Pop!_OS

System76's own Ubuntu-based distribution, developed to ship on its laptops and desktops, now built around an original Rust desktop environment called COSMIC.

Beginner-Friendly Desktopdesktopdeveloper-focusedgamingCOSMICNVIDIA-friendlyDownload ↗Official site ↗Docs / Wiki ↗

Based on

Ubuntu

First released

2017

Package manager

APT (.deb)

Desktop environments

COSMIC (custom, Rust-based), GNOME (older releases)

Pop!_OS started as a lightly customized GNOME spin of Ubuntu tuned for System76's own hardware -- best-in-class NVIDIA driver handling, hybrid graphics switching, and tiling window management baked into GNOME via an extension. Since 2024, System76 has been rolling out COSMIC, a desktop environment it wrote from scratch in Rust to replace GNOME entirely, with native tiling, a redesigned settings app, and no dependency on GNOME Shell's extension ecosystem. It remains a favorite among developers and gamers for its clean out-of-the-box NVIDIA support and built-in disk encryption during install. Unlike most distributions on this list, its primary sponsor also sells the laptops it ships on, which funds full-time paid development.

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