On The Disc

Discover the highlights from this month’s packed DVD!

Pop!_OS is the bespoke operating system from Linux system builder System76. Naturally it’s been carefully tailored to work on its own hardware (which is great, by the way), but it’s based on Ubuntu so it should work on yours too. Awkward punctuation aside, it looks great, with its eye-catching desktop and slick installer. It’s more than your average Ubuntu clone too: for one thing it follows a rolling-release model, at least as far as applications are concerned, and for another it enables full-disk encryption by default. It also doesn’t include Ubuntu’s slightly worrisome data-reporting.

The live Pop edition appears to launch straight into the installer, but don’t worry if you just want to try it out. That option appears after you’ve answered the localisation options. After a couple of questions a ‘Try Demo Mode’ button will appear in the bottom-left corner. The initial installation is kept deliberately light, but you’ll find everything you need in the Pop store.

Pop comes in two versions, Nvidia and Intel/ AMD. We’ve gone for the FOSS Intel/AMD edition. If you have Nvidia hardware and want to use the proprietary driver, you may want to head over to https://system76.com/pop and download the Nvidia edition. It’s been tweaked to avoid any of the usual blank-screen-on-boot horror stories, and works seamlessly with hybrid (dual Nvidia/Intel) graphics.