Get started with… POP!_OS
Let eyecatching-distro aficionado Jonni Bidwell show you the ropes of System76’s bespoke Linux flavour.
Discover the hip new kid on the distro block: POP!_OS, from System76. Easy to use but super-powerful, testing it makes Jonni Bidwell drops his Arch addiction.
There have been a few notable efforts to humanise Linux. Today we’d say – and feel free to disagree – that Linux Mint and elementary OS are the most friendlyto-use and all-purpose distros out there. These are of course indebted to Ubuntu for providing a solid foundation and superlative package selection – which in turn owes something to Debian. But it’s also arguable that much of this popularity is, or at least was, a result of dissatisfaction with Ubuntu’s desktop.
People who didn’t like Unity loved Cinnamon, and the people who did like Unity didn’t like GNOME 3 (which Ubuntu has used since 17.10). Pantheon, the macos-like desktop of elementary OS, is attractive not just to fans of fruit-based fashion companies,
but to anyone frustrated with over complicated configuration, inconsistently styled applications and ugly fonts. Of course, Windows 10 drives a steady trickle of users to Linux too, as the Start menu begins to resemble some sort of ever growing billboard farm, and updates constantly get in your way.
Hardware compatibility is an important concern too. Today, distros have to cater to all kinds of new-fangled configurations: HIDPI fractional scaling, multi-monitor and hybrid GPU setups, disk encryption. Users want easy access to the latest software, and developers want easy access to their preferred development tools. Providing such features is especially important if you’re a manufacturer of Linux systems like Colorado-based System76, and that is why it developed the mysteriously punctuated POP!_OS.
Hopefully by now you’ll have had a play with Pop! from the LXFDVD and have seen what all the fuss is about. You may even be itching to install it, in which case check the step-by-step guide on page 49. Before you do though, you should be aware that if you have Nvidia hardware and generally want life to be easier, you should use the Nvidia edition of Pop from https://system76.com/ pop. This comes with Nvidia’s proprietary driver set up nicely out of the box.
The Amd/intel edition on the DVD contains only open source drivers, including the Nouveau driver for Nvidia cards, but that’s not much use for AAA gaming or CUDA programming. If you have any problems booting the LXFDVD or booting a POP!_OS USB, ensure that you have disabled secure boot in the UEFI settings (often found by pressing F2 or Delete at boot time). Different BIOSES use different hotkeys to invoke a boot menu, but F11 and F12 are popular. Also see our DVD FAQ at www.linuxformat.com/dvdsupport. If our DVD works fine for you (awesome, my first attempt at repacking an initrd – Tech Ed), then great: you can skip step 1
in the walkthrough.
Pop it like it’s hot
The guide covers installing alongside Windows; we’d always recommend installing on a different drive if you have one available though. UEFI booting means Windows usually manages to keep itself to itself, or keep its breaking to itself. If you use classic BIOS you might find Windows blithely overwriting the bootloader from time to time, which is annoying, but can be remedied. Either way, it’s important to disable Fast Startup in Power Options in the Windows control panel, otherwise you won’t be able to boot another OS. If you’re setting up Pop as your only OS, you can safely ignore all the partitioning instructions in the walkthrough; just select ‘Erase entire disk’ from the installer and everything will be set up for you.
You should also be able to safely use the POP!_OS Installer’s partitioning tool to resize the NTFS partition, but it’s probably safer to let the devil (Windows) do the devil’s work (rearranging NTFS structures). If your EFI partition is less than 512MB – some Windows installs seem to settle for 100MB – then you’ll need to use a third-party tool to resize this and possibly move the Windows System reserved partition, which we can’t possibly recommend. Hopefully this isn’t you and you have no need to worry. Distint (Pop’s bespoke and delightfully simple installer) will hold your trembling hand throughout the installation process.
POP!_OS doesn’t really resemble Windows or macos, and it only vaguely resembles Ubuntu’s current Gnome setup. But it is easy to get to grips with; hit the Super (Windows) key or click the top left corner to access the activities view, then start typing to find installed applications. That will also show you applications you can install from the Pop!_shop (okay, that does have a nice ring to it) as well as any recently opened matching files. Our initial install weighed in at around 5.5GB, which is pretty modest by today’s standards. As with many distributions Libreoffice comes bundled, but beyond Firefox and core tools there are no crazy-large application inclusions. There are a few gems included, such as the delightful Geary email program and System76’s own Popsicle Usb-writing tool. There’s