I’m planning on moving to linux from windows(personal) and macos(work use), although I prefer mac os, so I don’t really want to use mint, and I feel like I should add that I don’t care if GNOME isn’t that similar to macos, I want something different, and I also use my computer for gaming
PopOS for sure. Ubuntu hasn’t been great lately.
Why PopOS and why isn’t Ubuntu great lately? Did I miss something?
https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=3766
Look under Snap
Gotcha. Thanks for sharing. We’ll see what happens with Snap. I mostly use APT anyway. I had some few cases of Snap where it even wouldn’t update itself.
The thing is, sometimes apt install uses snap…
I’m willing to bet snap is here to stay. Unless Ubuntu saw a drop in users since this was announced, and I haven’t heard anything of the sort except anecdotes.
Snap is important for Ubuntu’s embedded and cloud ambitions. It is not going anywhere. At least, that is my opinion.
I do not use Ubuntu ( for a few reasons - including Snap ).
But why not just uninstall snap and install flatpack?
Because Ubuntu will reinstall snapd during some updates and then try to replace some native apt packages to snap
The reason snap reinstalls is just due to basic dependency management, nothing sinister. Apt has a feature to stop a package, such as snap, from reinstalling if you don’t want it.
Although I don’t see the point in removing snap. Just uninstall the snap version of Firefox and use flatpak for whatever you want. Or if you don’t like that, have fun dealing with third party packages and apt funkiness.
Pop!OS anyday over ubuntu.
Why have you narrowed it down to those two options, if I may ask? Between those two, I’d go for Pop_OS but if you are open for another suggestion, you may want to look at EndeavourOS, which is based on the same Linux distribution as SteamOS (since you said you also want to game).
I don’t think we should recommend any rolling release to beginners, I love Arch but that’s just going to cause issues!
At least not without warning. I begun with Manjaro and am very happy with it, so much it’s still my main OS maybe 5 years later, but I’m happy I was warned and read a few things beforehand.
Definitely, you have to want to learn Linux fast and possibly a little more painful if you choose that path. Especially that SteamOS comparison annoys me, you spend basically all your time in a completely sandboxed environment with that (Steam uses Flatpaks for everything) so it has very little to do with Arch for most users!
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I don’t think we should recommend any rolling release to beginners
Why not?
They aren’t unstable perse but there are always issues with some update and as a beginner with no clue about Linux I even struggled to solve Mints very rare issues, I think it’s better to learn Linux first or that person might have a very frustrating experience!
You don’t need to update things to use rolling-release distros, and I’ve never encountered an issue with updates yet.
Not updating regularly is the best way to brick a rolking release, just trust me on that one! 😅😂
Gently scoffs in Tumbleweed
I think rolling releases are fine for beginners as long as they update regularly. If you do not update EndeavourOS often enough, you will get arch-letting and GPG issues when you do. Also, you may get more than one “do you want to replace” questions and the more packages you are updating, the harder it is to know what that means.
I think Manjaro has ruined the reputation of all rolling releases. People blame the problems Manjaro has on its rolling nature. You will not see those issues on Arch. By reputation, OpenSUSE Tumbleweed is solid.
What’s wrong with Manjaro?
Yeah, you’re probably right. Haven’t had any issues the last time I used Manjaro, though. But that’s only anecdotal evidence at best.
+1 for EndeavourOS. Just installed it on an older notebook (ThinkPad X220) and damn, was it a breeze to set up properly.
I’d say popos. It’s very polished and they are both developers as well as hardware people. It works very well. For servers I’d go with Ubuntu, but not for desktops.
Any distro is better than Ubuntu nowadays. I use pop os personally and it works flawlessly.
I’ve been using Ubuntu for the past 6 years, haven’t tried another distro because I’m so comfortable here. Could you tell me why you think others are so much better?
Maybe I should switch, but I think my experience in Ubuntu might outweigh the negatives that it has ie I might just know how to deal with it’s peculiarities and I don’t even realize
If it works well for you, don’t switch. Many Linux users are against Snaps, because Canonical “forces” them on you and they tend to take up more space. Ubuntu has become the Nickelback of Linux distros. Yes, it’s not the best, but it’s also not terrible and still a good beginner distro. Stick with what you like.
PopOS is the best experience I have had with a distro for a while.
this
I’ll be that guy - I still default to Ubuntu. The concerns about snap are valid but it’s still a rock solid OS. Every server I have has been running it for years, virtually no problems except during upgrades if I’m careless about config updates.
I’ve use Ubuntu and a lot of other distros are based on Ubuntu. When I switched from Windows to Linux, I wanted to have the desktop look different from Windows. Some people want that familiar look of Windows. It’s a matter of taste.
I tried PopOS, but it’s Nvidia driver was behind what Ubuntu was running, so I went back to Ubuntu. But the Linux community hates Nvidia and Snap. I have an Nvidia card, and it plays my games and looks great. Snap doesn’t bother me. BUT Linux is great in that there is so much choice with many distros. Try them and see which one you like.
POP!_OS all the way. They ship the latest kernel and also have their own COSMIC desktop workflow. If you want the latest software use flatpak or Guix/Nix instead.
Pop_OS! is a greatly extended version of Ubuntu. It offers an unique 1 password encryption + login solution. I don’t have Nvidia gpu but many people has claimed it offers the best Nvidia support out of the box.
It does. Literaly worked out of the box whereas on windows i had to go through some really painfull process to make it work
Hannah Montana Linux is a nice cleaned up fork on Ubuntu with zero downsides. Your anti virus is also Hannah Montana so u can’t get viruses.
I moved from Ubuntu to Pop!_OS.
It feels miles ahead, it feels so clean and polished and looks great, flatpaks enabled instead of snap. Go Pop
It’s better than it used to be but for gaming a Debian base can still get in your way and if you don’t mind the change in interface anyway it might be worth checking out Nobora. That’s a gaming focused edition of Fedora by Glorious Eggroll, the creator of a really cool version of Valves Proton called ProtonGE and highly regarded in the community! It’s basically Fedora with a few modifications and great defaults for gaming and only a Gnome version.
There’s also a KDE version of Nobara. I use it myself and it’s been great so far.
Cool, I didn’t know about that one but I am a Gnome user so I can’t say I ever really looked for another spin ether! :)
pop_OS is a de-crapified Ubuntu remix. It’s not a stand-alone distribution. For most packages pop_OS is reliant on Canonical, including graphics drivers. So if you want to use it for gaming and have and AMD or Intel GPU and not an NVidia one, you’ll have to stick to Ubuntu’s outdated Mesa and kernel drivers. For gaming on AMD/Intel GPUs, something along the lines of EndeavourOS or Fedora should be a better choice. If you use a GeForce, pop_OS should be OK.
So if you want to use it for gaming and have and AMD or Intel GPU and not an NVidia one, you’ll have to stick to Ubuntu’s outdated Mesa and kernel drivers.
This is not true. Pop OS packages its own kernel and often the kernel version provided by pop is upstream of the Ubuntu version. It is only recently that they have fallen behind ubuntu because they have diverted their resources to creating the Cosmic DE.
Edit : Also to be noted is the fact that being on the latest version of mesa is only necessary if you have very new hardware which may not be supported well(or at all) in the older versions of mesa. I for example have an RDNA1 gpu and saw no performance difference between mesa 22.5 on pop os and mesa 23.1 on endeavourOS. People using RDNA3 or Intel Arc may see massive performance/stability difference because these are very new hardware and drivers/optimisation for these current gen GPUs is ongoing
Pop just recently updated too, to Linux 6.4.6 and Mesa 23.1.3
Thanks for the info. I have pop on an older laptop that I don’t use much and now I ensure that it is updated
+1 For Pop OS - spend many days distro hoping and end up there :)
What device are you intending to use, you mention you’re using macos so I’m guessing Apple hardware?
Just thought I’d share my experience with pop on my MacBook in case we can help each other 😂. Basically I was dead set on pop but couldn’t get it to install for the life of me - the installer showed my disk as being a fraction of the size it was, even exfat volumes created by the installer. So I had to shrink other os petitions like crazy so I could trick it into thinking there was enough space.
There was no option to encrypt the disk in the installer and it didn’t play nice when I created my own LUKS container.
After several hours of trying to beat it into submission I ended up using Ubuntu’s legacy installer and was up and running in 15 mins.
So yeah if you are using Apple hardware and get pop playing nice please share any tips :)
I like Elementary OS more, it’s very clean looks very good also.
I’m only using a MacBook for work, I will be using a computer that is intended to run windows
If you really want to run Linux on an ARM (aka Apple Silicon) device you need to use Asahi Linux.
I have an intel device, not an ARM one.
Though I would love an M2!
