Let eyecatching-distro aficionado Jonni Bidwell show you the ropes of System76’s bespoke Linux flavour.
There have been a few notable efforts to humanise Linux. Today we’d say – and feel free to disagree – that Linux Mint and elementary OS are the most friendly-to-use and all-purpose distros out there. These are of course indebted to Ubuntu for providing a solid foundation and superlative package selection – which in turn owes something to Debian. But it’s also arguable that much of this popularity is, or at least was, a result of dissatisfaction with Ubuntu’s desktop.
People who didn’t like Unity loved Cinnamon, and the people who did like Unity didn’t like GNOME 3 (which Ubuntu has used since 17.10). Pantheon, the macOS-like desktop of elementary OS, is attractive not just to fans of fruit-based fashion companies, but to anyone frustrated with over complicated configuration, inconsistently styled applications and ugly fonts. Of course, Windows 10 drives a steady trickle of users to Linux too, as the Start menu begins to resemble some sort of ever growing billboard farm, and updates constantly get in your way.
Hardware compatibility is an important concern too. Today, distros have to cater to all kinds of new-fangled configurations: HiDPI fractional scaling, multi-monitor and hybrid GPU setups, disk encryption. Users want easy access to the latest software, and developers want easy access to their preferred development tools. Providing such features is especially important if you’re a manufacturer of Linux systems like Colorado-based System76, and that is why it developed the mysteriously punctuated Pop!_OS.
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Denne historien er fra August 2019-utgaven av Linux Format.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Create your first WebSocket service
Mihalis Tsoukalos explains how to use the Go programming language to work with the WebSocket protocol.
Fantastic Mr Firefox
Nick Peers takes a trip down memory lane to reveal the story behind the rise - and slight fall - of Mozilla's popular web browser.
Set up your terminal and email like it's 1983
Jump in the hot terminal time machine with Mats Tage Axelsson who emails from the command line using the latest technology.
Universal layer text effects with GIMP
Posters use them, films and presentations are hard to imagine without them: text effects. Attract attention with Karsten Günther and GIMP.
Jump to a federated social network
Nick Peers reveals how you can get up and running with this free, decentralised and non-profit alternative to Twitter.
Free our SOFTWARE!
Taking anything for granted is dangerous, so Jonni Bidwell and Mike Saunders revisit how the free software movement got started to help free us from proprietary tyranny!
Master RPI.GPIO
Les Pounder goes back to the early days of the Raspberry Pi - and his career with this classic library! -
Waveshare Zero to Pi3
Transform your Pi Zero into a Pi 3, they promised Les Pounder, but it's more like adding on go-faster stripes.
The Best OPEN SOURCE Software Ever!
In an attempt to trigger controversy, Michael Reed and Neil Mohr unequivocally state these are the greatest free software apps ever. Probably. We’re just trying to be helpful.
Linux-Mandrake 7
Simplicity and a wide range of applications make this a great distribution for all Linux users.