Why would they add PopOS if it’s based on Ubuntu and they can just put that if they need it
I would say one reason would be that Pop!_OS uses Flatpaks instead of Snaps. Another one would be that it does not have features that require an Ubuntu One account (as far as I am aware.)
Further reading:
I would say one reason would be that Pop!_OS uses Flatpaks
This doesn’t improve security or privacy.
If anything, it seems like a potential mild downgrade to security on an Ubuntu derivative distro.
Another one would be that it does not have features that require an Ubuntu One account
Neither does Ubuntu afaik.
Assuming you are talking about Ubuntu Pro or Live-Patch, I think you may be confused about what they are. They are totally optional and are ‘in addition to’ Ubuntu (the distro) and geared towards enterprise customers and server installs.
If you choose not to use them you won’t be foregoing any core part of Ubuntu Desktop or of Pop!_OS. It’s hard to complain about completely optional services, they are there for those who need them and can be ignored by everyone else.
The only thing you have to do to not use these features is: nothing. And the only difference with respect to these features and Pop_OS vs Ubuntu is with Ubuntu you have the choice to use them if you want, with Pop_OS you just don’t get the choice.
Are there any others reasons not to recommend Pop!_OS if Wayland is now enabled by default, other than the COSMC DE?
The big 3 for me (the last time I looked at Pop! which was ~2 years ago) were:
- Still uses Xorg by default
- Still no secure boot ootb
- Based on an older version of Ubuntu (22.04)
Points 1 & 3 should theoretically be resolved after Cosmic is released and matures. If they address point 2 as well, I think Pop! would be a solid contender.
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Pop OS is a good distro. I’d wait until their Cosmic DE is released before recommending it, it seems to be releasing soon and we don’t know how it’s going to be.
The things I’d mention can be problematic to the recommendation are:
- Defaults to X
- No secure boot at all
- Does not use Ubuntu repositories at all anymore, they use their own repos, which makes Pop OS further from Ubuntu and may have security implications (?)
I’d personally go with Fedora, Kubuntu (snaps replaced with Flatpak) or even Linux Mint, but Pop OS is also a great system, specially for beginners.
Do you mind elaborating on the security downsides of using flatpaks on an Ubuntu derived distro?
From the privacy perspective, I was mainly talking about the open-source nature of flatpaks compared to snaps. Although open-source doesn’t guarantee privacy or security, it’s more about the ideology of it being open-source. The concerns both you and @Private_Plan pointed out are valid and could very well be solved with COSMIC.
@Private_Plan From what I know, It is possible to enable secure boot with Pop!_OS, it just isn’t on by default. I would assume there would be compatibility issues with doing this though.
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That’s totally true, one can self-sign their own kernel and it will work.
However, that’s not exactly something that someone coming from Windows, a total beginner would know how to do. Hence why it’s important to Pop OS to ship their kernels signed.
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I agree, I mean heck its not just new users coming from Windows, most experienced Linux users can’t manually implement secure boot with self-signed keys.
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Hey I was considering buying
How is Pop OS from Privacy and Security Standpoint?
I have no clue why the current DE Pop!_OS uses is a deal-breaker.
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Because the one they currently use is an old version maybe?
Almost any linux distro will be more private than windows/mac. Security wise, Fedora/OpenSuse have better defaults.
not ubuntu 
That is incorrect. Ubuntu is still orders of magnitude better than windows. I dont know about mac, but as i do not trust apple much, i would personally choose ubuntu over mac
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These days ubuntu is about as good as anything else, there’s one opt out telemetry thing in the setup and that’s it.
The lense thing is way in the past and there’s no amazon store so nothing much to worry about.
We only allow distributions which support Wayland. We’re waiting to see how their new Rust based desktop environment COSMIC works out that uses Wayland.
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Ohhh I must be outdated then.
They seemed quite anti-GNU, anti-freedom when I looked into them (maybe quite a long time ago)
So, the current DE Pop!_OS uses X11 instead of Wayland?
Wayland is disabled by default on the current version of Pop OS. It can be easily enabled by following the instructions here though: gnome - Enable Wayland in PopOS 22.04 - Unix & Linux Stack Exchange
I’m not sure why wayland is currently disabled by default, but it should be enabled by default with the update that includes the new COSMIC DE.
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You still have to completely surrender yourself to Snaps (if you are keen on using GUI).
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yeah, that’s the only valid argument against ubuntu now.
I want to move to ubuntu to my daily driver because it actually seems faster than Fedora (and I have the option to install signal but they keep getting in my way.