🆕 Software Suggestion | Pop!_OS

Basic Information

Name: Pop!_OS
Category: OS
URL: https://pop.system76.com/

Description

Pop!_OS is a free and open-source Linux distribution based on Ubuntu. The OS is very beginner friendly and removes alot of the data collection Ubuntu has.

Why I am making the suggestion

The Introductory Operating Systems section of the website is extremely lacking. Currently the 2 main options listed are Fedora and Ubuntu. Fedora is a fantastic OS but has quite a few things that don't work out of the box which may frustrate some of the new users switching over from Windows to Linux. Fedora is more of an intermediate distro. Ubuntu has a lot more data collection than most Linux distros so it is not a very good choice for privacy. Pop!_OS is both beginner friendly and privacy focused making it an excellent choice for beginners. Being Ubuntu based also means Ubuntu's excellent documentation would also work for Pop! if a user ever encountered an issue and also gives it very good software availability. Pop! is also much more smooth and polished than Ubuntu. Frankly, I see no real reason to recommend Ubuntu over Pop!. I feel like it is important to have better options since new users switching from Windows will depend on the introductory section heavily for guidance where as more seasoned Linux users will already know about a variety of distros and how to choose,

My connection with the software

I have helped some new Linux users switching from Windows install Pop!_OS on their computers. I don't use it too often myself and Fedora is actually my daily driver. I am not a developer nor do I have any other connections to Pop!_OS or System76.

• I will keep the issue up-to-date if something I have said changes or I remember a connection with the software.

[youdontneedtoknow22]

This and Linux mint.
Fedora was my first distro, but I was kinda shocked by not having any applications on my desktop and I had no idea how to work with that system. I thought the system freezed or something. I then moved to Linux mint and it will probably be my first recommendation for every one coming to linux from windows. It's just so easy, similar to windows (so new users won't have to learn lots of things right in their first distro) and every thing works out of the box too.

Yah, Fedora is great but because it doesn't have stuff like folder support or codecs (this is the really big one that gives new users a hard time) working out of the box, it will be extremely frustrating for new users. Anytime someone new to Linux asks me for a recommendation I always tell them to check out both Pop!_OS and Linux Mint. I believe both Pop! and Mint should be recommended for beginners and Ubuntu and Fedora removed.

[samuel-lucas6]

As I discussed here, I agree that both Linux Mint and Pop!_OS should be listed. However, I do think it's worth recommending a non-Ubuntu based beginner friendly distro if possible because there are serious freezing issues on Ubuntu based distros. I had all sorts of problems on Pop!_OS and Ubuntu (e.g. up to 10 freezes a day, forcing me to restart each time), and lots of people have similar problems based on GitHub issues like this and Reddit support threads.

This type of problem makes switching to Linux pointless because it effectively renders the OS unusable, whereas Windows runs without a problem in my case. Unfortunately, I've consistently had significant problems on every Linux distro I've tried, and most of the better distros tend to be Ubuntu based, so I'm not sure what to suggest besides Solus, which doesn't like newer graphics cards.

[youdontneedtoknow22]

As I discussed here, I agree that both Linux Mint and Pop!_OS should be listed. However, I do think it's worth recommending a non-Ubuntu based beginner friendly distro if possible because there are serious freezing issues on Ubuntu based distros. I had all sorts of problems on Pop!_OS and Ubuntu (e.g. up to 10 freezes a day, forcing me to restart each time), and lots of people have similar problems based on GitHub issues like this and Reddit support threads.

This type of problem makes switching to Linux pointless because it effectively renders the OS unusable, whereas Windows runs without a problem in my case. Unfortunately, I've consistently had significant problems on every Linux distro I've tried, and most of the better distros tend to be Ubuntu based, so I'm not sure what to suggest besides Solus, which doesn't like newer graphics cards.

I believe, for beginners we should at least recommend Linux mint (due to its similarity to Windows) and if that doesn't work or freezes, there's LMDE (Linux mint based on debian). Something not based on Debian or Ubuntu should definitely be Manjaro for people with newer hardware. You can try manjaro, maybe it'll work for you.
Fedora should probably be on the intermediate level, as a beginner I really had no idea how to do any thing with that system.
I don't know what Pop_OS brings over Ubuntu as I never tried it, but lots of people say it's better for beginners than Ubuntu. Maybe the OP can clarify some of the things.

[samuel-lucas6]

I believe, for beginners we should at least recommend Linux mint (due to its similarity to Windows) and if that doesn't work or freezes, there's LMDE (Linux mint based on debian). Something not based on Debian or Ubuntu should definitely be Manjaro for people with newer hardware. You can try manjaro, maybe it'll work for you.
Fedora should probably be on the intermediate level, as a beginner I really had no idea how to do any thing with that system.
I don't know what Pop_OS brings over Ubuntu as I never tried it, but lots of people say it's better for beginners than Ubuntu. Maybe the OP can clarify some of the things.

I tried Manjaro and had multiple problems. I have no idea why everybody recommends Manjaro when the team behind it seems incredibly amateurish and hostile. It looks great by default, and you get access to the AUR, but that seems to be about it. It's not what I'd call stable, and that's the most important factor because otherwise you spend more time trying to fix problems than working.

Manjaro also likely won't be recommended on PrivacyTools because the developers forgot to update their SSL certificate twice, they insult their users on the forums, they apparently failed to back up pictures on the Manjaro forum, and there was a team feud that led to the treasurer leaving.

Fedora shouldn't be at the top of the page that's for sure. As for Pop!_OS, there are ISOs with Nvidia and AMD drivers, the installation is easy, it looks better out of the box, it's meant to have better performance, it has fewer preinstalled applications, and it doesn't use snaps by default. However, I remember it not having a minimize button by default, which is nonsensical.

Pop!_OS makes a lot of performance improvements (and they can be quite noticeable), is one of the few distros optimized for gaming out of the box (usually you have to jump through a few more hoops on other distros to get gaming working properly), has a lot of built in customization features and the developers will be adding more in the next release, and a built in tiling window manager which really helps with workflow and is nice since many newer users may find it a bit hard to install a tiling window manager on their own. Pop!_OS also doesn't shove Snaps down the users throat which I like since they have very long boot up times making them annoying to use in addition to the privacy concerns behind them. Obviously removing a lot of Ubuntu's data collection is also the main reason to recommend it. I usually recommend new Linux users try out both Pop! and Mint and see what they prefer and they almost always go with Pop! so I believe it should be our primary recommendation for new Linux users. Mint should definitely be placed their as a second option for those who would still prefer a more Windows like experience.

I do have a few issues with recommending Manjaro to beginners:

1. It is more bleeding edge than most distros which may lead to some stability issues and the user needing to fix them.
2. Uploading to the AUR is very easy and their have been instances of malicious packages making it in. Anyone can make an AUR account and upload packages or update existing Packages that have been abandoned, so the AUR has some major security risks that a new user might mot be aware of and will probably just install many packages from there thinking they are safe.
3. The lack of official support for Arch based distros can be quite annoying. It is not uncommon for developers to only make a .deb and .rpm package and nothing else. In this case if you are not using a Debian or RHEL based distro, your only option will be the AUR, which again may be an issue for new users.

For someone with a bit more knowledge, Manjaro can be great since it has excellent documentation in addition to being able to use the Arch documentation and a wonderful community meaning finding how to fix issues is usually easy. The AUR can also be a very helpful thing as long as you are aware of how to properly use it. That's why I am a bit hesitant to just straight up recommend Manjaro to someone completely new to Linux. The issue of recommending non-Debian systems to new users are the fact that the majority of distros are debian/ubuntu based and most RHEL and Arch distros suffer from issues that make them more suited for intermediate users or users who are much more willing to put in time and effort to learn right off the bat.

[youdontneedtoknow22]

I just wanted to add something:
I think that sandboxing in Linux is really a pain in the a**. The only practical way right now is to use Flatpaks (more mature, faster and have a better security) or Snaps (really slow).
You can check a comparison for firefox in here:
https://www.ctrl.blog/entry/firefox-linux-flatpak-snap.html

Flatpaks isn't perfect tho. Redhat is trying the fix the issues in Flatpaks' sandboxing. Those issues were adressed here:
https://madaidans-insecurities.github.io/linux.html#flatpak
https://flatkill.org/

And response in here:
https://theevilskeleton.frama.io/2021/02/11/response-to-flatkill-org.html

They were 4 issues:

Flatpak's permissions are also far too broad to be meaningful

You can edit the permissions using flatseal. I believe the community should also try to get some good default permissions for the most popular apps.

it allows unfiltered access to the X11 socket

Will be solved when using Wayland (default on Fedora, will probably be the default in Ubuntu 22 and thus Pop_OS)

There was a problem in firefox's security, it's also relevant to its sandboxing:

The PulseAudio socket allows “applications [to] do whatever they like to the state of user’s sound

This will also be solved when using Pipewire (default on Fedora, availabe on Ubuntu and Debian)

Another problem is with security (or bugfix) updates in bundled libraries. With bundled libraries its much harder to upgrade a single library, as you need to find and upgrade each app that uses it. Better tooling and upgrader support can lessen the impact of this, but not completely eliminate it

The response for this was:

A valid point. Since the Flatpak developers were fully aware of this problem, they came up with an acceptable and easy solution: flatpak-external-data-checker (f-e-d-c). f-e-d-c is a tool that automatically checks for external sources, such as dependencies and binaries. When an update is found, flathubbot automatically submits a merge request.

It doesn't seem that Cinnamon or XFCE will adopt wayland. So Pop_OS with gnome (or ubuntu or fedora) will probably be more secure in a year or two.
Also, Fedora already uses Pipewire starting of Fedora 34, which makes it more secure than all other alternatives.

So, we may want to adress these points when recommending a distro.

I may be totally wrong as I'm really new to linux. Feel free to correct me.

Mint will probably adopt Wayland in the future. You have to remember that Mint is a stability focused distro so it will take longer for newer technology to make it in. Pipewire will also probably be made the default in Pop! and Ubunutu in the future. Fedora is more of a bleeding edge distro which is why it gets newer packages and technologies first. I don't see any issues currently as everything should be resolved with all these distros in the future. We just have to wait for the developers to decide everything is stable enough and wont cause any issues.

[youdontneedtoknow22]

Mint will probably adopt Wayland in the future. You have to remember that Mint is a stability focused distro so it will take longer for newer technology to make it in. Pipewire will also probably be made the default in Pop! and Ubunutu in the future. Fedora is more of a bleeding edge distro which is why it gets newer packages and technologies first. I don't see any issues currently as everything should be resolved with all these distros in the future. We just have to wait for the developers to decide everything is stable enough and wont cause any issues.

The thing is, Fedora has been using Wayland since Fedora 25 (now it's 34, it's been 5 years I guess). So waiting for 5 years for a distro isn't probably the most practical solution.
However, Wayland doesn't work good with nvidia cards as I read. They're working on it, but it may take time.
It's hard to achieve security, privacy and compatibility

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2021/01/ubuntu-21-04-will-use-wayland-by-default

Ubuntu just made Wayland its default in the last version (I believe the LTS still uses Xorg but that should change soon). They tried to do it before but had many stability issues. I am assuming the reason Pop!_OS has not yet defaulted to Wayland is because a lot of the System76 Laptops use a Nvidia graphics card and they also probably don't want to make too many changes to the regular and Nvidia versions of Pop!_OS. Installing Nvidia on a distro that has Wayland will force it to default back to Xorg anyway. Wayland actually has a lot of stability issues besides just Nvidia compatibility which is why the majority of distros still use Xorg as the default. Remember Fedora is more of a bleeding edge distro so of course they will have everything before most of the other distros. The key thing to remember is there is no point in forcing wayland if it causes stability and security issues on your distro due to not yet being ready.

[rusty-snake]

Wayland actually has a lot of stability issues

Heads up! This statement is to general. There are a lot clients and compositors. There is not one Wayland at the server side like it was with Xorg and client libraries are even more.

• GTK+3 (and GTK 4) have a very good (full features, stable, ...) wayland backend
• Qt/KDE have still some bug and missing features, but over all they can be used most of the time
• All other (widely used; general purpose) GUI-toolkits have no wayland support or only a experimental one
• (see also https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/wayland#GUI_libraries)

compositors:

• mutter (GNOME's window manager) has no (longer) stability issues
• kwin_wayland is becoming better, but still not good
• weston was always good
• about sway I'm not sure
• and other are just experimental

Fedora has been using Wayland since Fedora 25 (now it's 34, it's been 5 years I guess).

But at this time were even things like screenshots problematic and even today there are some (normal user) things not always that easy. Screensharing in firefox is only supported since a few month IIRC and in chromium it is still experimental. It's not that Wayland is it working since 5 year, it is working with restrictions. (I use wayland since at least three years)

Wayland doesn't work good with nvidia cards as I read.

With nouveau it's working good AFAICTY but with nvidia there are a lot issues (e.g. no HW-accel in Xwayland; Xwayland is used my many games). Root cause is that the newer kernel API used for Wayland can only be used by free modules.