System76 Releases Pop!_OS

System76, one of the few hardware vendors that sell systems preloaded with Linux, has released the final version of Pop!_OS, their own Ubuntu-based distribution.

System76 CEO and founder Carl Richell told us in an interview that the OS is the result of the feedback that they received from their customers. What makes Pop!_OS different from many other Linux distributions is that System76 sells Linux hardware, so they do have a very trusted channel of feedback from customers.

System76 caters to professionals who use desktop Linux for their workloads. In a press release, System76 said that the OS is geared toward users in STEM, computer scientists, makers, and developers. During the release of 3D rendering software as open source, Pixar developers were spotted using System76 machines running Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Pop!_OS is seen as a System76 response to Canonical’s withdrawal from the consumer space. Richell said that their current focus is on offering a very stable and minimalistic experience around Ubuntu and Gnome to cater to its customers.

Contrary to Linux Mint, Pop!_OS will be based on the latest Ubuntu instead of the long-term support (LTS) version. Richell said that they have been working with Ubuntu for more than 12 years, and they have all the needed expertise to keep up with Ubuntu. The good news is, now that Unity is discontinued, Ubuntu will focus on a rock solid base that can be used in enterprise setups. Because Gnome is already mature, it’s more predictable than Unity, making the job of System76 developers easy to tack to slow-moving stable targets.

The primary focus of System76 will be to offer a very polished experience on the machines, including hardware support and optimization. System76 is also working on setting up their own manufacturing unit, where they will build desktops and laptops in-house.

Even though Pop!_OS is designed for System76 machines, it’s freely available for anyone to use.

You can download it from GitHub.