There’s a lot to like and few things to dislike about PopOS (Ubuntu Gnome with a System 76 twist). Let’s start by saying, I’ve never really been a fan of Gnome when they moved to GTK3 and GTK4 desktops. For most coming from Microsoft Windows, it’s more or less counter intuitive compared to other desktops in Linux. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not the applications at fault. Even many of the Gnome applications are quite good if not excellent.
Let’s start off with my most disliked thing about PopOS and Gnome in general. Both PopOS and just about every distribution that has a Gnome desktop are resource hogs. I’m still not sure why this is. PopOS for instance takes up 1.8 gigabyte of memory upon first clean boot at the desktop before loading any applications. This by no means makes it slow to boot to the desktop. Nor is it as heavy as Microsoft Windows. It is however half to the minimum requirement for system RAM for Microsoft Windows. For an older system that has only 4 gigabyte of system RAM (especially a laptop with shared memory for the video display), it obviously won’t do. Forget about multitasking unless you have a system with 8 gigabyte or more of system RAM. Though that isn’t an issue with today’s laptops, it could be on a system that is 10 years or more old that you’re trying to extend it’s useful life.
My second dislike of any Gnome base is having to search for applications instead of having them segregated for lack of a better metaphor. Most other desktops use a menu structure much like Microsoft Windows does (even though Microsoft is getting to where they want you to search for everything of late). This perhaps is one of the reasons for memory hogging. KDE is perhaps better organized when it comes to turning on/off searching. It’s no lightweight desktop. It starts off using a little over a megabyte of RAM. However, you can turn off searching other than in the file manager to shrink that memory usage down to around 700 megabyte. This can’t be done in Gnome specifically. I’ve even tried to do the same in Cinnamon with little or no effect to memory usage. I’m not so certain with other desktops.
This thing with searching for everything tells me shows me one thing. It’s laziness more than simplicity. Most “proficient” computer users are much more organized than not. They put their files (content they generate or acquire) in appropriate folders just as they do in Microsoft Windows. Searching for everything may be “OK” with computer neophytes, but I wouldn’t expect it from those that run Linux. On the other hand, it may not be laziness but for those with the lack of knowledge about the applications they have on the system and what they are meant to do. This is where word association is great. This along with memory usage is the reason I lean toward menu based desktops instead of Gnome. It’s organized whereas Gnome truly isn’t organized till you do so yourself by creating folders for your application icons.
My last beef/dislike of any Gnome desktop involves how it handles WINE (the Microsoft Windows emulation) within Linux. Gnome isn’t the only desktop that has problems with WINE. It seems like all the major desktops withing Linux are having this issue of late. It’s quite possible that there is a problem with WINE packages supported by the various distributions (some don’t support newer packages of WINE from WINEHQ). Granted most people running WINE on Linux use it for gaming as the majority of games are written for Windows, but a number of people use it for Windows applications that have yet to be ported to Linux.
Anyway, the issue at hand with WINEHQ packages within most distributions is how they function in removal of Windows applications within Linux. It’s easy to install applications that use WINE whether the package comes from the distribution or from WINEHQ. However, uninstalling Windows applications running under WINE isn’t handled very well within Gnome or for that matter even the menuing based desktops. Within most other desktops (KDE, Cinnamon, or even XFCE or LXQT) you can install a menu editor even if the desktop doesn’t come with one). Sure Gnome has their menu editor, but it’s obviously been relegated or it doesn’t do well with the GTK4 desktop. When using PopOS, I installed a copy of a Windows game I had and subsequently uninstalled it in an attempt to get the game to install the way I wanted it to be installed. PopOS gave me multiple launching icons for the game. Uninstalling obviously didn’t remove the first icons/launchers installed. Even when using the aforementioned Gnome menu editor, I couldn’t remove the multiple icons after completely removing the Windows game to begin with. Menued desktops don’t have issues with multiple icons/launchers, but they still have issues with removing said icons/launchers after an application is uninstalled. Linux based applications don’t have this issue on any desktop. Of course, this may not be an issue with the distribution packaged version of WINE. However, most people run the version from WINEHQ as it’s more up to date with many fixes for application/game programs to run. Something for all desktop developers to look at.
Now for what I like about PopOS specifically and to a lesser extent Gnome. Funny thing is there is quite a bit to like that isn’t readily noticeable in both. This is true of most Linux desktops and to a lesser extent Microsoft Windows. You have to delve deeper into the desktop configuration or even the operating system itself. In Windows you have to delve into the operating itself to tweek it. In Linux you have but to go into the “system settings” to change how the desktop works with some other settings handled by the applications themselves.
Like Gnome, PopOS sets up application icons/launchers in one area of the desktop. Gnome doesn’t name this area displaying all the applications whereas PopOS calls it the “Library.” You can do the same thing in PopOS’s Library as you can do on the regular Gnome desktop. You can create folders and organize your icon/launchers in them. It’s not apparent how you can create folders in Gnome, but in PopOS it has a button just below the Library in order to create the folders. In regular Gnome you have to drag one launcher almost on top of another to create a folder with both launchers in it before naming the folder. Score one for PopOS here. This I liked very much. It allows you to organize your launchers much like a menu system. However, it’s still not as simple as installing an application and the launcher showing up in already organized menu.
Extensions is another thing that Gnome does and actually needs to extend the desktop to do the things other desktops already do. There are a great many extensions made at Gnome-Look.org. But again, PopOS takes this one step further than other distributions by enabling them from minute one. Not only that but it comes with one or two that I noticed preinstalled. The best one was the window tiling extension. Though in some cases I didn’t care for the tiling extension, it worked well for me. Especially when copy and pasting from one window to another. It was especially handy when setting up PPA’s for it’s Ubuntu base. Not quite as easy as in Linux Mint, but it was very helpful here. It’s also helpful in the drag and drop instances for file copying (though it does have copy to and move to menu selections in it’s file manager much like KDE’s Dolphin file manager. I also found tiling windows to be a great boon to multitasking. Now if all the rest of the desktops would follow suit with the way PopOS does Gnome in this case, it would be advantageous. Even more so if they could get this window tiling to work with each virtual screen.
The largest thing I liked with PopOS however was it installing all the drivers I needed for my System 76 Pangolin laptop. There it excels. Since this distribution is from the makers of my laptop it’s not surprising. In other distributions, I have to set up other repositories to get the drivers. In Ubuntu based distributions other than PopOS, you have to enable a PPA. In the RPM based distributions you have to set up Fedora’s Copr repository. And yet in Arch, you have to enable the AUR. But you can run other operating systems on System 76 systems other than PopOS. It’s your decision.
Now as if we don’t have enough choices in desktops, a word about another up and coming desktop designed and developed by System 76 the makers of PopOS. Obviously System 76 wasn’t happy with customizing Gnome to their tastes. I don’t think it was just that. I think it was the security of not just Gnome but other desktops that set them on their current path. I don’t think anyone but the developers at System 76 really know.
System 76 has for the past couple of years started working on what they call their “Cosmic” desktop. Unlike the other desktops using C, C++, JavaScript, or KXML, they are using the new and from what all is said, more secure Rust programming language to create this new desktop. How well it will work with other applications as a whole will be interesting. Memory usage will be another thing of interest. I’ll be checking it out as soon as it hits beta status, in a virtual machine of course. If interested yourself, check out the System 76 blog.
Before I put this to sleep, I know I’ll get berated by many a Gnome user. I may have not mentioned a feature that they use or know better than myself. Of course the last time I was a regular Gnome user was during the Gnome 2 days. I might be happy with the Mate desktop, but I like customization controls. This is why once KDE stabilizes on KDE 6, I’ll most likely move back to it. For now, I’ll stick with Linux Mint Cinnamon. Anyway, to each their own.
The Touring Frog 