System76 announced the release of the new version of its distribution "Pop!_OS 22.04" which arrives with the Ubuntu 22.04 base and comes with its own COSMIC desktop environment.
For those who are unaware of this distribution, I must mention that the idea of developing their own edition of the Ubuntu distribution came about after Canonical's decision to move Ubuntu from Unity to GNOME Shell: System76 developers started creating a new design theme based on GNOME, but then realized that they were ready to offer users a different version of desktop environment that provides flexible means to customize the current desktop process.
The distro comes with the COSMIC desktop, built on top of a modified GNOME Shell and a set of original GNOME Shell plugins, its own theme, its own set of icons, other fonts (Fira and Roboto Slab), and modified settings.
Main new features of Pop!_OS 22.04
In this new version of the distribution that is presented, as we mentioned as the main novelty, highlights the switch to base Ubuntu 22.04 LTS package, while for the part of the heart of the system we can find that Linux kernel has been updated to version 5.16.19 and the Mesa graphics stack to the 22.0 branch.
Regarding the desktop environment COSMIC, this is synchronized with GNOME 42 and from the changes made we can find that in the “Operating system update and recovery” panel, it is possible to enable the automatic update installation mode.
The user can determine on which days and at what times to install updates automatically. The mode applies to deb, flatpak and nix packages, besides that by default automatic updates are disabled and the user is shown a notification about the availability of updates once a week (you can configure the display every days or once a month in the settings).
Another change that stands out in this new version is that a new support panel has been proposed, accessible from the bottom of the configurator menu. The dashboard provides resources for solving common problems, such as links to hardware setup articles, support chat, and the ability to generate logs to help analyze the problem.
In the settings it became possible to assign wallpaper separately for dark and light themes.
System76 Scheduler provides support to improve performance by prioritizing the application in the active window. Improved processor frequency regulation mechanism (cpufreq governor), which adjusts the operating parameters of the CPU to the current load.
Improved the interface and the server part of the Pop!_Shop application catalog, Well, a section was added with a list of recently added and updated programs, in addition to the interface design being optimized for small windows.
Of the other changes that stand out in this new version:
- Improved reliability of batch operations.
- Shows installed NVIDIA proprietary drivers.
- Transitioned to using the PipeWire media server for sound processing.
- Improved support for multi-monitor setups and displays with high pixel density.
- Screens for displaying sensitive information are supported, for example some laptops are equipped with screens with a built-in confidential viewing mode, making it difficult to view from the outside.
- For remote work, the RDP protocol is enabled by default.
Finally if you want to know more about it about this new release, you can check the details In the following link.
Download Pop! _OS 22.04
In order to obtain this new system image and install this Linux distribution on your computer or you want to test it under a virtual machine. You just have to go to the official website of the distribution and in its download section you can get the image of the system.
ISO images are generate for x86_64 and ARM64 architectures for NVIDIA graphics chips (3,2 GB) and Intel/AMD (2,6 GB) and it is important to mention that builds for Raspberry Pi 4 boards are delayed.