PopOS is SPECIAL, and I'm moving to it, here's why!

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#linux #popos #review

00:00 Intro
00:53 Secure your internet connection with Safing
01:47 Installation: smoother, and simpler
04:16 Cosmic: more than just a GNOME reskin
06:19 Apps grid: a better implementation than GNOME's
07:12 Launcher: good, but could be easier
08:39 Workspaces: I prefer them on GNOME
08:59 Gestures: it's not there yet
11:37 Auto-tiling: made me love tiling my windows
13:18 Software: it has EVERYTHING
16:22 PopOS is awesome, and I'm keeping it
17:58 Grab a laptop or desktop with Linux out of the box
18:58 Support the channel

What sets PopOS apart is the desktop experience. What they've done with the desktop is bring most features that GNOME packs into the Activities overview, into their own modules. By default, you have a dock, that can extend to the screen edges or not, you get a big applications launcher that opens as a window, not in full screen, and a dedicated WOrkspaces view, plus a launcher.

That's the good thing: YOU decide. All these tools definitely fill parts of the same function, and so you can pick which ones you want to keep, and which ones you don't.

Same goes with the applications grid: you can open it with the Applications button in the top left, or the dock icon, or set the super key to open it. It opens in a window, so it doesn't block out your whole screen, and it's got a very nice folder implementation: instead of having folders inline with the rest of the apps, each folder you create has its own tab in the bottom, so it's way easier to navigate to one, although you do lose the drag and drop reorganization of apps, or folder creation. You need to click the create folder icon to create one.

You also get a launcher, which is probably the less accomplished tool implemented here .It can also search through files, recent documents, browse the filesystem, run a terminal command, perform calculations, do a web search, or even run an sh command.

Gestures on PopOS are a mixed bag. First, apart from the virtual desktop switching, they're not 1:1 gestures. Second, the gestures can't be configured.

There's also a very handy restore partition being created automatically, and you can update it straight from the settings.

PopOS has a great system wide feature: it lets you switch from a regular window manager, with floating windows, to a tiling window manager that can be operated from the keyboard entirely. It's right there, up top in the panel.

Just press SUper + Y, and all your windows automatically tile themselves in a sensible way. There, you can either the mouse to resize them, stack them on top of another to create tabs, or move them to a different position. Or use the keyboard to do the same, all shortcuts are explained right in the indicator panel.

PopOS uses the PopSHOP, a graphical app based on the elementary OS appCenter, instead of GNOME Software.PopOS adds their own repos with a bunch of applications that aren't in ubuntu's repos, or are available as snap packages on Ubuntu, and they ship with flathub out of the box.

PopOS also generally has more up to date internals, with more recent kernels than Ubuntu, more up to date mesa drivers, they don't limit themselves to just security updates, they do pull in the latest stable versions of a lot of the software stack.

It's also the only distro I used that has a good way of switching between integrated graphics and dedicated GPus on hybrid laptops.

[manueldreyer]

I switched from Windows to Linux a few weeks ago. I tested many different distros and desktop environment. As soon as I tested pop os I had a good feeling and stayed with it!!

[vale-zkut]

The main reason why I decided to move was the amazing hardware support, which means a lot when you have an NVIDIA laptop GPU. PopOS even lets you choose with a single click whether you want the system to only use the NVIDIA GPU, only the integrated GPU or alternate between the two.

[myanrueller]

I've been using PopOS at work as a software engineer for over a year, and it has been incredible for that workflow. It has all the IDEs I use in the Pop Shop, and has a workflow design that never gets in my way.

[MysteryMan]

Pop feels like computers back in 1998 but with updated software and hardware. And not running windows. The best of both worlds. So much childhood nostalgia ...

[ialrakis]

I know it's kind of a ridiculous reason but I tried this because of the color scheme initially. It felt like they had actually thought about how to create a relaxing environment to work in.

[CSSTY]

I'm actually strongly considering going back to the distro that started my Linux journey, Linux Mint. After years with rolling releases like Manjaro, Arch, openSUSE..., I just want something stable. I'm really fed up with troubleshooting something every 2 months.

[nomadtrails]

Pro tip: open "extensions" and disable "Cosmic Workspaces" to get Gnome 42 horizontal workspaces and gestures back. Boom, now you have everything you love about Pop OS and still get what you prefer with vanilla Gnome! This is also the exact setup that I prefer.

[cosmiccuttlefish]

I love the COSMIC environment. So much that I installed it on my fedora system so I could enjoy it on my desktop.

[prophetjamz]

As a developer who spends most of time coding I love Pop for the keyboard commands out of the box, something I really never knew I needed until i started using them, now I can do so much before i ever need to touch my mouse and its something that you really see the value of when you do alot of typing. And yes I know other distros allow you to set these up but i believe PopOS' are really well thought out and easy to learn, not to mention they come preset

[LolsonX]

Thing i love on Pop OS is window stacking. You can stack windows with super + s and then drag and drop with super key to create a stack of windows, which can be navigated as cards in internet browsers. It really helps me organize my working flow. I like having all communicators on one monitor and rest of stuff on second

[CrisEdmundson]

I always really want to like pop os, but every time I've tried it, it gives me some weird issues. I'm hopeful they continue to work on it and it becomes even more compelling with time, I think it has a ton of potential.

[nikolayivanov]

I really like Pop but I wish they'd let you pick between having the separate modules and packing everything in one place like GNOME does, as for me personally having them separate feels pretty odd. With GNOME everything is just a Windows/Super key away.

[averagemamil]

I use PopOS as my daily driver on my main laptop in a corporate environment - so, meetings, reports, spreadsheets, design work, data parsing and analysis etc - It’s rock solid, reliable (mostly! Occasional hiccups with the Pop Shop) and I like the theming and the overall the workflow really suits me. I also use Steam with Nvidia for the occasional Gamez! I have a second laptop running Manjaro, but that’s my ‘fun’ machine and don’t care if it go boom. Great vid 👍

[starmarker]

I'd say the biggest plus is system76-power.

Just a few clicks to switch to Nvidia graphics. No need to install optimus or similar apps, you can just switch out-of-the-box. (It was very confusing to install optimus on Manjaro when I hopped.)

Though, I had to do it through the command line since I use a desktop PC and not a laptop.

[wolfwoof]

I changed from pop os to Fedora 2 months ago. For work, debian is easier but for personal work I prefer Fedora. Gnome 42 is sooo clean, and the gestures are amazing, it's my all time favorite update in linux in general

[estebanguerrero]

Very interesting review! Would be interesting to see a very good fusion between fedora and cosmic desktop environment!!
I would like to see a video that point out that with software one can have different installation issues/options and even versions when installing via command line, flatpak, compiling it or even using appimages, and each every method has it's own issues/advantages at the user experience

[PiiskaJesusFreak]

12:30 there are number of reasons:
1) same reason why people install Arch. Creating your own desktop environment around a wm teaches you a LOT of what happens under the hood of your system, and really makes you appreciate the desktops you use
2) better tiling. Pop-shell does a phenomenal job within the constraints of Mutter, but it is really held back by its limitations. If you only want tiling, then pop-shell or material-shell (and these are the best desktop options) really can't hold the candle for bspwm, awesome, sway or xmonad.
3) you get exactly what you want and nothing else
4) performance. Many distros gnome desktops starts at 1.5Gb ram usage. Mine starts at about 450Mb. My bspwm desktop starts at 100Mb and boots to desktop in under 3 seconds. And you can feel it in general usage too, it just feels more snappy, regardless of your specs. With modern hardware it's not a big issue, but a good wm can make even an old and crappy net book fly.
5) some people just prefer the aesthetic
6) bragging rights
7) it's a good way to learn coding

Okay, I admit. All of these boil down to "same reason that people install Arch linux".

[gwitt]

great video Nick ! I also installed PopOS 1, 5 yr ago on a sister model of Tuxedo, the Schenker Vision 14 with high DPI screen resolution 2880 x 1800 dpi .
The only thing annoying at the initial install was to search and learn the grub parameters necessary to remove the screen flickering due to the high res frequency. Once I went over that hurdle everything went extremely smooth. I even took advantage of the system refresh option, once I steered myself into an unstable system. Everything was fine again after that. So I really recommend to combine the best of the 2 Linux manufacturer's worlds: PopOS + Tuxedo/Schenker Laptops. Great Experience!

[naranyala_dev]

Thank you for making a great review, each distro has its own pros and cons, with your videos we can combine the most useful for our experiments and try to contribute to the community.

[ConMag-Fhionnghaile]

After I bought a s76 laptop, I already planned to replace Pop!_OS with my heavily customised KDE Plasma but now I respect how s76 have worked hard with Cosmic and what they'll be doing next, and look forward to their steering in their own direction.