Should I use Pop!OS or Ubuntu

[Renton577]

So I’m not totally new to Linux, I’ve used Ubuntu quite a few times before over the years but I’ve seen pop!os coming up more often especially in LTT videos and it looks nice, with windows 11 coming around I’m looking to ditch windows all together and wanted to know which one I should go with.

[Bombastinator]

My memory is theyre simply versions of more or less the same thing, simply with different packages pre-loaded and setup for same pre-done.  It becomes a question of if pop! Has things you specifically want that would be a pain to set up in Ubuntu.  All the Linux distros are fundamentally pretty similar. Usually distros are specialized for specific things.  There are ones designed specifically for headless NAS servers for example.  A different distro could still do those things but would require setup. I’ve used Ubuntu though not recently.  I’ve never used pop! So I don’t really know what it’s focus is.  The original focus of Ubuntu was general use desktop replacement for users not very familiar with Linux. 

[Curioisman]

I would go for Pop! it is better atleast in my opinion than ubuntu, while ubuntu is more "noob-friendly" Pop! is pretty user-friendly too, also it's better whit nvidia cards

[Gorilla Warfare]

POP OS or Zorin 16

https://zorin.com/os/

[LloydLynx]

PopOS. Here's something I wrote in another thread that explains why.

Quote

I always recommend PopOS. It's developed by System76 to be shipped on their computers so they have a strong monetary incentive to make it newb friendly, work perfectly out of the box, and not break. It also has features that Windows users might appreciate, like fractional scaling, reset the OS to factory, a recent and well maintained kernel so you won't have to worry about current gen hardware not working, an Nvidia specific ISO and well maintained Nvidia drivers so you won't have trouble with Nvidia hardware, mutli-graphics switching, power plan options, and probably more that I'm forgetting. A lot of that stuff is lacking in other distros.

 

[Bombastinator]

2 minutes ago, LloydLynx said:

PopOS. Here's something I wrote in another thread that explains why.

 

Interesting.  So potentially quite useful for Nvidia gpu users.  My memory is Nvidia is significantly more difficult to deal with using Linux to the point that many Linux users simply use AMD video cards. 

[LloydLynx]

2 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Interesting.  So potentially quite useful for Nvidia gpu users.  My memory is Nvidia is significantly more difficult to deal with using Linux to the point that many Linux users simply use AMD video cards. 

Manual installation of the driver isn't newb friendly, but pretty easy if you know what you're doing. The main issues are with operation, like Xorg config sometimes being a little weird, Wayland support is weird, TTY doesn't run at the proper resolution(at least last time I had to deal with Nvidia), OS updates can cause issues like breaking the driver or just making it slightly malfunction, screen tearing, etc... System76 sells many computers with Nvidia graphics so they have to build their software to work with it to an OEM standard of quality.

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, LloydLynx said:

Manual installation of the driver isn't newb friendly, but pretty easy if you know what you're doing. The main issues are with operation, like Xorg config sometimes being a little weird, Wayland support is weird, TTY doesn't run at the proper resolution(at least last time I had to deal with Nvidia), OS updates can cause issues like breaking the driver or just making it slightly malfunction, screen tearing, etc... System76 sells many computers with Nvidia graphics so they have to build their software to work with it to an OEM standard of quality.

I recall it at least partially being an issue of source code.  AMD will release driver source and Nvidia won’t. Same reason Apple dropped them.  They may be dropping AMD too now for some things.  That one isn’t super clear to me.  

[Renton577]

Thank you everyone for your input, I ended up going with Pop!OS and I'm loving it so far, its only been about a day and I'm already not missing windows and preferring Linux, I'm not sure why I didn't make the switch sooner.

[LloydLynx]

7 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

I recall it at least partially being an issue of source code.  AMD will release driver source and Nvidia won’t. Same reason Apple dropped them.  They may be dropping AMD too now for some things.  That one isn’t super clear to me.  

That's right. The community has the freedom to develop a great driver because they have the necessary info and documentation to do so. With Nvidia, everyone just has to put up with whatever crap Nvidia releases as a driver, or put up with the reverse engineered and slow af nouveau driver.

 

Apple is dropping all chip makers in favor of their own custom GPU and CPU silicon so they can have more vertical integration. But yes, they did previously drop Nvidia for being too proprietary.