Pop!_OS
Linux distros
Pop!_OS
This innovative distro’s COSMIC desktop offers a number of unusual and potentially useful features
Pop!_OS’s innovative tiling manager makes great use of a large display
SCORE WEBSITE
system76.com/pop
BASED ON Ubuntu 24.04 LTS
LINUX KERNEL 6.18
RELEASED December 2025
NEXT VERSION April 2026
System76, which develops Pop!_ OS, is a Linux-focused systems builder. This is its in-house OS, based on Ubuntu 24.04 running Wayland and Linux kernel 6.18. You wouldn’t know it, as Pop!_OS uses the COSMIC desktop rather than the Ubuntu default, GNOME.
While we prefer GNOME or KDE, COSMIC includes handy features such as an intuitive cursor-key-based system for managing windows, live applications and workspaces.
You can also set it to automatically tile your display. If you’re only running one app, it occupies the full screen. Two sit side by side; launch a third and the active app gives up half of its screen space to accommodate it – and keeps on dividing as you open more windows. It works well on a large display, but if you lack space you might prefer another Pop option: to stack multiple apps in a single window with tabs like a browser. It’s very clever and something we’d like to see implemented elsewhere.