"It's mainstream now so it's no longer cool."
The same hate Ubuntu got when it first came out (and still gets, tbh).
this post was submitted on 13 May 2026
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Not only it blew years ago when LTT tried it for the first time, it was absolute dogshit the second time he tried it recently.
System76 put Beta version of their new desktop into an LTS release. Stable my ass.
Pop is fine, but if you combine it with Snap, you often get an annoying Crackle.
I just don't like the name.
CrunchBang
(Which I actually liked).
if the manufacturer supports it and will answer support questions then I would just use it.
I would say it gets more praise than hate. It is often recommended as a beginner friendly distro, which is why you get the backlash, because it hasn't been in a rock solid position for a long time. It started off pretty promising, using a much more end user centric version of GNOME, which morphed into their own DE, Cosmic. But Cosmic took forever to come out, so GNOME nor the base version of Ubuntu Pop is based on were updated for multiple years. The Pop Shop was kind of garbage, though Cosmic shop is much better. Nowadays, Cosmic the DE is shipped by default but is barely out of alpha and thus has glitches. I do think Linus is a lying asshole who specifically planned to break the OS for more views, but it does have problems. Also it uses systemd-boot so you can't dual boot from separate drives easily or have GRUB themes and stuff like that. They don't have Secure Boot either. As much as that isn't a HUGE issue, it seems like a significant oversight for such a popular distro.
Ultimately, Pop does a lot right by having a version bundled with Nvidia drivers, having macOS-like desktop that is intuitive by default, GUI focused with an app store, a good tiling manager, and possibility for customization. But it is a little bit frustrating to some people that it is so heavily recommended because it isn't as stable as stable distros, and not as updated as rolling distros or just more modern distros like Fedora. A lot of distros do what Pop does but better, so why recommend it? Even with the extra features you get on a System76 machine and ease of use for non tech people having it preinstalled, Tuxedo does that better and cheaper even with import taxes being higher. Combined with the video glitching, selling this as one of the best new user friendly distro when it isn't particularly true could cause people to bounce off Linux.
I don't hate Pop or System76. I WANT to like and enjoy it because I respect their ethos behind the project and like the look and features. I just wish it was faster at fixing some of their issues. People have been saying "Pop is going to be the next big thing once they do xyz" for 5-6 years ATP. They really need to hire more devs or make the project more community ran.
I use it right now and its fine. Although when support ends for 22, I'm probably headed to another distro simply because I don't really care for Cosmic. Last I tried it it also just...wasn't ready for me. I plan on trying it out again early next year and if things still aren't satisfactory I'm headed to Fedora likely.
People (especially tech influencers) tend to hate beginner-friendly OSes.
I've been using Pop for 3+ years on my main rig. Especially with COSMIC, it is fantastic.
Sure, I've got Arch on a laptop, and I dabble with other distros periodically. Pop stays on the main rig though. Why? Because I don't want to update something with a bleeding edge package and break my system. Whatever time I would be spending doing something fun in my off time would then be spent fixing Arch, instead of doing the thing.
Now, back to the influencers: why do they hate Pop / Mint / Ubuntu? Tbh I think there's just a certain amount of flexing they have to do as influencers, and it's hard to flex when everything just works.
Nah, it's just a beginner-friendly OS, so it gets some hate from the "I had to suffer to learn this, so you should too" crowd.
Cosmic still has some issues, but it's pretty easy to install another DE and use that instead.
Pop is still my goto for desktops because it has good hardware compatibility and it's easy to use.
If you have one of the models with their open source firmware installing another DE will ruin firmware updates for you.
If I'd have known what I know now, I wouldn't have gotten this laptop.
Last update made it stuck on boot splash screen.
I see a lot of hate for this distro.
That's true for every distro.
To answer:
IDK if PopOS fucked up recently, but generally speaking, no, nothing as bad as Manjaro.
Afaik people don't trust the in house desktop environment they're still developing. It's not mature yet, but pop uses a stable release model. That's the biggest thing besides snaps? I can't remember if they use snaps but everyone hates on snaps a lot.
Let them talk, if you like it then enjoy it.
Pop! OS is fine, but they recently moved to COSMIC and are focusing their resources towards it. Hence, it's currently a little unstable while the rest of the OS is also receiving less attention. It's not bad, it's just something to be mindful of if something breaks or there's some graphical glitch. System76's website doesn't really make it very clear that COSMIC is sort of in beta right now.
If you want my take on it, as long as you're not using anything too ancient, a majority of distros will work with most hardware. Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, Bazzite, Nobara, Arch-based distros (CachyOS, EndeavourOS, etc.), OpenSUSE, are all good. Thanks to the work of the developers of all these, they're all good, at the very least, far better than Windows (but that's a pretty low bar...). Unless you're running very new hardware (in which case, something more up-to-date would be better, like Fedora-based options and rolling release distros), have particular requirements (like Steam Big Picture Mode), or just don't like the ethics/philosophy of a particular distro, most (not ALL, but most) distros are fine. In any case, it's relatively straightforward to distro-hop.
To my knowledge, the only real "bad" distro (that is relatively modern) is probably Manjaro, since it markets itself as being beginner-friendly, but it is arguably a little less stable than base Arch. They also forgot about renewing their SSL certificates numerous times. Here's a link that highlights some weird quirks of Manjaro: https://manjarno.pages.dev/ (if you want a simplified installer for Arch, use either archinstall or, if you need a GUI, EndeavourOS / CachyOS)
I personally use EndeavourOS, but I wouldn't recommend it for a beginner as there are issues that need to be tinkered with. Endeavour doesn't market itself as stable and beginner-friendly though, so I have no problems with it. They do add a few nice touches that make the usability a bit nicer, but they mostly stick close to base Arch.
Modern distro wars are silly in my opinion.
Very nice explanation. One minor detail though:
Endeavour doesn’t market itself as stable
Endeavour OS is per normal Linux developer definition unstable.
But that doesn't mean what some people think it means. It only means it's not feature freezed because it's a rolling distro.
It doesn't mean that it has more bugs, it can in theory have fewer bugs, because bug fixes are part of newer versions, and because it runs on newer versions of software.
What it means is that some features may change, and that can cause problems in a production environment. So often professionals prefer stable especially to avoid changes that may cause breakage of their routines, because features are frozen and do not change, which guarantees that production is not affected by changes that were not prepared for.
Many people believe stable means more reliable and fewer bugs, but that is not always the case. In my experience Arch derivatives are often more "reliable" and have fewer bugs than a "stable" OS like Ubuntu.
I haven't tried Endeavour, but I used the older Antergos that Endeavour replaces, and Antergos was amazing IMO.
One thing in particular that makes a rolling release sometimes more reliable, is that it has newer drivers, and newer drivers often have bug fixes.
Especially for games newer graphics drivers are less likely to lack features a game may need.
I personally use EndeavourOS, and yeah, it's great! I would never recommend it to a beginner starting out with Linux though, since being rolling release some things do occasionally break. It's not often, but when it does, it can be annoying for a newbie. One example I can remember is when KDE Plasma stopped working around the time it was recently updated (for context, I am using a 2-in-1 touchscreen laptop. That probably had to do with the weird bug), but after a bug fix release it now seems to work fine. I'm fine with that since I like tinkering around with computers though. EndeavourOS also doesn't come with a graphical app store either, but that's for the better since installing AUR apps with very low friction is a bad idea (it's one of the criticisms of Manjaro actually). All of this is fine, as EndeavourOS never claimed to be the most beginner-friendly distro in the first place. As per its site: it's a minimal and terminal-centric Arch-based distribution. It knows what it is and that's what I like about it :D
- another detail, I said it doesn't market itself as stable (which is true), not that it is inherently instable (which, as you described, is partially false). I do think that rolling release distros can be good if you know what you're doing, but for a newcomer to Linux, it's not my first choice. That would probably go to Mint, Fedora, or similar depending on their hardware.
Personally I prefer rolling releases, because apart from being generally more up to date having all the newest features, I also like to generally only have to fix 1 problem at a time. Where a dist-upgrade for a non rolling release sometimes have more problems at once.
I feel like I have fewer problems on average with rolling releases.
Fair enough, the great thing about Linux is that there are options out there for everyone's tastes and preferences! I also run EndeavourOS and love it very much :D
To add another point, choosing a distro does matter sometimes depending on your hardware and use case. But most distros are not inherently bad, they just serve different use cases. Debian and CachyOS are targeting entirely different markets, for example, where the former is uber-stable with a very slow update schedule and the latter rolling release with very fast updates.
I find it very easy to install and use. Drivers work fine out of the box. The window and desktop management is my favorite ever, so it stays on the home desktop. There are a few things like flatpaks from the cosmic store not always working properly, and you need to remove them and install stuff from deb packages instead. And I couldn’t get any clipboard manager app to work, I think that’s related to a more general wayland issue, but nevertheless frustrating.
Haven't tried it, but my go-to has been Mint lately. That said, I'd mostly heard praise about it, just give it a try and see howb you like it.
Might also be worth checking out good old Debian if you find you don't like PopOS
I dislike Pop!_OS because it just didn't seem keyboard-friendly to navigate. I like enviros that at least try to cater somewhat to mouse-averse people like me who aren't capable of jumping to 100% Terminal action. If I recall correctly, the animations/transitions were also less-impressive to the point of feeling cheap and unprofessional.
To preface this thought, I believe most distros are fine when matched with the users technical appetite and expectations. I also feel that focusing on the question "which distro?" first is a trap. I would suggest exploring the various window managers first and see what common distros offer it.
For example if you want to use cosmic but would would rather use something popular there is the Fedora COSMIC Spin. Or if you're just looking for a solid alternative that feels like windows there's Kubuntu LTS 26.04.
PopOS is essentially maintaining an fork of Ubuntu's LTS branch with a rolling release kernel and recently bolting on an experimental (not to be read as unstable) window manager.
Personally I feel this makes it a poor choice for users that don't want frequent updates and/or are uncomfortable with troubleshooting issues.
If you're leaning on first party support for hardware that ships with popOS that would make it a reasonable candidate.
I don't see much in the value PopOS provides over Ubuntu flavours like Kubuntu. Or the various spins of Fedora. I would expect the 26.04 release of Ubuntu to cover nearly all first time users and most hardware configurations better than popOS. (With the exception of their own hardware releases.)
Additionally I disagree with the way they maintain their kernel. I would suggest to users that benefit from these frequent updates or value being on the bleeding edge to consider a rolling release such as OpenSUSE TW. (Or Arch if you want to make your computer your hobby and have a strong appetite for technical challenges)
Ultimately it's fine, I don't think you'll be disappointed using popOS if you like their window manager. There are less users using it so problems that arise may take longer to resolve or be detected by the community. Personally if you're going to be using something based on Ubuntu id suggest just using that or one of their main "flavours". Especially given your desire for something that just works.
Please forgive any mistakes, I didn't intend to write this much and it's late. Hopefully I did alright with exploring the topic without any significant bias or error. I welcome any feedback or corrections.
I've heard good things about it, but don't use it myself. I may give it a spin when COSMIC is a little more stable. Linus is just a moron who would rather engagement bait than make actual well-learned videos about tech. He purposely chose a distro that he could have learned beforehand would have given him issues, but instead he chose to do zero research so he could say "yeah guys. I don't think Linux is there yet" and make us all mad.
Did they not switch recently to Cosmic DE? Maybe people do not like that?
I tried PopOS a few years ago. I did not particularly care for their Gnome implementation, but other than that, it was quite decent.
I certainly don't because it fucked up my entire install. Have to manually reinstall everything now and betting it still won't work.
I feel like I got played for a $2K laptop. Should have just gotten a Dell or Framework and I knew it at the time but wanted to support Linux development directly.
Pop ia the first distro i installed after 10 years of not using linux. I don't really know why people disliked it. For me it just worked pretty flawless. I switched to catchy because i wanted to try something else.
All I know about it is that it's the distro Linus Tech Tips keeps choosing, despite having problems with it every time.
I'm staying to think he's just an idiot.
I tried it briefly, but it didn't feel as snappy as mint, wasn't necessarily beautiful, and I can install drivers.
Just had an update fry my install and I have to find time now to backup all my data and reinstall and I'm sure there will be some issues with it since I'm using their custom firmware version.
For a $2K laptop I'm pretty pissed off about that and it will be my last one I ever buy from them.
If you install another DE on it you lose the ability to update their custom firmware.
If I'd have known what I know now I would have gotten a Dell or a Framework.
Before that I would have only complained about the terrible keyboard quality and how cartoonishly large they made the mouse pad. Minor gripes.
Edit: realized this isn't about system 76 computers but popos as a whole. Still, the update fumble is still relevant so I'll leave it here.
Does anyone else remember windows ME... Out windows 11? All I could think about reading your OS reinstall comments lol.
I used to have to reinstall ME every few months. And 11 had been so shit for me. Just had to reinstall it on a computer due to several issues with patching and rebooting. No amount of dism and sfc was resolving those issues. Like 1 hour of black screen with a cursor after logging in types of issues. So far a reinstall has fixed it. Numerous docking glitches (different machine). Graphics glitches missing icons, explorer freezes and restarts. I've seen so many, and they're not sure to abusing the OS. Just day to day. Microsoft themselves even claimed they will focus on fixing windows 11.
I'm not trying to justify your issues with pop, bury just wanted to highlight windows stuffers too and this is Microsoft.
My Mac I had never faced issues though.
It's fine but the tiling algorithm is broken and there are visual bugs. I'll stay with Mint for the moment.