Getting to know Pop!_OS
Don’t be daunted, Pop wants you to feel at home and so do we. Explore and enjoy your freshly installed OS.
Once you’ve rebooted into your new OS, you’ll be prompted to connect any online accounts to your Pop!_OS desktop. This can, for example, allow you to access your Google Drive documents from the file manager, receive Facebook and Instagram notifications on the desktop (we don’t know why anyone would want to do this), or connect your email accounts. Pop!_OS uses the Gnome desktop (albeit with its own stylings and flourishes), which is quite different to Windows, or indeed many other desktops. However, it’s still pretty easy to find your way around once you get used to things such as the lack of taskbar (and also no minimise window buttons) and maybe learn some keyboard shortcuts. It’s also thoroughly customisable through extensions, but we recommend getting used to things before trying to change them. The annotation below will help.
Much of our work is carried out online now, so in that sense switching operating systems isn’t so daunting as long as you can launch a web browser. You’ll find Firefox preinstalled, or you can install other browsers (such as the Chrome’s open source cousin
Chromium) from the Pop!_Shop. And if you really need Microsoft Office, then you can use the Office365 web apps. We think you’ll find the bundled LibreOffice suite just fine. APC has migrated to it, in fact.
Open the file manager (imaginatively entitled Files). You’ll see that the folder structure is quite similar to Windows too, with Documents, Downloads and folders for your media. You can also find fixed and removable drives listed here, so if you still have your Windows drive installed, you can copy across any files you need. You’ll be prompted for a
password to access internal drives – this is the password you used to log into Pop with, not your Windows password or anything.
KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS
One day, dear reader, you will do all your work at the command line and edit all your documents with Vim. When that day comes you will be a ninja of keyboard shortcuts, regexs and other such voodoo. So why not get ahead and start the journey now by learning some tricks that will help you navigate Pop!_OS more fluidly. We’ve already told you that Super (Windows) summons the activities menu, but here are some other super-handy combos:
■ Super-Tab: Switch windows
■ Super-Up/Down: Switch workspace
■ Ctrl-Super-Left/Right: Tile active window
Super-Drag: Move window (no need to drag by the titlebar) Super-Right-drag: Resize window Ctrl Shift Alt R: Start/stop screen recorder
Ctrl Super 8: Toggle screen magnifier Alt Super +/-: Zoom in/out (while magnifier is active)
There’s a whole bunch more that you can find at https://pop.system76.com/ docs/keyboard-shortcuts/.
Pop comes with everything ‘most’ people need to get started with their digital tasks. But we know you’re not most people, and we know that you have your own tools and workflow that you’re eager to incorporate into glorious Pop!_OS. There’s a whole raft of free software available in the Pop!_Shop, which you should not hesitate to peruse. The Windows way of installing software (downloading random binaries from the web) is not the normal practice on Linux. Instead distros maintain their own repositories, which allows some amount of quality assurance (you can add custom ones, and if you really want to download random binaries you can do that too).
ALL THE GAMES
Gaming on Linux is pretty exciting nowadays. Not only do we have the Steam client (that’s available in the Pop!_Shop), Steam Controller support and several wonderful Linux ports of AAA games (such as Shadow of The Tomb Raider, ported by Feral Interactive), but thanks to Proton (Valve’s compatibility layer) we can run thousands of Windows-only titles with a minimum of fuss. A ton of titles have already been whitelisted and are available immediately from the Steam store (check out www.protondb.com for some stats), but if you want to try it on other titles you can do so from the Steam client by going to Steam > Settings > Steam Play and ticking
Enable Steam Play For All Other Titles box. You can also choose between Proton versions (beta versions are sometimes available), in case that helps matters in any way. Any Windows titles you own will magically become launchable now, and you’ll see a note declaring that they will be run via Steam Play on the library page.
Not everyone likes proprietary ecosystems like Steam, though. And we are well aware that there were games long before Steam. So another solution for running Windows games is Lutris (https://lutris.net), which you’ll also find in the Pop!_Shop. Lutris can run DRM-free games, such as you would find at GOG or The Humble Store, as well as some DRMed titles from Steam, Origin, Uplay and more. Epic Games (whose store also works via Lutris) recently awarded Lutris an Epic MegaGrant to help them improve the experience. Sadly this won’t mean you can play Fortnite on Linux anytime soon.
Both Lutris and Steam Play rely on a tool called Wine (which used to be an acronym for Wine Isn’t an Emulator. Don’t ask) that has been around since the early Linux days. You can download Wine independently of these things, and use it to try and run any Windows application at all (some will work, some will not). This is a whole feature in itself, and you’ll need to get to grips with the terminal before you can do this.
“We can run thousands of Windows-only titles with a minimum of fuss. A ton of
titles have already been whitelisted and are available immediately”.