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System76 Unveils Its Own Ubuntu-Based Linux Distribution Called 'Pop!_OS' (betanews.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the shiny-and-new dept.

BrianFagioli writes: Not content with simply following Canonical and embracing vanilla GNOME, System76 has decided to take its future into its own hands. Today, the company releases the first alpha of an all-new Linux-based operating system called "Pop!_OS," which will eventually be the only OS pre-loaded on its computers. While it will still be based on Ubuntu and GNOME, System76 is tweaking it with its own style and included drivers. In other words, the company is better controlling the user experience, and that is smart.

"The Pop!_OS community is in its infancy. This is a fantastic time to engage with and help develop the processes and practices that will govern the future development of the operating system and its community. The team is currently opening up planning for the development roadmap, code of conduct, discussion forums, and the processes surrounding code contribution. Progress made on Pop!_OS has established an inviting, modern, and minimalist look and has improved the first-use experience including streamlining installation and user setup. Work on the first release, scheduled for October 19th, centers on appearance, stability, and overall tightness of the user experience followed by adding new features and greater customization ability," says System76. You can check out the project on GitHub here and download the alpha ISO here. For more information, the company has set up a subreddi.

16 of 117 comments (clear)

  1. And so the irritation begins by TimothyHollins · · Score: 4, Funny

    Well done.
    Just like the overly enthusiastic parents that name their child "Jonn", or "Sarra", or "Madilene", you have now ensured that you will have to spell out the damn name every time you talk about it. And that "exclamation mark underscore" doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.

    1. Re: And so the irritation begins by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      "Pop-bang-underscore-oh-ess". You're right, it just rolls off the tongue.

    2. Re: And so the irritation begins by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 5, Funny

      Actually there has been a horrible mistake: this wasn't the name, but the developer site password.

    3. Re: And so the irritation begins by Pseudonym · · Score: 2

      Obligatory.

      --
      sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
  2. whoopie by markdavis · · Score: 4, Insightful

    >"While it will still be based on Ubuntu and GNOME, "

    Blech. So it is just Ubuntu with a few tweaks. Yawn. Nothing to see here, keep moving. Still, I wish System76 well- I like what they do!

    1. Re:whoopie by exomondo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It is wasted effort!

      Carl Richell, CEO, System76 explains, "While our operating system and computers are great for any user, the ideas and features we develop for Pop!_OS will be squarely focused on the professionals and makers that use their computers to create."

      ^^ In that case invest in building applications for those users, they couldn't give 2 craps about the OS, they'd run BeOS if it ran the applications they use to do their work. As far as most of them are concerned the OS is just the bit that launches the programs they actually spend their time using. There's got to be over 100 Linux-based operating systems by now, we don't need any more because nobody cares about that. To increase the popularity of Linux and have it benefit from economies of scale what is needed is innovative programs that users want/need that work better on Linux than anything else.

  3. No Plasma? How hard could that be? by sombragris · · Score: 2

    The stubborness upon which Ubuntu and now System76 insist on choosing the clearly inferior choice (GNOME) when there's a much better option (KDE's Plasma), is impressive.

    --
    -- Look to the Rose that blows about us--"Lo, Laughing," she says, "into the World I blow..."
  4. Modern vs. Retro by Zobeid · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "...Pop!_OS has established an inviting, modern, and minimalist look..."

    Ugly flat interface. Probably with all the drop-down menus removed in favor of dumbed-down controls hidden behind cryptic icons. My experience with "modern" desktops has been uniformly negative. I mean, Windows, Mac, Gnome Shell, Unity...

    Am I the only one who thinks the desktop environment and user interface was pretty well figured out and perfected by, say, ten years ago? Since then it's just been change for the sake of change (under the holy banner of "innovation") and misguided efforts to make desktop computers work like phones. The only present-day desktop that I find attractive and comfortable to use has been Ubuntu MATE, and their motto is "for a retrospective future".

    1. Re:Modern vs. Retro by somenickname · · Score: 2

      You might want to have a look at XFCE too. It has a proper, "Yeah, we solved this UI thing 10 years ago" interface. And, because it's been solved for so long, almost every knob and dial you'd want to fiddle with is exposed and thoroughly supported. It has quirks, to be sure, but, if you take a weekend to configure something like Debian+XFCE, you're unlikely to ever look back. That combo feels like a proper workstation and not some UI developers playground.

  5. Re:System who ? by youngone · · Score: 4, Funny

    Who the fuck are System76 ?

    If you don't know, you should go back to Reddit.

  6. Re:Just another remix by exomondo · · Score: 2

    Do they really have to follow the crap things that we get phone manufacturers doing with Android? Adding their own "style" to it?! As for drivers, contribute those to Ubuntu so that everybody benefits from that work rather than just those using a downstream fork.

    Ultimately this is just going to be "whatever RedHat decides" + "whatever Ubuntu decides" + "yet another not invented here syndrome UI styling" anyway.

    And Pop!_OS? Really? I never thought I'd see the day that Microsoft's branding style would be a better option than anything, I think I would actually prefer System76 Operating System for System76 Systems 2017.

  7. And folks wondered why Linux never competed.. by hairyfeet · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Here is a perfect example of why Linux was never a real competitor to OSX and Windows, instead of actually investing their time and money into an already established OS? Lets just follow a lame trend so old its an XKCD joke.

    Because this is EXACTLY what Linux needed, yet another distro with just enough changes to make it incompatible with everyone else...sigh. Can you imagine how kick ass Linux would have been if instead of reinventing the damned wheel 600+ times everyone got together and invested their time into simply making ONE DISTRO that was the absolute best, cleanest, and bug free OS they could possibly build? It would make OSX and Windows look like DOS!

    But no, instead we have SSDD, one of 600+ distros to pile on distrowatch which will probably either be dead in less than 3 years or have less users than win98 in 2017, because God forbid people actually work together for the common good instead of more NIH bullshit...sigh.

    --
    ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    1. Re:And folks wondered why Linux never competed.. by r0kk3rz · · Score: 2

      Yeah and it would be great if unicorns existed too. The reason for the 600+ distros is that there is an increasing level of overhead the more people are involved in a project, especially if those people are volunteers.

      Now, get those people who are introverts to self select themselves and you can see why the OSS landscape is the way it is. Volunteer hackers want to write code, and not manage projects, and they're usually quite opinionated about the way-things-should-be and so its a lot easier to fork and get things done rather than coordinate with others.

    2. Re:And folks wondered why Linux never competed.. by Zobeid · · Score: 2

      I used to feel this way, and I still do to some degree, but I think Linux fragmentation also has some advantages. Many of these obscure distros are trying out new ideas, they're experiments, and that kind of experimentation can't happen in the Windows and Mac worlds.

      Also, they give us a way to route around failure. Gnome Shell was not well received by many. So what happened? Ubuntu created the Unity interface. Well, that wasn't well received by many either. So what happened? Mint created Cinnamon, and somebody else forked the Gnome 2 code to create MATE, and now those who don't like Gnome Shell or Unity can shrug and keep on trucking. If you don't like the direction Microsoft or Apple have taken, you're out of luck.

      And as for compatibility, it seems like within a given distro family (e.g. Debiant/Ubuntu/Mint) this is not much of a problem.

      From my perspective, I've been watching and dabbling with Linux for years and years, and it always seemed half-baked, I always ran into problems. Now, in 2017, I'm finding that some Linux distros (Ubuntu MATE is the one I happened to latch onto) have finally reached a level of functionality that I deem acceptable, while Mac OS X (err, "macOS" now) seems to be backsliding in the other direction.

      Maybe the fabled "Year of the Linux Desktop" can only happen after everyone else thinks the desktop doesn't matter anymore.

  8. I for one understand they think about it... by Herve5 · · Score: 2

    We now have two laptops that we bought with Linux preinstalled, and specs above Apple's at the time we ordered (in January). We didn't get them from Syst76 because delivering abroad from the US and with 'local' keyboards wasn't feasible for them, we ordered from Tuxedo in Germany. Honestly, from casings to processors they really look similar, there musn't be so many equipment suppliers.

    Well, Tuxedo explain they also raised this question of developing their own versions of linux flavors (you can select which linux you want with Tux), but they instead chose to prepare a separate package dedicated to their hardwares, which one can apply after a standard linux install.
    (Their commitment on this only works with a 'short list' of linux versions -most of them Ubuntu based IIRC.)

    I believe, if you are serious in proposing a range of hardware with linux preinstalled, sooner or later you cannot but consider you are at risk whenever any linux update is issued, and these are issued in a manner you can't control.

    Syst76 way is one reaction, Tuxedo's is another, but I do understand that when your full business is potentially killable by an unexpected update you think about it.
    And when I say killable it's very real, just imagine suddenly all your machines do not support e. g. bluetooth -a single, minor feature like that. Within hours, in ten forums, hundreds of posters will insult you, you sell sh.., doesn't work, don't buy that.
    I for one wouldn'd sleep before deciding for a strategy...

    --
    Herve S.
  9. Re: by kurkosdr · · Score: 2

    Mandriva, Xandros, Ubuntu, PCLinuxOS, LinuxMint, Steam OS and now this... There is always someone who looks at Desktop Linux and thinks "this is 85% percent done, all it needs is a new coat of paint and some drivers/codecs". The hard reality is that, unless Desktop Linux distros solve the "not compatible even with itself" problem (hint: The 14.04 LTS I use in work cannot even have the latest version of VLC), Desktop Linux isn't going anywhere. Unless Desktop Linux manages to drop the idiotic "one repo per version" approach (which is contrary to the industry-standard approach of picking a "base" version and launching a single binary that works from that version all the way to the latest version, with differences being worked with static libraries and shims, Desktop Linux isn't going anywhere. That's how Windows, OS X, Android and iOS do it. I can download the latest version of VLC on Windows Vista, and it is the same .exe that Windows 10 uses.