I am also running Pop OS.
I am running a couple of instances within Hyper-V and one on a laptop.
Super happy as well.
Fonts look nice, colors selected well, all up-to-date software installs fine.
Upgrade from 19 to 20 worked without a hiccup.
For Hyper-V set ups, I used https://github.com/Microsoft/linux-vm-tools to enable enhanced integration (meaning I get PopOS copy/paste between it and the host, full resolution over faster virtual socket when using xrdp).
Recent Hyper-V allows vm-within-vm, so I can actually run Android emulator on Pop OS that’s hosted within Hyper-V.
I recently installed Pop OS over the top of a broken old Ubuntu install and found it very pleasant. I think for the more casual computer user who wants an attractive, modern system, with support for gaming as good as one can get outside of Windows, it’s probably best-in-class.
As a brief stylistic point I would acronymise ’Tiling Window Manger as T.W.M. (with the dots) to avoid confusion with twm.
Thanks for the post, you drove me to finally upgrade to 20.04. I agree with your positive comments and those of other commenters here. A few random things I can add after a year of use:
Pop OS/System76 have done a good job with firmware updates on my 2019 System76 laptop. There was a bug where WiFi took 30 or 40 seconds to reconnect after resuming from sleep, but they fixed it with an update.
Pop OS unbinds Alt-f4 and sets it to a different keybind, Super-W. You can change the binding but it is surprising if you are used to closing windows that way. It’s the only Linux distribution to do this AFAIK.
Occasionally I was getting into irrecoverable states where the window manager behaved oddly and I was forced to restart to fix it. Also the operating system has crashed a few times.
The support community is friendly and large enough to already have answers to Pop OS specific questions I had
The Pop OS wiki is mostly a copy-paste of the Arch Wiki and Ubuntu Wiki, with some original content added
Some third-party software only supports Ubuntu via PPAs and leaves other distributions out in the cold. Pop OS is not harmed by this practice since it lets you use PPAs.
I strongly recommend installing the Dash to Dock extension for Gnome. It’s a simple dock but it actually makes Gnome quite usable.
Overall I have been pleased with the user experience. I am an “advanced” Linux user and I used to run highly customized environments (Arch, etc). But I too have come to prefer bog standard machines that “just work” like Ubuntu and Pop OS. I agree that Pop OS is best-in-class for this type of user.
I am an “advanced” Linux user and I used to run highly customized environments (Arch, etc). But I too have come to prefer bog standard machines that “just work” like Ubuntu and Pop OS.
Yes, I’ve had the same experience. I used to run Arch everywhere, but I stopped because I just didn’t have time. Take printing, for example - I could print just as well on Arch as in e.g. Ubuntu, but on Arch I would have to spend two hours reading the wiki. The fact that every little thing was like that was the problem.
That isn’t a knock on Arch, to be clear; I still have tremendous respect for Arch and I learned a ton from running it. It’s just not for me anymore, and that’s okay! Arch has no aims to be popular, after all ;)
A correction, the article says, “Pop doesn’t use the Ubuntu repositories. Instead they use their own” which isn’t true. Take a look at /etc/apt/sources.list. It’s all the standard Ubuntu repos plus a “proprietary” repo in which they ship non-open-source like VSCode, Chrome, etc. For their open source stuff, /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ points to a PPA on Launchpad.
They do have an Ubuntu mirror on apt.pop-os.org but there’s probably no real reason to use it.
Once I get a spare moment, I’m probably going to move both my personal and work laptops to Pop OS soon. I used Xubuntu for the longest time (and before that, various distros with MATE) but found with Ubuntu 19.10 that GNOME 3 can be mostly usable for me with a whole bunch of tweaks and extensions. But I’m looking to get away from Ubuntu due to their increasing use of snaps, which are highly incompatible with how I want to manage my machines.
I haven’t actually used Pop OS very much yet so take this with a grain of salt but my understanding is that its app store (called Pop Shop) offers things as FlatPaks. However, using them is not compulsory. Snaps are compulsory on Ubuntu. When there are deb and flatpak versions of the same thing, the Pop Shop offers you a choice of whether to install it as a deb or Flatpak. It seems to default to deb. Proprietary apps (e.g. Postman) seem to be the only ones that ship as Flatpak-only. Probably
As far as I can tell, all of the extra stuff that Pop OS ships is built as debs, as is the stuff that Ubuntu now packages only as snaps (e.g. Chromium). Their non-proprietary repo is maintained and packaged on Launchpad: http://ppa.launchpad.net/system76/pop
The Pop OS polish is mostly GNOME 3 customizations and extensions to my understanding, although I imagine their app store and other stuff works just fine in XFCE.
I am also running Pop OS. I am running a couple of instances within Hyper-V and one on a laptop. Super happy as well.
Fonts look nice, colors selected well, all up-to-date software installs fine. Upgrade from 19 to 20 worked without a hiccup.
For Hyper-V set ups, I used https://github.com/Microsoft/linux-vm-tools to enable enhanced integration (meaning I get PopOS copy/paste between it and the host, full resolution over faster virtual socket when using xrdp).
Recent Hyper-V allows vm-within-vm, so I can actually run Android emulator on Pop OS that’s hosted within Hyper-V.
I recently installed Pop OS over the top of a broken old Ubuntu install and found it very pleasant. I think for the more casual computer user who wants an attractive, modern system, with support for gaming as good as one can get outside of Windows, it’s probably best-in-class.
As a brief stylistic point I would acronymise ’Tiling Window Manger as T.W.M. (with the dots) to avoid confusion with twm.
Thanks for the post, you drove me to finally upgrade to 20.04. I agree with your positive comments and those of other commenters here. A few random things I can add after a year of use:
Overall I have been pleased with the user experience. I am an “advanced” Linux user and I used to run highly customized environments (Arch, etc). But I too have come to prefer bog standard machines that “just work” like Ubuntu and Pop OS. I agree that Pop OS is best-in-class for this type of user.
Yes, I’ve had the same experience. I used to run Arch everywhere, but I stopped because I just didn’t have time. Take printing, for example - I could print just as well on Arch as in e.g. Ubuntu, but on Arch I would have to spend two hours reading the wiki. The fact that every little thing was like that was the problem.
That isn’t a knock on Arch, to be clear; I still have tremendous respect for Arch and I learned a ton from running it. It’s just not for me anymore, and that’s okay! Arch has no aims to be popular, after all ;)
A correction, the article says, “Pop doesn’t use the Ubuntu repositories. Instead they use their own” which isn’t true. Take a look at
/etc/apt/sources.list. It’s all the standard Ubuntu repos plus a “proprietary” repo in which they ship non-open-source like VSCode, Chrome, etc. For their open source stuff,/etc/apt/sources.list.d/points to a PPA on Launchpad.They do have an Ubuntu mirror on apt.pop-os.org but there’s probably no real reason to use it.
Once I get a spare moment, I’m probably going to move both my personal and work laptops to Pop OS soon. I used Xubuntu for the longest time (and before that, various distros with MATE) but found with Ubuntu 19.10 that GNOME 3 can be mostly usable for me with a whole bunch of tweaks and extensions. But I’m looking to get away from Ubuntu due to their increasing use of snaps, which are highly incompatible with how I want to manage my machines.
Me, too, but isn’t PopOS using Flatpak?
I haven’t actually used Pop OS very much yet so take this with a grain of salt but my understanding is that its app store (called Pop Shop) offers things as FlatPaks. However, using them is not compulsory. Snaps are compulsory on Ubuntu. When there are deb and flatpak versions of the same thing, the Pop Shop offers you a choice of whether to install it as a deb or Flatpak. It seems to default to deb. Proprietary apps (e.g. Postman) seem to be the only ones that ship as Flatpak-only. Probably
As far as I can tell, all of the extra stuff that Pop OS ships is built as debs, as is the stuff that Ubuntu now packages only as snaps (e.g. Chromium). Their non-proprietary repo is maintained and packaged on Launchpad: http://ppa.launchpad.net/system76/pop
Can somebody share some thoughts on the Pop UI(experience) vs Gnome/KDE? Would be interesting to hear.
For example I like having an instant global CMD and search or some kind of taskbar system.
The Pop OS UI is GNOME 3 with lightly modified defaults and a few extensions.
Is it possible to use XFCE, or does this lose the polish PopOS devs did?
The Pop OS polish is mostly GNOME 3 customizations and extensions to my understanding, although I imagine their app store and other stuff works just fine in XFCE.