4: joshuastrobl.com/2021/09/14/building-an-alternative-ecosystem/ --end of comment-- this is the reason why, on my own, I litterally prefer LMDE, with openbsd and haiku to accompany.

forgotpwd16 4y ago

The additions Pop!_OS has made are nice and looking forward to upcoming COSMIC but still it's basically an Ubuntu remix, right?

e-clinton 4y ago

Pop was rock solid for me until it wasn’t. Wouldn’t recognize memory and throttled one of my NICs after I installed an NVidia card and drivers. Reinstalling didn’t help. Installed Ubuntu Budgie and has been smooth sailing since. I love Linux but wish it wasn’t such a pain and required blowing up installs every so often. By contrast, not once have I had to blow up a Mac OS instance to stabilize it.

smoldesu 4y ago
To be fair, if you tried running MacOS on the Nvidia hardware you'd have an even worse experience. Nvidia hardware and UNIX desktops go together like oil and water. Reserve your judgement until you try officially supported hardware, if you're willing to do the same for MacOS.

ThinkBeat 4y ago

>System76 first decided to develop an OS as a way to better shape our customers’ >experiences and harmonize the software with our hardware I dont like people saying that they have "developed an OS" when all they have done is to create derivative distribution of Ubuntu which itself rests on Debian. How about: """ We have created a great distribution of Linux and we have added some brand-new components to it and we think you will really like it. We think it is the best distribution for our customers and a great distribution for new users Since it is based upon the highly popular Ubuntu distribution a lot of experienced users will feel right at home as well. """ I hope their work on (a fork?) of GNOME becomes great. The bit about implementing NTP seems odd to me.