$ Pop!_OS ~ stat / | grep "Birth" | sed 's/Birth: //g' | cut -b 2-11 127
2021-07-24
Pop!_OS Install
I installed Pop!_OS last year after completely borking my Manjaro install. I mean completely. The desktop wouldn’t load, there were corrupt files with no index nodes, and I had automated the login process so the desktop would try to load as soon as the system hit the TTY. I was in chroot purgatory trying to untangle a convoluted mess. I think we’ve all been in a situation like this where it easier to start from scratch. So that’s what I did I wiped and paved. The new asphalt was laid by System 76. I was fortunate to have the Pop!_OS live USB hanging around and I was using it to debug Manjaro so I went ahead and installed it. The install process was easy and fast. It was a Calamares installer with a clean user experience.
Packaging
At first it was lost on me how Pop_OS! stayed ahead of the other Ubuntu based distributions in terms of software. Now I see that they are taking full advantage of Flatpak. Pop_OS! integrates Flatpak so seamlessly you might not even notice it. Flatpak on Pop!_OS is similar to Arch’s Arch User Repository. Pop_OS! is the perfect hybrid between the rolling release model and the static release model. You get all the new software you need with Flatpak and the old stable software you need from the Ubuntu repositories. I’ve seen some speculation the Pop!_OS might move to a fully rolling release but I would argue this is unnecessary with the way Flatpak gives you the best of both worlds. The pop-shop even has support for keeping Nix packages up to date. If you have a development operations type package you cant find from Ubuntu, a PPA or Flatpak you can almost definitely get it from the 80,000+ Nix packages.
The pop-shop is great for new users. It has an app store style interface forked from the Elementary OS AppCeter. The only problem is it sorts packages so you only see applications. If you search for a shared library it wont show up. So you still need to use apt or synaptic for trouble shooting dependencies. Which is counter productive for new users.
Upgrades
Pop!_OS supports upgrades between releases. I’ve upgraded this system twice if I remember correctly. The first upgrade was completely painless everything shot across to the new version without a hitch. The most recent update was much the same except for an issue with one of my python modules. The most recent version of Pop_OS uses pipewire and I immediately noticed an unexpected increase in audio fidelity. For some reason pipewire makes audio in Linux sound less compressed. I never noticed how bad audio sounded over pulse audio before but as soon as pipewire was installed I couldn’t believe the difference.
Productivity
Pop has been my new best friend when it comes to learning and graphic design. When I started using GNU/Linux again I set up a virtual machine with Windows and some design software that only runs on Mac/Windows. Since then I have quit opening the Windows virtual machine for anything. Everything I do as a graphic designer is supported by free and open source software albeit with some caveats and trouble shooting. I’ve done all of my learning in 3D computer graphics on this operating system. I’ve also been using pop for learning game design in Godot. Ultimately I’ve come to the conclusion that GNU/Linux exceeds other operating systems. Linux has reached feature parody with Mac and Windows and is now taking leaps in innovation past the competition because of its flexibility.
Pop!_OS Desktop
I don’t run Pop!_OS as intended. I run qtile-chameleon in lieu of the Pop-shell for Gnome 3. I could point out the problems with Gnome. However, what is more important to note is that System 76 recognizes the problems with Gnome. They are making their own Cosmic desktop environment to replace it. Hopefully we should see Cosmic on Pop_Os this year.