Questions for a new PC with Pop_OS!

[SinCanDory]

Hello everyone. Last time I asked about Linux and if it fits me. Now I ordered parts for a new pc and will be moving to Pop_OS! I have several questions though:

1) Does the OS have (chipset/driver) support out of the box for Ryzen 7900 and RX 7900XT?

2) How often does the OS get updated or at least gets driver updates?

3) Do I need to format the SSDs in a specific format like Fat32 or NTFS? I heard something Linux not supporting a format but not sure.

4) I heard Freesync and ray tracing are not supported. Is this correct or do I need to do something specific to enable them?

5) I'm using Bitdefender for my and my wife's computers. Pretty happy with it as an antivirus. From what I saw, it doesn't support Linux, and I believe there is no way to install it. Is there any antivirus software that can be trusted?

Also please let me know about everything I need to once I install the OS for the first time.

Thank you in advance once again

[Omega]

1. Pop!_OS is currently based on Ubuntu 22.04 (April 2022), it lacks drivers for super recent hardware. So it is probably best to choose something else which does support this new hardware such as Fedora Workstation.

Hardware is typically supported out of the box, the drivers are included in the kernel. The big main exception being Nvidia hardware. But if the kernel is too old it will of course simply lack these drivers.

2. Pop!_OS currently is not actively updated besides normal maintenance updates, its developers are working on creating a custom desktop environment for it, once that is done they will probably make a new release.

3. Linux will read pretty much anything you throw at it. But you do not have to partition anything, Linux will partition the disk for you.

4. That depends on the desktop environment. KDE Plasma supports adaptive-sync in a Wayland session. (Wayland and X11 are the protocols used for putting an image on the screen, Wayland is the modern replacement of the nearly 40 year old X11. Plasma specifically is currently putting lots of work in to making its Wayland session 100% usable)

5. You typically do not need anti-virus on Linux, and it is even discouraged.

It is not needed because software delivery on Linux is much more secure than on Windows and MacOS, you do not just download random executables on the web and run them with administrator access like your on those OSs. And when you are doing this you are probably doing something wrong.

Anti-virus itself also tends to be a major vulnerability on itself, the software agressively digs itself in to the system to effectively do its job, while often being of extremely poor quality.

Linux and most other Unix-like systems are very secure by design. By default your user lacks administrative access to the system meaning you are not able to make any changes to it. Only through the root user, which is the super administrator, are your able to make changes to the system. So even if a user downloads and runs malware they are at most going to infect their own user, all other users and the system itself remain uncompromised.

If you insist on having anti-virus because you for example often share files with Windows users use ClamAV with the ClamTK-front end, it is a free and open source anti-virus programs, it is also the only anti-virus program I would trust on a Linux system.


Also, be aware that super new AMD graphics hardware tends to be quite quirky for a while. So you may experience crashes or locks until they get fixed in Linux and Mesa. (Mesa is the software providing the implementations of graphics APIs such as OpenGL and Vulkan, Linux the kernel provides the gpu drivers called amdgpu)

[76561198343548661]

1.Download the iso
2.Make a USB flash bootable with it .I use Universal USB installer
3.Use the usb flash drive to boot .
4.Select auto install and it will do the job .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsgtAlOVsBA

[SinCanDory]

Messaggio originale di Omega:

1. Pop!_OS is currently based on Ubuntu 22.04 (April 2022), it lacks drivers for super recent hardware. So it is probably best to choose something else which does support this new hardware such as Fedora Workstation.

Hardware is typically supported out of the box, the drivers are included in the kernel. The big main exception being Nvidia hardware. But if the kernel is too old it will of course simply lack these drivers.

2. Pop!_OS currently is not actively updated besides normal maintenance updates, its developers are working on creating a custom desktop environment for it, once that is done they will probably make a new release.

3. Linux will read pretty much anything you throw at it. But you do not have to partition anything, Linux will partition the disk for you.

4. That depends on the desktop environment. KDE Plasma supports adaptive-sync in a Wayland session. (Wayland and X11 are the protocols used for putting an image on the screen, Wayland is the modern replacement of the nearly 40 year old X11. Plasma specifically is currently putting lots of work in to making its Wayland session 100% usable)

5. You typically do not need anti-virus on Linux, and it is even discouraged.

It is not needed because software delivery on Linux is much more secure than on Windows and MacOS, you do not just download random executables on the web and run them with administrator access like your on those OSs. And when you are doing this you are probably doing something wrong.

Anti-virus itself also tends to be a major vulnerability on itself, the software agressively digs itself in to the system to effectively do its job, while often being of extremely poor quality.

Linux and most other Unix-like systems are very secure by design. By default your user lacks administrative access to the system meaning you are not able to make any changes to it. Only through the root user, which is the super administrator, are your able to make changes to the system. So even if a user downloads and runs malware they are at most going to infect their own user, all other users and the system itself remain uncompromised.

If you insist on having anti-virus because you for example often share files with Windows users use ClamAV with the ClamTK-front end, it is a free and open source anti-virus programs, it is also the only anti-virus program I would trust on a Linux system.


Also, be aware that super new AMD graphics hardware tends to be quite quirky for a while. So you may experience crashes or locks until they get fixed in Linux and Mesa. (Mesa is the software providing the implementations of graphics APIs such as OpenGL and Vulkan, Linux the kernel provides the gpu drivers called amdgpu)

Thanks for reply and all the details. I thought Pop_OS would be a good choice, due to its popularity and it being "game ready" as some people call. Maybe I was wrong

Also since you said "new AMD graphics hardware tends to be quite quirky for a while. So you may experience crashes or locks until they get fixed in Linux and Mesa." I'm a worried. Personally I don't want to install win11 but I wouldn't mind installing it for a while until hardware issue becomes for stable on Linux side. Should I be that worried?

[N3tRunn3r]

1. Debian[www.debian.org]
   
   
2. Mint Debian[linuxmint.com]
   
   
3. Arch Linux[archlinux.org]

Helpful: Arch compared to other distributions[wiki.archlinux.org]

Use 'Linux Mint Debian Edition', it is based on Debian 11. Debian 12 has just been released.

[SinCanDory]

Messaggio originale di N3tRunn3r:

1. Debian[www.debian.org]
   
   
2. Mint Debian[linuxmint.com]
   
   
3. Arch Linux[archlinux.org]

Helpful: Arch compared to other distributions[wiki.archlinux.org]

Use 'Linux Mint Debian Edition', it is based on Debian 11. Debian 12 has just been released.

I'll check them. I heard Arch is not that beginner friendly. Is it correct?

[r.linder]

Messaggio originale di SinCanDory:

Messaggio originale di Omega:

1. Pop!_OS is currently based on Ubuntu 22.04 (April 2022), it lacks drivers for super recent hardware. So it is probably best to choose something else which does support this new hardware such as Fedora Workstation.

Hardware is typically supported out of the box, the drivers are included in the kernel. The big main exception being Nvidia hardware. But if the kernel is too old it will of course simply lack these drivers.

2. Pop!_OS currently is not actively updated besides normal maintenance updates, its developers are working on creating a custom desktop environment for it, once that is done they will probably make a new release.

3. Linux will read pretty much anything you throw at it. But you do not have to partition anything, Linux will partition the disk for you.

4. That depends on the desktop environment. KDE Plasma supports adaptive-sync in a Wayland session. (Wayland and X11 are the protocols used for putting an image on the screen, Wayland is the modern replacement of the nearly 40 year old X11. Plasma specifically is currently putting lots of work in to making its Wayland session 100% usable)

5. You typically do not need anti-virus on Linux, and it is even discouraged.

It is not needed because software delivery on Linux is much more secure than on Windows and MacOS, you do not just download random executables on the web and run them with administrator access like your on those OSs. And when you are doing this you are probably doing something wrong.

Anti-virus itself also tends to be a major vulnerability on itself, the software agressively digs itself in to the system to effectively do its job, while often being of extremely poor quality.

Linux and most other Unix-like systems are very secure by design. By default your user lacks administrative access to the system meaning you are not able to make any changes to it. Only through the root user, which is the super administrator, are your able to make changes to the system. So even if a user downloads and runs malware they are at most going to infect their own user, all other users and the system itself remain uncompromised.

If you insist on having anti-virus because you for example often share files with Windows users use ClamAV with the ClamTK-front end, it is a free and open source anti-virus programs, it is also the only anti-virus program I would trust on a Linux system.


Also, be aware that super new AMD graphics hardware tends to be quite quirky for a while. So you may experience crashes or locks until they get fixed in Linux and Mesa. (Mesa is the software providing the implementations of graphics APIs such as OpenGL and Vulkan, Linux the kernel provides the gpu drivers called amdgpu)

Thanks for reply and all the details. I thought Pop_OS would be a good choice, due to its popularity and it being "game ready" as some people call. Maybe I was wrong

Also since you said "new AMD graphics hardware tends to be quite quirky for a while. So you may experience crashes or locks until they get fixed in Linux and Mesa." I'm a worried. Personally I don't want to install win11 but I wouldn't mind installing it for a while until hardware issue becomes for stable on Linux side. Should I be that worried?

Pop!_OS is fine, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS just doesn't support the latest hardware (Works fine with my 10850K and 3080 with the Nvidia LTS but there are issues on the current generation for both Nvidia and AMD) at the moment and it will take some time to gain support since System76 is so focused on COSMIC.

[r.linder]

Messaggio originale di SinCanDory:

Messaggio originale di N3tRunn3r:

1. Debian[www.debian.org]
   
   
2. Mint Debian[linuxmint.com]
   
   
3. Arch Linux[archlinux.org]

Helpful: Arch compared to other distributions[wiki.archlinux.org]

Use 'Linux Mint Debian Edition', it is based on Debian 11. Debian 12 has just been released.

I'll check them. I heard Arch is not that beginner friendly. Is it correct?

Arch has a larger learning curve to overcome, correct. If you're quick to learn software, it's not so bad, but there are distros like Mint that are easier for beginners. I started with Mint Cinnamon and moved to Pop!_OS later. But that's because I have older hardware than the current generation, i9 10th gen and RTX 3080, wouldn't work on your setup because it's too new, whatever Omega recommends you do is the best answer you're going to get, few people on this forum know Linux operating systems as well as he does.

[Omega]

Messaggio originale di SinCanDory:

Thanks for reply and all the details. I thought Pop_OS would be a good choice, due to its popularity and it being "game ready" as some people call. Maybe I was wrong

Also since you said "new AMD graphics hardware tends to be quite quirky for a while. So you may experience crashes or locks until they get fixed in Linux and Mesa." I'm a worried. Personally I don't want to install win11 but I wouldn't mind installing it for a while until hardware issue becomes for stable on Linux side. Should I be that worried?

With your bleeding edge hardware configuration you are pretty much limited to a rolling release distro or a rapid point-release distro.

Some concrete examples;
- Fedora Workstation 38 / Fedora Silverblue 38
- OpenSUSE Tumbleweed
- Garuda OS (Arch-based)
- Endevour OS (Arch-based)

Messaggio originale di SinCanDory:

Messaggio originale di N3tRunn3r:

1. Debian[www.debian.org]
   
   
2. Mint Debian[linuxmint.com]
   
   
3. Arch Linux[archlinux.org]

Helpful: Arch compared to other distributions[wiki.archlinux.org]

Use 'Linux Mint Debian Edition', it is based on Debian 11. Debian 12 has just been released.

I'll check them. I heard Arch is not that beginner friendly. Is it correct?

Stock Arch will assume you have at least a basic understanding about Linux and a reasonable understanding about computers/software in general. And the ability to read the manual.

Of course you can just dive in a try to get it all to work. Arch has become more accessible with its recently added installer, previously you had to install the system manually, but Arch remains a complex distro aimed at more advanced users.

If you want to just hit a big graphical install button and for everything to then work out of the box then Arch is not for you. If you enjoy tweaking your system to perfection with the trainingwheels Arch provides it may be for you.

It is not something you should run as litterally your first distro.

Messaggio originale di N3tRunn3r:

1. Debian[www.debian.org]
   
   
2. Mint Debian[linuxmint.com]
   
   
3. Arch Linux[archlinux.org]

Helpful: Arch compared to other distributions[wiki.archlinux.org]

Use 'Linux Mint Debian Edition', it is based on Debian 11. Debian 12 has just been released.

Both Debian and Mint are a no-go for this setup, software is too old. Unless with Debian you mean Debian Unstable, but that would be above Arch in difficulty.

[SinCanDory]

Messaggio originale di 尺．し工几句ヨ尺:

Messaggio originale di SinCanDory:

I'll check them. I heard Arch is not that beginner friendly. Is it correct?

Arch has a larger learning curve to overcome, correct. If you're quick to learn software, it's not so bad, but there are distros like Mint that are easier for beginners. I started with Mint Cinnamon and moved to Pop!_OS later. But that's because I have older hardware than the current generation, i9 10th gen and RTX 3080, wouldn't work on your setup because it's too new, whatever Omega recommends you do is the best answer you're going to get, few people on this forum know Linux operating systems as well as he does.

Messaggio originale di Omega:

Messaggio originale di SinCanDory:

Thanks for reply and all the details. I thought Pop_OS would be a good choice, due to its popularity and it being "game ready" as some people call. Maybe I was wrong

Also since you said "new AMD graphics hardware tends to be quite quirky for a while. So you may experience crashes or locks until they get fixed in Linux and Mesa." I'm a worried. Personally I don't want to install win11 but I wouldn't mind installing it for a while until hardware issue becomes for stable on Linux side. Should I be that worried?

With your bleeding edge hardware configuration you are pretty much limited to a rolling release distro or a rapid point-release distro.

Some concrete examples;
- Fedora Workstation 38 / Fedora Silverblue 38
- OpenSUSE Tumbleweed
- Garuda OS (Arch-based)
- Endevour OS (Arch-based)

Messaggio originale di SinCanDory:

I'll check them. I heard Arch is not that beginner friendly. Is it correct?

Stock Arch will assume you have at least a basic understanding about Linux and a reasonable understanding about computers/software in general. And the ability to read the manual.

Of course you can just dive in a try to get it all to work. Arch has become more accessible with its recently added installer, previously you had to install the system manually, but Arch remains a complex distro aimed at more advanced users.

If you want to just hit a big graphical install button and for everything to then work out of the box then Arch is not for you. If you enjoy tweaking your system to perfection with the trainingwheels Arch provides it may be for you.

It is not something you should run as litterally your first distro.

Messaggio originale di N3tRunn3r:

1. Debian[www.debian.org]
   
   
2. Mint Debian[linuxmint.com]
   
   
3. Arch Linux[archlinux.org]

Helpful: Arch compared to other distributions[wiki.archlinux.org]

Use 'Linux Mint Debian Edition', it is based on Debian 11. Debian 12 has just been released.

Both Debian and Mint are a no-go for this setup, software is too old. Unless with Debian you mean Debian Unstable, but that would be above Arch in difficulty.

Thanks a lot for your replies.

Honestly Arch scared me a bit but Endeavour OS seems a bit nicer, even though it is based on Arch (at least that's what I understood).

Honestly I would have preferred an app / program Center where I could just install the few stuff I needed but I wouldn't mind learning new things. With this being said, I may give Endeavour OS a try instead of Pop_OS!. I read that it is pretty customizable as well, which is a plus for me.

I believe by the end of next week I will receive everything and move to Linux. May I reach out to you for further help, once I install and try/figure out the new OS?

[SinCanDory]

Messaggio originale di smallcat:

Install it on a clean drive . Otherwise it s a little hard to change it from dual boot to Windows only , in case you decide to abandon Linux . Also , with dual boot the things are a little complicated - you ll need to create 3 partitions - 1. FAT32 ; 2. ext4 ; and 3. for swap file ; and the disk must be GPT in order the things to be easier .

Thanks for the heads-up! I was planning using only Linux only, no dual boot. Maybe, just maybe, a Virtual Machine for Windows in the future. In case I would need something Windows specific/only.

[Michael Murphy]

Messaggio originale di 尺．し工几句ヨ尺:

Pop!_OS is fine, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS just doesn't support the latest hardware (Works fine with my 10850K and 3080 with the Nvidia LTS but there are issues on the current generation for both Nvidia and AMD) at the moment and it will take some time to gain support since System76 is so focused on COSMIC.

Pop!_OS is what we're shipping today, so it has priority #1. We regularly update the kernel, drivers, pipewire, mesa, and many other packages; alongside regular feature developments such as system76-scheduler and the pop-zram update.

The people working on COSMIC are mostly separate from those maintaining Pop!_OS. Hired specifically to work on COSMIC full time. Where there is overlap in the engineering team, development time is spent on COSMIC only when there aren't any active tasks for Pop!_OS.

[r.linder]

Messaggio originale di mmstick:

Messaggio originale di 尺．し工几句ヨ尺:

Pop!_OS is fine, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS just doesn't support the latest hardware (Works fine with my 10850K and 3080 with the Nvidia LTS but there are issues on the current generation for both Nvidia and AMD) at the moment and it will take some time to gain support since System76 is so focused on COSMIC.

Pop!_OS is what we're shipping today, so it has priority #1. We regularly update the kernel, drivers, pipewire, mesa, and many other packages; alongside regular feature developments such as system76-scheduler and the pop-zram update.

The people working on COSMIC are mostly separate from those maintaining Pop!_OS. Hired specifically to work on COSMIC full time. Where there is overlap in the engineering team, development time is spent on COSMIC only when there aren't any active tasks for Pop!_OS.

Then it's just a waiting game for Ubuntu to get updated for the newer drivers most likely

[Crashed]

One thing to note is that when you install Steam it may appear you have a large number of incompatible games, but Steam for Linux has a "Compatibility" section in its settings that allows you to override the whitelist and select the desired Proton version.

[Omega]

Messaggio originale di mmstick:

Messaggio originale di 尺．し工几句ヨ尺:

Pop!_OS is fine, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS just doesn't support the latest hardware (Works fine with my 10850K and 3080 with the Nvidia LTS but there are issues on the current generation for both Nvidia and AMD) at the moment and it will take some time to gain support since System76 is so focused on COSMIC.

Pop!_OS is what we're shipping today, so it has priority #1. We regularly update the kernel, drivers, pipewire, mesa, and many other packages; alongside regular feature developments such as system76-scheduler and the pop-zram update.

The people working on COSMIC are mostly separate from those maintaining Pop!_OS. Hired specifically to work on COSMIC full time. Where there is overlap in the engineering team, development time is spent on COSMIC only when there aren't any active tasks for Pop!_OS.

Are the ISO images also updated outside of Ubuntu's point releases?

In recent months I have seen various people complain that they build computer using the latest hardware, then they opt for Pop!_OS and they then complain it is about it being a blinky slideshow, unstable or similar GPU/driver related issues.

[Michael Murphy]

In recent months I have seen various people complain that they build computer using the latest hardware, then they opt for Pop!_OS and they then complain it is about it being a blinky slideshow, unstable or similar GPU/driver related issues.

This has always been true as long as Linux has existed. Even if you have the very latest firmware, drivers, and kernel. Firmware issues are plenty when you aren't careful about the motherboard or laptop you choose.

System76 is very careful when selecting motherboards to build systems with. They may require updated firmware or patches to the kernel. Hence we create the patches as necessary for the hardware we sell, and integrate it into Pop!_OS. Eventually those patches get merged into the mainline kernel tree.

We also regularly sync our linux-firmware and linux packages to their latest versions, provided that those versions pass regression tests in the QA lab. Updating the kernel often also requires updating various dkms drivers, such as ZFS, Virtualbox, and NVIDIA.

If you happen to buy a system from a vendor that doesn't support Linux, or whose support is lagging, you have to either wait for someone to fix it, and for that fix to come down in one of the system updates, or try to work out the solution and share it with us or the kernel mailing lists.

Messaggio originale di Omega:

Are the ISO images also updated outside of Ubuntu's point releases?

Always has been. We typically update our ISO once every 2-3 weeks as necessary. The currently-released ISO is Pop!_OS 22.04.32. Releasing an ISO requires a ton of regression testing in the hardware lab on a wide variety of hardware.

Lately there's been a lot of regressions with newer Linux kernels though, so it's taking time to get issues patched out so that we can release a newer kernel. We just released the latest versions of Pipewire, ZFS, Virtualbox, and linux-firmware the other day. There are now some reported regressions with integrated graphics on some Ryzen 7000 systems in the latest version of linux-firmware, so I just created a PR to merge the latest unreleased patches from the linux-firmware repository that contains the fix.

The current ISO installs Linux 6.2.6. There were regressions in Linux 6.3.X, so it could not be released. As well as a critical regression in Linux 6.4.2. We are close though to getting Linux 6.4.3 passed through QA. There is just the matter of fixing an issue with some Intel Alder Lake systems when using USB-C docks or USB-C displays.

We have a staging branch for NVIDIA 535, but it's currently exhibiting a regression on some hybrid graphics systems that causes flickering when using integrated graphics. QA has been looking into this, but it might require waiting for the next NVIDIA driver release; or requires releasing alongside Linux 6.4.X