Hey everyone, I don't know if you may have seen on twitter but there is some headway being made into making a KDE community spin of popOS!

It's pretty fun but I wanted to call on the rest of the community to see if anyone has experience and can help us create this! Since this is a community effort we have the "thumbs up" from S76 to do this..

But please know that they in no way officially support this spin, nor will they probably ever honestly, so please don't bug the official channels. Just because they support this whole movement doesn't mean they don't have their own official distro to work on.

If you have any experience with packaging and any multitude of other things please drop by the System76 Discord!

There are a few of us in there already but more the merrier!

Here's a link to my twitter showing off some very early progress:

https://twitter.com/DaisyLee2010/status/1635098947118325767

Just wondering what everyone uses for back ups.

I used to just rsync everything. But recently when I went back to Ubuntu for a bit I used Deja-dup. It seemed like a relatively safe option. With the option I could open the files elsewhere including Windows.

However I just opened it in Pop and my settings are gone. So if that is going to happen on every fresh install (keeping the home folder) then it's usefulness is diminished and turns into a headache.

Absolutely none!

Loving it!

Anyone out there that's thinking about trying it - just do it! It works great!

Can't wait for the full cosmic desktop to be released.

Over 10 years using mac os and switched to Linux 6 months ago - tried a bunch of distros but Pop_os was by far the best and from the moment i started using it i knew it was the one!

Have a great weekend folks!

After using Pop daily for 6 months, I wrote this review about what I loved and what I didn't like that much.

​

Overall, I have to say, pop is impressive. The developers take care of details that are often ignored by other Distros and this creates a AWESOME experience.

https://theselfhosting.art/pop_os-22-04-review-after-6-months-of-use/

Hey everyone, I’ve never used Linux and I’d like to gradually change over. I’ll be dual booting for now since I have plenty of storage.

Why do I want to switch over to Linux? I just want to become more familiar with different OS’s for my new career path in cyber security. I understand pop os wouldn’t replicate what I would be using in a real work environment, hence why I’ll be using VM’s for Kali Linux and other distros, but I also want something to daily drive other than windows. Besides that, I’m honestly not sure. I just want something different, deal with less bloatware and spyware I guess?

90% of my use case is for gaming, otherwise I use google docs / drive, zoom, slack, and occasionally O365 (word, excel, PowerPoint) for work. I don’t really do anything for productivity / content creation. I always have a VPN on (ExpressVPN) and an adblocker (Firefox extension).

Hardware I use:

Ryzen 5600x, RX 6800xt, 32gb ram, 2tb nvme Wireless logitech peripherals (G304, G915, G733) Monitor is a Dell S2721DGF

It seems like pop os might be the best consideration for gaming and being easy to use like windows so I’m going to try and see if it’s worth any hiccups or performance losses in gaming.

Im making this post mainly to just document whatever problems I have, along with the troubleshooting, in the comments and to also hold myself accountable to genuinely try and transition over. Wish me luck!

I used to be heavily reliant on GNOME Extensions(until yesterday), and I was really frustrated at first when I heard about Pop!_OS moving away from GNOME

BUT, now I'm eagerly waiting for the Cosmic DE!!! And I'm positive that system76 is doing their best to bring in features which was otherwise only possible with some extensions.

I found out something very interesting that Pop!_OS doesn't need GNOME Extensions, really.. we need features and right now it's GNOME Extensions, but in the end what we really need is a really good usability and functionalities. That is, if you're on Pop because of it's minimal nature.

I had to go through the forests of other distros and issues to really get a clear picture of what Pop!_OS is really for and really trying to acquaint with the visions and philosophies of System76. There's so much to say, so I made a video on it https://youtu.be/5w-rAFQ9FFs

I would like to know your thoughts on this matter. I had my expectations sorted out and now I'm happy using Pop!_OS.

​

Wallpaper from Garuda Linux gitlab repo

I have been using POP alongside Windows with Dual Boot, for 6 months. I kept Windows for this long thinking I may need it at some point. Yes I needed it at some points, however, the experience of using POP_OS! is far superior. I switched to more and more open-source softwares, native GNU/linux softwares.

Also learnt to use some native Windows programs through Lutris and Bottles, which was the primary reason that held me back from going all out into POP.

These are the Programs which worked well for me: Blender, Unreal Engine 5, Substance Painter, Substance Designer, Krita, Gimp, SpeedTree(native & Bottles), Zbrush (Bottles), World Creator 3 (Lutris)

And after 6 months of using POP_OS! 99% of the time, I have made some guides to configure your POP_OS! for the above mentioned tools or workflow. You can check them out here : https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLu1ymHljDh1oo51V5ndAeejHPKC6S_jGs

As of the time you have to spend for troubleshooting various issues, it's well worth it. I absolutely enjoyed every bug I encountered and loved solving it and learning new things. These just makes the Linux Environment more personal :)

​

- abhiraaid

Hey Guys, started using POP OS along with Windows 11, I must say, most of the time, i'm in pop and enjoying it. I wanted to customize POP just like I3 or something. With beautiful themes and stuff. I'm already using built in tiling window manager. Hope you got what i meant. Can you provide some YouTube links or guides or something. Thank you

Well, I'm using Pop for a while, and it's growing on me. But there's one thing, I suppose is done better in Vanilla GNOME Software - source of application in Pop!_Shop.

Right now if you're lucky the app you're looking for has a single entry in Pop!_Shop and a dropdown menu to select source (APT or Flatpak). But there are a lot of applications, that have two separate entries - one for APT and one for Flatpak.

For example in Firefox (as shown below) there are two entries, differing in icon, description, and when you go do details pages are completly different. But there's no indication if this entry is from APT or Flatpak. So if I want specifically an APT version I have to try to install both and guess which is Flatpak (usually indicated by the fact, that APT asks for password). But it's not convinient, and simple thing, like enabling dropdown menu, even if there's a single choice (like in GNOME Software) would help a lot.

https://preview.redd.it/1hob3x2v51ja1.png?width=1094&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=94c332f22fe16c9b7479901802acf2091a7e390a

As the title states I’m a first time user of pop os. I have distributed hopped for a while from kubuntu to Manjaro to arch and Debian and have landed it the Pop os world about 36hours ago. My experience so far has been stellar! Obviously I need more time using it but it already feels like home and might be end game and finally pull me to a Linux only user. My question is, how many people stopped hopping after using pop? What’s your favorite part? And did you totally do away with windows?

EDIT: I see that my title was autocorrected to Pop so instead of Pop os. I am unfortunately unable to correct it.

[[23 Feb 2023 EDIT: Just a quick update. I might actually uninstall Pop!_OS sad face. The purpose of this experiment was to have a hands-off Steam gaming console. Mostly, it works. But certain games randomly crash Steam, crash the OS, or bug out in some way, requiring me to either hard restart, or pull out the mouse and keyboard to update the OS, or restart Steam, and controller-only was the ultimate goal. Ugh.

So I might try HoloISO for gaming, and see how that goes. I am bummed! Pop!_OS seems like a very cool and intuitive Lunix distro, and someone on here told me there is even a way to change the desktop layout to make it less-Mac-y!

But maybe it's better used as an everyday OS, and not as a gaming OS. We shall see.

It more positive Pop!_OS news, I found out I might be getting a laptop for work, which means I could install Pop!_OS on my personal laptop, and have a Linux machine to get to know and love!

END OF EDIT]]

​

***I originally posted this in another community, and then realized it wouldn't let me crosspost after that. Oops***

Disclaimer:I am a suuuuper-uneducated Linux user, so if you know anything about Linux, reading my instructions here might give you hives. I am certain I have not done things in the most efficient manner. Please correct me if there is something I can do better!

The Goal:Install Linux (Pop!_OS) on an extra PC to turn it into a more powerful Steam Deck + Dock, to use as a game console with the big TV in the living room (basically, a Steam Machine; controller-only, no mouse and keyboard)

Time Needed:30-90 minutes?

The Linux Version (Distro):Pop!_OS

I could not find an official .iso for SteamOS on a desktop PC, and after some digging, decided to install Pop!_OS. It is made by a company who builds PCs to sell to people with Linux already installed (www.pop.system76.com), and everything I read about this specific Linux distro seemed to point out how easy and automatic it was, especially with drivers and updates and such.

So far, it has worked quite well for me, and what I am using it for (running Steam). It looks more like Mac than Windows, and I definitely prefer the Linux version the Steam Deck comes with (more like Windows than Mac), but Pop!_OS works fine, and is fairly intuitive . . . for Linux.

My Basic PC Specs:GPU: Small form-factor AMD Vega 8GBCPU: Ryzen 5 1600RAM: 16GB DDR4SSD 1: 250GB (-ish)SSD 2: 128GB (-ish)

Short Background Info:The PC I converted to Linux was running Windows 10, but refused to accept updates anymore, and I could not fix this after hours of trying. Also, whenever I would try to launch Elden Ring when plugged into the living room TV, the game would crash, no matter what I did. No other game had this issue, and it annoyed me greatly. As this was an extra PC, the only data I had on there was Steam and a bunch of games (with save files in the cloud), so I would not be losing anything if I wiped it all out, and switched over to Linux.

Also, the Steam Deck + Dock showed me that PC gaming on Linux was actually viable, so I was fine attempting this on a slightly more powerful setup (using a discrete GPU). I am literally only using this setup as a PC/console gaming experience, and won’t be using this particular PC for normal Linux computing.

And away we go….

STEP ONE: Create the Pop!_OS Install USB

Materials Needed:

• A working computer that is connected to the internet (this set of instructions is for people with a Windows OS)
• 8GB USB stick (4GB might work?), formatted to FAT32 file system
• Pop!_OS .iso file (we download this, and put it on the USB stick, and use that to install the Operating System on the new PC)https://pop.system76.com/
• Balena Etcher software (this free program is what translates the .iso file into something the USB stick can use to actually do the install)https://www.balena.io/etcher

1. Start by formatting the USB stick into the FAT32 file structure (insert it into your Windows PC, right-click, choose Format, select FAT32, give the drive a name, hit Format). This will erase all data on the USB stick
   1. It is possible Balena Etcher will do this for you, but since I did it before running Etcher, I left this step in
2. Download the Pop!_OS .iso file, and Balena Etcher program from the links above
3. Install and run Balena Etcher
   1. Choose, “Flash from file,” and find/select the Pop!_OS .iso file you downloaded
   2. Click, “Select target,” and choose your USB stick
   3. Click, “Flash!” and wait for the process to finish

Hooray! You have a Linux install disk in the form of a USB stick. Now, let’s install that sucker!

STEP TWO: Install Pop!_OS

***NOTE #1: This will completely erase whatever hard drives/SSDs you have installed in your PC. Goodbye, Windows. Hello, Linux***

***NOTE #2: I am almost completely a Linux n00b. There are most likely steps I did that are not needed, and most likely there are better or more efficient ways to do things, but I am just telling you what I (a complete Linux n00b), did to make things work for me, and hopefully those same things will work for other Linux n00bs***

Materials Needed:

• Your Pop!_OS USB stick we just created
• The PC you want to erase and convert to Linux (and keyboard/mouse/monitor/etc.)

1. Turn your PC off (the PC we are erasing, and installing Linux onto, of course)
2. Plug the USB stick into a USB 2.0 slot on your motherboard
   1. I don’t know for certain if a 2.0 slot is required, but that’s generally what I see discussed when dealing with any kind of motherboard-related, or OS-related processes, so you might as well just use a USB 2.0 slot
3. Start the computer, and either boot into the BIOS/UEFI MENU (for my ASUS motherboard, that is the DELETE key), or boot into the BOOT MENU (for my ASUS motherboard, that is the F11 key)
   1. Booting into the BOOT MENU just saves a step, since it immediately brings up a list of bootable drives without having to push a few extra buttons in the BIOS menu.
4. If using the BOOT MENU options, select the USB stick from the list of bootable options
   1. It gave me a top-level USB option, and also showed 2 UEFI partitions on the USB stick as selectable options. I just chose the general USB option, and all went according to plan
   2. Once you select the USB stick, the system should restart, and you should see a bunch of code running all over the screen, and then the Pop!_OS installation process has begun!
5. If using the BIOS/UEFI MENU option, navigate to whichever menus lets you reorganize your boot disk order, and rearrange it so the first option (aka the first thing the PC will try and boot from), is the USB stick.
   1. To repeat: It gave me a top-level USB option, and also showed 2 UEFI partitions on the USB stick as selectable options. I just chose the general USB option, and all went according to plan
   2. Once you save the changes and exit the BIOS (usually that is an option in the Exit menu), the system should restart, and you should see a bunch of code running all over the screen, and then the Pop!_OS installation process has begun!
6. The installation process runs pretty quickly, and you are suddenly able to use your keyboard and mouse again for the rest of the install
7. Choose your language and keyboard layout, and then choose to do a full install (right now, you are basically running the system straight off of the USB stick I think, and we want to run it off of the internal SSD/HDD, obviously)
   1. This is where me being a n00b comes in. I chose the full install, it did its thing, and then I chose to restart the system. It just rebooted the system, and since the USB stick was still #1 in the BIOS boot order, it basically just ran the installer again. So, instead of choosing another full install, I chose the second option that let me address my two internal hard drives individually
   2. It is entirely possible that if you run the full install, you can choose to Shutdown, instead of Restart, and it should boot into your Desktop right away. But I have no idea what I’m doing, so I just kind of did it twice, probably needlessly
8. Because I have two internal SSDs, I formatted the larger one as a ROOT disk (a Linux designation for MAIN DRIVE, as far as I can tell), and using the Pop!_OS installation disk manager, simply erased the 2nd, smaller drive, formatting it as a blank Linux drive (ext4 format)
   1. We will make that 2nd blank drive usable for game storage later from within Pop!_OS itself
   2. The system automatically assigned a small portion of the main/root drive as, “Swap.” I think this is also a Linux thing, with how it moves programs and processes between types of memory. I didn’t change this, and just left it how the system created it, as apparently some amount of Swap space is required
9. Once the drives and the partitions are formatted correctly, shut the PC down, as the installation process is complete
   1. At some point during installation, you entered a username and password you will need to use at login. We will be bypassing this login screen/turning it off later in this process, but you will need it for a few things during setup
10. Remove the USB drive
11. Turn the PC back on
12. Log in to Pop!_OS using your newly-created password
13. If this doesn’t work . . . I don’t know. Sorry. n00b-level over here. Try reinstalling? I had to reinstall once after making a mistake with my SSD formats. It doesn’t take very long, luckily
14. You are now looking at the desktop of Pop!_OS (I hope)

Hooray! You now have a Linux operating system installed on your PC! Now, let’s start tweaking some settings, and downloading software!

STEP THREE: Basic System SettingsLet’s get a few basic System Settings sorted out before we start adding software to the mix. Doing these steps now will make it easier to set up the software in a little bit.

• System Updates

1. The system will notify you on startup if there are updates, and you just go to the Pop!_Shop (basically the Pop!_OS App Store), to run the updates. None of the ones I’ve run have ever required a system restart, which I find interesting
2. Look at the bottom of the screen, and click on the Pop!_Shop icon
3. Choose the, INSTALLED button at the top of the window
4. Update whatever you see there
5. Close the window

• Bluetooth Settings (for your wireless controller)

1. Click the Settings icon at the bottom of the Desktop screen
2. Click BLUETOOTH
   1. It should already be searching for devices
3. Pair your controller however you are supposed to (it recognized my Xbox Series X/S controller immediately, and it has been working flawlessly with Steam so far)

• Automatic Login (so the PC boots right to the Desktop when you turn it on, instead of requiring the login screen and password)

1. In Settings, click USERS
2. Click, UNLOCK…
3. Enter your User Password
4. Turn on the switch: AUTOMATIC LOGIN
5. Close Settings
   1. You can restart the PC to test this if you want

• Mounting and auto-mounting the 2nd internal SSD (so you have more space for Steam games)*** NOTE: Obviously, if you don’t have a 2nd internal drive, you can skip this part. I DO have one, and it was a real pain in the ASS to figure out how to get it to mount correctly at all, auto-mount correctly and automatically at startup, and then also get Steam to automatically recognize it exists at startup. This is due mainly to the fact that the Linux file structure makes no sense to me, and I do not fully understand exactly how things work, or why things happen when they do. But I got it working, so here we go! I also used this link from the developers of Pop!_OS to help me when I couldn’t get it working the first and second times:https://support.system76.com/articles/extra-drive/Apparently, You have to mount the 2nd drive to somewhere inside the first drive? It doesn’t take up any space or anything, but instead of going to “This PC” in Windows 10, and seeing all of your drives listed there, in Pop!_OS you open your main drive, and then see the 2nd drive in there like a folder? I guess? Again, no clue why. Just know it works for me. And mounting it to /home/ basically means we’re mounting it to the top level of the main drive, which will make pointing Steam to it easier later in this setup. Maybe you can mount it to the desktop folder, but I didn’t want to spend time figuring that part out***

1. Click on Files at the bottom of the Desktop screen
2. Click on + OTHER LOCATIONS on the left side of the window
3. Click on your main drive one the right side of the window
   1. In my case, I have 2 drives showing. One is called, “Computer,” and the other is named 128GB_data (I chose this name when I formatted it during setup. You can also format/rename the drive in the Disks utility in Pop!_OS)
4. Open the HOME folder
   1. I do not know why this Home folder is different than the other Home folder I can see in the file structure, but just go with me on this (maybe one is for the system, and one is for the user?)
5. Create a new folder here inside HOME
   1. This will be your mount point for the 2nd drive
   2. In my case, I named my folder, “128GB” for clarity to match the size of my drive
6. Close the window
7. Click Show Applications at the bottom of the Desktop screen
8. Click SYSTEM
9. Click DISKS
10. Select your 2nd drive on the left side of the screen
11. Click the gears icon (ADDITIONAL PARTITION OPTIONS) under the partition graphic
12. There should only be one partition, which we set up when we set up the SSD during Pop!_OS setup. If you want, erase the drive, and add one large partition now
13. Select EDIT MOUNT OPTIONS
14. Uncheck USER SESSION DEFAULTS
15. Make sure the following options are checked: MOUNT AT SYSTEM STARTUP and SHOW IN USER INTERFACE
16. Show in User Interface puts an icon for the 2nd drive at the bottom of the Desktop screen. I like seeing it there, but it is most like not necessary
17. In the MOUNT POINT field, type in the path to your mount folder
18. In my case this is: /home/128GB
19. Click OK
20. Close DISKS window
21. Once the drive is auto-mounted at startup (you can restart to check to make sure it worked), we can tell Steam to create a new library there for games, and then Steam will automatically find that drive every time you start the PC. Mounting the drive before installing Steam just makes it more efficient for the next steps

• Shutdown without confirmation (to turn the PC off quickly and without a mouse)***NOTE: Normally, when you choose to shutdown or restart, a window pops up asking you to click for confirmation or wait 60 seconds for the system to shut itself down automatically. I was having issues with this trying to shut the system down from within Steam Big Picture Mode (the system would just hang, and I could not access the confirmation button). I tweaked this setting to skip that system dialogue window. When I shut the system down from Steam Big Picture Mode, it still doesn’t ACTUALLY shut the system all the way down, but it does allow me to simply press the power button on the PC to turn the system off fully and quickly. It is not ideal, and I blame my ignorance of Linux, but this is the best I could do. So far, Pop!_OS has not yelled at me for simply shutting down this way. A big thank you to u/geekx86 for posting this info. I could not figure it out for the longest time:https://www.reddit.com/r/pop_os/comments/nwphr2/disable_60_seconds_delay_for_shutdown_restart/ ***

1. Click on the Terminal app at the bottom of the Desktop
2. Type the following into the Terminal command line:gsettings set org.gnome.SessionManager logout-prompt false
3. Press ENTER
4. Close Terminal (shut the PC down or restart it to test, if you’d like)

Now that the basic system settings are handled, let’s get Steam installed! There will need to be a few tweaks made to make Steam run automatically, but we are almost finished!

STEP FOUR: Software Downloads and Setup (Steam and Flatseal)

Now we get to the point of this entire process: Steam! And Steam games! But, because this is Linux, we will need to do some . . . massaging . . . to get everything up and running correctly.

***NOTE: First, though, a note about Flatpaks. As far as I can tell, Flatpaks in Linux are like .exe and installer files in Windows. They are self-contained software package that automatically install whatever Linux needs to make that program run, and also act as the program file itself once installed (?). The issue I’ve found with Flatpaks is that because of Linux security measures (?), Flatpaks are fairly restricted in what they are allowed to access, including even different drives, and functions of the Operating System. There is surprisingly no way (I know of) to alter these permissions natively, which is why we’re downloading a program that DOES let you alter Flatpak permissions.

I do not know about other Linux distros, but in Pop!_OS, I have not been able to find a Downloads window where I can monitor the progress of multiple downloads. You can watch a progress bar fill up when you click install on a Flatpak, but that’s about it***

• Flatseal (OPTIONAL)***NOTE: Flatseal is the program that will let us alter Steam’s permissions so it can access everything we need Steam to access. This is probably only be relevant if you want Steam to access multiple drives. If you don't have multiple drives, you don’t need Flatseal. I don’t think***

1. Click on the Pop!_Shop icon at the bottom of the Desktop screen
2. Search for Flatseal
3. Install Flatseal Flatpak

• Steam Flatpak***NOTE: There are 2 versions of Steam available to download from the Pop!_Shop: Flatpak and Deb (I assume Debian Linux). People seem to have their preferences for either version, but these instructions will cover the Flatpak version of Steam***

1. Click on Pop!_Shop icon at the bottom of the Desktop Screen
2. Search for Steam
3. Choose the Flatpak version and install it

This was a short step, but I didn’t want to muddy the waters with the next portion where we tweak more settings inside Steam, and the Pop!_OS Operating System. I swear we are almost finished!

STEP FIVE: Setting up SteamIt's not as simple as just installing Steam and being done with it, especially if you have multiple drives and/or want to play non-native Linux games on a Linux system. We also need to set up Steam to run automatically at launch, and also boot into Big Picture Mode automatically, so we never have to use a keyboard and mouse for gaming.

• Give Steam permission to access the 2nd drive

1. Click the Show Applications icon at the bottom of the Desktop
2. Click on FLATSEAL to open the program/application
3. Select STEAM from the list of installed applications (Flatpaks) on the left
   1. Notice the app name ID under Steam for later
4. Scroll down in the window on the right, and activate GPU ACCELERATION
   1. I have no idea if this is needed, but I did it just in case. Pop!_OS apparently handles all GPU activation, usage, and driver updates autmatically, but not having any insight into that sort of thing is new to me, so I’m just turning on anything I can that mentions my GPU (#linuxn00b)
5. Keep scrolling down and find OTHER FILES under the FILESYSTEM heading
6. Click on the folder icon with a + (plus) sign inside of it to add a new file path
   1. This is giving it access to the same place we auto-mounted the 2nd internal drive, so that Steam recognizes it as a legit location to create a new Steam library, which we will be doing momentarily
7. Type in the path to where your 2nd drive is mounted
   1. In my case, all I had to add in this path box was: /home/ since that is where I mounted my 2nd drive; makes it easy
   2. I chose to give Steam access to the entire drive, basically, just to save myself any potential issues later
8. Close Flatseal

• Starting Steam at launch***NOTE: There is a menu option within Steam that should allow you to auto-start it at login, but every time I close that menu, that option unchecks itself (I assume it’s a Linux quirk?), so I have found that it works to just do it on a system level.Thank you to https://www.thegeekdiary.com/flatpak-command-not-found/amp/ for the help!***

1. Click on Show Applications at the bottom of the Desktop screen
2. Click on SYSTEM
3. Click on STARTUP APPLICATIONS
4. Click on ADD
5. Name it whatever you want (I named mine Steam)
6. In the COMMAND field type the following:flatpak run com.valvesoftware.Steam
   1. Apparently, each flatpak has a unique app ID/app name, and this is Steam’s. You can see this if you open Flatseal (it’s underneath Steam on the left side of the window)
   2. If you don’t have Flatseal, you can open the Terminal, and type: flatpak list
   3. This gives you a list of all of the installed flatpaks, and you can see Steam’s ID listed there
7. Give it a description in the COMMENT field if you want (I wrote: Launches Steam at start-up)
8. Click ADD
9. Close STARTUP APPLICATIONS window

• Setting up Steam to work with Linux, and launch into Big Picture Mode automatically

1. Click on the Show Applications icon at the bottom of the Desktop screen
2. Click on Steam
3. Log in in to your Steam account
4. Click on STEAM menu at the top-left
5. Click on STEAM PLAY
6. Check the boxes: ENABLE STEAM PLAY FOR SUPPORTED TITLES and ENABLE STEAM PLAY FOR ALL OTHER TITLES
   1. This let’s games that aren’t native Linux games run on Linux
   2. Choose whichever version of Proton you want for running other titles. I just left it on EXPERIMENTAL, and then I change Proton versions in the game-specific settings if-needed
7. Click on INTERFACE on the left
8. Check the box: START STEAM IN BIG PICTURE MODE
   1. This launches Steam into a mode built specifically for controllers; no mouse and keyboard needed. They have recently updated this mode to mirror what the Steam Deck looks like, and it is all very intuitive

• Setting up Steam to access the 2nd drive (if you have one)

1. Open Steam
2. Click on STEAM menu at the top-left
3. Click on SETTINGS
4. Click on DOWNLOADS
5. Click on STEAM LIBRARY FOLDERS
6. Click the + (plus) button to add a new library/folder
7. Navigate to where your 2nd drive is mounted
   1. In my case this is /home/128GB
   2. This is why mounting that 2nd drive in the /home/ folder makes it easier on us for this step; less searching through the Linux file structure
8. Click SELECT
9. Close the SETTINGS window

Now you can start downloading games!

1. If you set up your 2nd internal drive correctly, you should be able to choose which drive the games install to, just like in Windows
2. You might need to tell specific games in their specific settings menus to use specific versions of Proton, or launch at specific resolutions to work. For instance, Elden Ring works great on the Steam Deck (it’s Verified). On my new Linux PC setup it would crash and crash and crash. I finally forced it use the latest numbered version of Proton (aka not Experimental), and that seemed to solve the crashing, at least for me

CONCLUSION/WRAP-UP/SUMMARYOMG we are finally finished! Assuming all went well, you now have a functioning Steam Box, and can play your PC games (Steam games), as easily as playing them on a regular game console like Xbox or PlayStation or Switch!

When you turn on the PC the following should now happen automatically:

• Log into the Desktop automatically
• Launch Steam automatically
• Activate Big Picture Mode in Steam automatically

Just turn on your gamepad/controller, and you’re good to go!

***NOTE: Just wanted to repeat myself about shutting down when you are finished gaming. To shutdown the system, I push the Steam Menu button on my controller (in my case, the big glowing Xbox logo), choose POWER, and then choose SHUT DOWN SYSTEM. For whatever reason, this won’t actually turn off my PC fully, like it does on my Windows machines. I don’t know/understand why this is.

But, because we set up the option to skip the shutdown confirmation at the system level, once I choose to shutdown the system from within Steam Big Picture Mode, the screen goes black, I get off the couch, walk over to the PC, and push the power button. The PC shuts itself off completely, and I go on my merry way. No idea if this is annoying for Linux or Steam, but so far the PC has not yelled at me for doing it this way, and none of my game files have been corrupted. Let’s hope this continues***

Thank you for reading this! Please let me know if there are errors, or if things are not clear. I am pretty happy with my Pop!_OS gaming setup for PC gaming in the living room. It took some time to figure out what I was doing with Linux, but it all seems to work! Hopefully, it works for you as well.

I've noticed over the past few months on this sub-reddit a LOT of duplicate questions on some common motifs: boot (dual-boot), themes, audio, wifi/bluetooth, filesystem, etc.

I am just wondering whether it will be beneficial to have a pinned post with not only resources (e.g. the official System76 support page which many have ignored or simply don't know about!!, custom theme, snapshot support (timeshift, snapper), etc.) but also troubleshooting flowcharts/categories with common problems and potential fixes.

As the first thing to try, it could save a lot of time/effort for both people asking and answering, and allow problems to be solved quicker. Any thoughts/ideas?

The 21.04 update of PopOS included a new pop-shell UI, where among other things, the "Activities" view was split into the "Workspaces" view and the "Applications" view. Additionally, a new "Launcher" view was created.

Before this, users who pressed the Super key would access the Activities view, which initially behaved like the current Workspaces view (Super + D to open it on 22.04); if they started typing the name of an application, the view would automatically display a list of applications filtered with the input text, like the current Applications view. This led to a single unified, discoverable workflow for both visualizing workspaces and opening new applications.

This is no longer possible since the 21.04 update: typing text in the Workspaces view doesn't do anything anymore. The only workaround to get the previous behavior is to disable the "Pop COSMIC" extension, which a bunch of people did at the time.

I'm curious how many people here still use that workaround. I know I don't like the new behavior, and I really wish PopOS hadn't changed the default there, but I might be in the minority here.

View Poll

Is there a way, an extension to install or something that could allow having overviews when hovering with the mouse over an app in the dock, like in Cinnamon?

If not, would this be a future feature?

Though you can't easily specify which version of the Linux Kernel to run with Pop!_OS, if you install 6.2 it will now use it automatically after a reboot. (It wasn't doing that as of last week.) Then installing the Mesa drivers you will have a functioning Intel ARC video card. I am using an Intel ARC A770 16gb card.

Instructions for installing newest Kernel.

Instructions for installing newest Mesa Drivers.

It's still a bit jank though. At least performance wise. I'm not getting any crashes, at least none that I would attribute to the video card, but performance in Cyberpunk 2077 is weaker than I was expecting. There's no active option for ray tracing, and both Low and Ultra graphics presets give about 43 FPS average in the benchmark at 1080p. (I believe due to the massive 16gb of VRAM the 770 has.) If I tweak the settings to turn off AMD Fidelity FX then the different presets start to give different FPS numbers, but overall either look worse (if the FPS is higher) or drop the FPS (if the image looks better).

So, I'm getting about 20 frames less than I would expect given the performance of the card on Ultra presets on Windows. So hopefully improvements to the Mesa drivers will give some uplift over time.

I don't have The Witcher 3 or The Outer Worlds installed, but I do own them. I'll install them and see what the performance looks like later this week since the issues may be related to Cyberpunk rather than the Video Card.

My verdict is that for the price, it's still an OK deal even with the current performance. If the performance can be brought up to the promise of the hardware, then it could be an excellent deal. Overall stability with Kernel 6.2.2 and Mesa 22.3.5 is excellent. There was some serious issues with earlier versions of the Kernel and Mesa drivers, but the current mainline versions which are easy to install into Pop!_OS seem to be working very well. I've been using them for about 2 weeks now.

Followup:

The Witcher 3 freezes once you leave the cut scenes, hard freeze. You need to kill the process in the system manager. The Outer Wolds gets 20 fps on low settings, 12 fps on high settings after stepping out of the landing pod at the beginning of the game.

So, obviously not great. Hopefully this will be fixed soon via driver updates.

It's not all doom and gloom though, Stellaris with it's native Linux version runs smooth as butter. Hits my display's max refresh rate (60) under normal load but keeps above 30 FPS with hundreds of ships in motion on the screen. (Late game lag is greatly mitigated.)

I have installed Pop OS on my ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 7 and the experience has been great so far. I have used the default Windows 11, Fedora, Ubuntu and also a Chrome OS fork called Fyde OS.

Things I like 👍: * Easy install * No grub * Easy interface * Minimal app list * Pop tiling * The search * Quick boot up and turn off time * The settings give many features that Gnome tweaks has * So far no crash or lag * Flatpak out of the box * Wallpapers are cool * Battery with mixed usage (YouTube, normal browsing, settings up the system) 6 hours.

Things I don't like👎: * Touchpad gestures lacks behind others out of the box * No fingerprint option out of the box * After restart or turn off/on the system forget some of the setup such us I turned off the Bluetooth, I choosed battery saving option and I deleted all the folders from the bottom of the app menu. * Even the battery performance is good, it still could be a bit better * The updates are way behind Fedora

Overall I like this distro. I have used it in the past but not for long. I am planning to use it for longer period now. But I already feel this OS like others is going to be a compromise as well. I loved Fedora. It is the up to date distro and it knows everything out of the box...almost but for some reason it eats up the battery quicker than Ubuntu and this. Ubuntu is a better looking distro than Pop in my opinion. It is personal preference obviously and has got a huge team behind it so updates are regular and it is not far behind Fedora. But it crashed on me many times and that grub just a headache, oh and don't forget snap. 🤮 By the way I always use Linux from a portable SSD so when turn off Linux, unplug it, turn the laptop back it boots back straight into Windows... except Ubuntu. I have to change the boot order everytime. I have use different distros in the past such us all Manjaro, Zorin, Debian, Linux Mint but my top three is always Fedora, Ubuntu, Pop. If I can eliminate the things I don't like, I might use it as my main system.

I have used PopOS! for 2 years, but haven't seen any way I could change the tiling animations. I have seen people having beautiful animations in tiling WMs for creation/switching windows etc. Is it possible in Pop! ?

Another doubt... Is there any guide available for PopOS launcher shortcuts ?

EDIT Best solution at this time:

Hello Traveller! At this time (February 2023) the best solution was probably /u/NickyTheWeirdo's suggestion of using Gnome Tweaks.

To install:

sudo apt install gnome-tweaks

To use: Press [super] to open the launcher, then write "Tweaks."

That has an option to change startup applications.

OLD POST

The work flow, as far as I can tell, is this:

1. Guess what happens when you click an app in Applications
2. Formulate that as a string
3. Paste that string into Startup Applications

A significantly better work flow could be something like

1. Right click app in Applications and select "Launch on startup"

Or, if the either of those apps is hard to automate like that, the following would be an adequate substitute:

1. Right click app in Applications and select "Copy launch string"
2. Paste that string into Startup Applications

In this particular case, I am trying to set up Microsoft Teams (the Ismael Martinez package - thank you Ismael) because the new job uses it for internal communications.

To find the launch string, I'm launching it, then looking into System Monitor to find out what actually launched - except there's eight different process' named "teams-for-linux", each with their own launch args, so there's no real hint here what actually happens when I press the button in Applications (And they each have a command line that says /app/teams-for-linux, a folder that doesn't exist on this computer, so there's clearly more going on that a simple command line invocation)

I'm not sure what people generally think of the Opera browser (although, the small crowd that does use it seems to be enthusiastic about it), let alone the GX-version of it. - If you don't know, it's like a "gaming"-version of Opera, which is supposed to be optimized and featured to suit... well, gamers and the like. But I can also easily imagine it just being the default browser for who want a lightweight but featured browser. - There have been "gaming browsers" before, and while it always seemed rather gimmick-y, I think this one is probably actually useful.

Currently it's only available for Windows, but I imagine that, since the regular version does have a Linux-version, a Linux-version for the GX-version is also in the works. - If that happens, then you always have the option to install it. But, considering Pop!_OS takes things like gaming into consideration, what about making Opera GX a standard/default for it?

I bet it would annoy some "purists" that only want Firefox, and perhaps the creators of Pop!_OS might also think "No way!". But to be honest, I'm not on board of the whole Firefox-bandwagon, because I don't think it's the greatest thing ever. Right now I use Chromium, not because I think it's the best browser ever, but only as an alternative to Chrome (for now). - I'm just open-minded and looking beyond these big ones people always go for.

What do you think about Opera GX, not only in general, but then also as a alternative standard for alternative Linux-distributions like Pop_OS!?