System76

Let's talk about Pop OS, why it was recommended in the past and why it should not be used by a new Linux user today in what, April 18th or 19th of 2026. because it's really important i actually have an entire series on my channel of installing pop os changing a bunch of stuff i used to really enjoy this distro but it's not ready for a new user and i really want to go over why from a new user perspective you need something predictable stable and just easy to use right out of the box and installing it as a third-party distro I would imagine this works a lot better on System76 hardware because they would be getting a lot of returns if it didn't.

But it should be something like I thinking of all these recommendations from these new Linux converts coming from Windows.

They're installing Pop! OS and having lots of issues.

And I'm sure there's a lot more lurking under the surface here.

And I'm actually going to go on the GitHub and just kind of show a few things too that you should be aware of.

And hopefully someone from System76 sees this and they're able to correct and help these people that are having so many problems with Pop! OS.

But the big thing here is when something's LTS, that means stability and reliability.

Nothing should trump that.

I feel like I've got to start this by explaining my brain-dead choice of Pop! OS.

System76 has spent the last couple of years hard at work on a new desktop environment, Cosmic, and it's been a challenge.

So the big thing with Cosmic and why I kind of crapped on it and said no one should use Pop! OS anymore, it's not been a couple years.

It's been like one and a half years.

That's why I say no one should use Pop! OS in 2026, especially since Cosmic's the defaults.

I would have had to journey to a random blog post from back in September of 2025 to discover that Cosmic is now in public beta.

Number two, maybe this is a hot take, but maybe if System76, a commercial entity, not a random open source contributor, knows that it's not ready for prime time, instead of blaming me, we should probably blame the company that shipped it.

Absolutely.

So the framework computer, for example, comes in light.

Purism, System76.

There's a couple open source enthusiasts that are also providing the hardware.

They're usually not as great as Apple devices on the hardware, because Apple are just aliens with their hardware tech.

Here's another member of the GNOME Code of Conduct Committee who says that Framework Computer, quote, partnered with fascists and recommends people not use their computers.

Instead, this prominent GNOME leader says he now recommends System76, quote, because the people at the helm there are anti-fascist and anti-slop." It's worth noting that the Nome Code of Conduct Committee is appointed by the Nome Foundation Board of Directors and is run by the co-founder of Nome.

So the Nome Code of Conduct Committee is one of the most powerful organizations, powerful groups of people within Nome.

It's also worth noting that these statements are clear violations of the Nome Code of Conduct, right? So at this point, at least half of the Nome Code of Conduct Committee, including the co-founder of Nome, are in clear, flagrant and rather extreme violation of their own code of conduct.

Uh, and by running it well, I mean either they are certified by Canonical or Red Hat, or they're tested by the people who are selling them.

So people like System76, Framework, Slimbook, and all the others, boutique vendors who have made devices that run Linux quite well and sell them ostensibly with Linux pre-installed maybe.

Right.

And I've been noodling on it off and on, and I finally got it to a point where it kind of works.

... people, the primary thing you're looking for is a laptop.

But also desktops, servers, all kinds of devices that are certified to run, like an Ubuntu LTS or a particular version of Red Hat.

And so that's what it, it, it goes and gathers that data as a starting point, but also gathers data from System76, Framework, and potentially other places as well.

Those were the first two that I started with because they're quite well known-

But I'd probably lean Mac if I was going to go out and spend money on something new.

Yeah, or a custom build, something like System76.

Spend a little bit more money and have some options.

And don't be afraid to look at Linux.

If you spend some time on it, you will find similar statements to what I'm about to show you almost every day from major open source projects for the last several weeks, uh, if not months.

Uh, System76, hardware maker based out of Denver, Colorado.

I, I've been out to their office before, their, their warehouse and whatnot.

Uh, I, I've, I've, I've broken bread with them and, and nice enough folks.

In fact, so much so that their lead developer spends a huge amount of time just viciously attacking people who are centrist or politically more conservative.

Uh, he attacks me regularly, attacks all sorts of people, and just really goes after them because they're on the political left.

Well, System76 has officially banned all AI-generated contributions to their COSMIC desktop environment, part of their Pop!_OS Linux distribution that they ship their, their laptops and their desktops with.

Um, all contributors must agree to the following when submitting any changes.

... just hold onto it.

I'm holding onto my nice little, like, System 76 I got before this all blew up.

[chuckles]

96 gigs of RAM.

... needed a new computer.

Um, so I got lucky.

No, that, my, my nice 76, uh, se- System 76 machine, like, with, like, that's, like, got ton of SSD space and, like, uh, uh, RAM was only, like, $2,500.

Like, that would've been God awful expensive right now.

In open source security news, Linux backdoors targeting telecom and network edge appliances in South Korea and Taiwan have been disguising their traffic as email and their processes as legitimate services on the devices that they have compromised.

In open source AI news, System76's Cosmic Desktop environment will no longer accept LLM-generated content in PRs.

An NVIDIA-backed reflection AI has unveiled its first open model called Beam.

It hopes to be America's answer to compete with Chinese open models.