Re:Pop OS 20.04 LTS
by elagost on Thursday April 30, 2020 @06:12PM
(#23036831)
A heavy criticism of a lot of these ubuntu-based distros is "ubuntu + a custom PPA", but system76 does actually put in a lot of work into a custom kernel and some neat UI tweaks that make the OS on their hardware really well. They also have a firmware updater for their systems built into the settings program. The whole experience is a lot more refined than Ubuntu, I believe. It's a great OS for their machines, as well as any laptop with hybrid Intel/Nvidia graphics.
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Re:Pop OS 20.04 LTS
by gshulegaard on Thursday April 30, 2020 @06:19PM
(#23036892)
I have been a heavy Ubuntu user for awhile now and currently I have a Dell Precision 55 with Ubuntu 18.04 (came with it) for work and a Lenovo X1 Extreme with PopOS (18.04) that I installed on my personal machine. I think I would install PopOS over vanilla Ubuntu in the future...and I have not had a similar feeling for various alternate distributions like Mint, KDE, or even distros outside of Debian/Ubuntu (e.g. Manjaro). PopOS is the first distribution that I feel like adds a layer of polish and user-friendliness that I find worth it.
I have high hopes for future Ubuntu (desktop) release which seem to be making moves in the right general direction, but at the moment PopOS is probably where I am going to hang my hat.
I run PopOS 18.04 on a Lenovo P1 (sister machine to the X1 Extreme). It works flawlessly and is quite beautiful. I've had issues with Thunderbolt docks, but then again, I had the same with a MacBook Pro 2018.
I searched but couldn't find any info - why do they need a custom kernel? What changes do they make and why don't they upstream them?
They do indeed upstream patches. Here's an example: https://lkml.org/lkml/2019/10/8/851