Pop!_OS
A developer and gamer friendly distro from hardware maker System76.
Best for: Gamers and developers, especially with Nvidia graphics.
- Base
- Ubuntu
- Package manager
- apt (COSMIC Store also supports Flatpak)
- Release model
- fixed
- Difficulty
- beginner
- Desktops
- COSMIC
Pros
- Good out-of-the-box GPU support
- Clean tiling workflow
- Friendly for newcomers
Worth knowing
- Tied to one company's direction
- COSMIC is a new desktop (first stable release December 2025) and still maturing
Try Pop!_OS before you install it
Download the official image from system76.com, write it to a USB stick with a tool such as balenaEtcher or Ventoy, restart, and pick the USB stick from your boot menu. Choose the “try” option and nothing on your computer changes.
Last verified October 28, 2026 (high confidence). 24.04 LTS with COSMIC stable released December 2025, built on Ubuntu 24.04. GPU-support claim comes from general knowledge and is not yet sourced.