Pop!_OS (Linux)
Pop!_OS is an operating system developed by System76 for STEM and creative professionals who use their computer as a tool to discover and create. Unleash your potential on secure, reliable open source software. Based on your exceptional curiosity, we sense you have a lot of it.
Whether this is your first experience with Linux, or your latest adventure, all are welcome to discuss and ask questions about Pop!_OS and COSMIC. Keep the discussions friendly though, and remember to assume good intentions whenever you reply. We're all here because we have a shared love for Linux and open source software.
Support us by buying System76 hardware for you or your company! Or by donating on the Pop!_OS website through the "Support Pop" button. Pop!_OS and COSMIC are fully funded by System76 hardware sales. All systems are assembled in the USA. With your support, we'll work to push the Linux desktop forward with COSMIC.
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Community Rules
Follow the Code of Conduct
All posts on pop_os must adhere to the Pop!_OS community Code of Conduct. https://github.com/pop-os/code-of-conduct
Be helpful
Posts to pop_os must be helpful. When responding to a user asking for help, do not provide tongue-in-cheek responses like "RTM" or links to LMGTFY. Linking to direct sources that answer the asker's question is fine, but it's advised to provide some explanation as to how you got to that source.
Critique should be constructive
We within the Pop!_OS community welcome helpful criticism or ideas on ways to improve. However, basic "It's bad" or other simple negative comments don't help anyone fix anything. When voicing a complaint about something, try to point out ways the complaint could be improved or worked around, so that we can make a better product for it.
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It can be funny to joke about malicious commands, however this is not the venue for it. Do not advise users to run commands which will lock up their systems, steal their data, or erase their drive. Examples of this include (but are not limited to) fork bombs, rm, etc.
Posts violating this rule will be removed, even if the post is clearly in jest. Repeated offences may lead to a ban. You may understand that the command isn't serious, but a new user might not.
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Posts making a personal attack on any user will not be tolerated.
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Hate speech of any kind will not be tolerated. Any violations will be removed, and are grounds for a ban.
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There are alternative ways to install apps outside the official repos. The best options depend on the applications and your comfort level/knowledge.
I tend to get precompiled apps directly as tarballs from the developers and place a symlink into
$PATH, like$HOME/.local/bin. Depending on the app I will also make a .desktop file in$HOME/.local/share/applications.AppImages from developers can be aliased in
$HOME/.bashrcand .desktop files added to$HOME/.local/share/applications. Make surelibfuse2is installed. AppImageLauncher is a handy way of integrating AppImages.If a developer distributes a .deb themselves, it will very likely work just fine on Pop. It seems that .deb are generated with the assumption an Ubuntu LTS or previous Debian release. If they are targeting only the newest version of Ubuntu or Debian, they tend to state it.
I don't use alternative package managers like Homebrew and Nix, but they are an option as well.
Then there is always compiling from source, but it is rarely necessary, unless you want the bleeding edge of an apps development.
Just to add to that, you also have the option of using Flatpak, which already comes installed by default in Pop OS and integrated into Pop Shop. With Flatpak you can usually get a more recent version of the app, but the downside is larger install size.
Flatpak is definitely the way to go if you’re still getting started in your Linux journey.
The reason that flatpak apps are typically more up to date is because they are most often managed by the actual developer of the app. In contrast, the default apps in the Pop shop (which are deb packages, but that’s not super important) are managed and updated by popos itself (and/or Ubuntu/Debian that popos is built on), which is why they’re often slower to update. The developer has little to no day of when these packages are updated, and usually most packages are frozen between major releases of the distro.
Thanks for your detailed explanation, that will definitely come in handy often!
Virt-manager has a .deb download on the website, so I assume that means they distribute a .deb release. What needs to happen to have their up-to-date .deb uploaded to Shop?
My preffered method is using the Shop as I like the convenient, and what I'm just unsure of is how the Linux Appstores function. Does the app developer have to upload their latest update to the shop? Or do the PopOS devs need to add it themselves? Is there anything the community can do to help?
What I described is largely about self managing a few select packages without a package manager.
It is good to think about if you really need the newest version of an app. Do you want a newer version just because it is newer, or does the version in the official repos actually not provide features you need.
If you want the Pop! Shop, which is basically a gui for apt and flatpak, to manage your packages, you will need to add some thrid party source to your package sources. For Ubuntu based distros the most common method for adding a third-party source for software is the PPA. Read up on PPA so you understand the potential drawbacks. There are other mechanisms available, and generally described if provided by the developer.
The packages available in Pop_OS by default are what Ubuntu and Pop_OS maintain. The vast majority of available packages on Pop_OS are what Ubuntu released with LTS 22.04. They do not provide feature updates to packages, only security updates. There will be no package feature updates until Pop_OS rebases off a new version of Ubuntu. Pop_OS maintains a handful of packages themselves, like Firefox. We as users are not involved in package management for Ubuntu or Pop_OS.
If you are interested in community maintained packages for Ubuntu based distros, Pacstall might be interesting to you. I don't think there is a way to integrate Pacstall with the Pop Shop.
What is wrong with virt-manager from the system repositories? You should not be installing third party debian packages.