Pop!_OS Upgrades to Ubuntu 22.04 With New Release

Hard on the heels of last week’s release of Ubuntu 22.04 LTS comes a new release for Pop!_OS, the Ubuntu-based distro from System 76 aimed at STEM and creative professionals.

The distro is currently using Gnome 42 as its desktop, with System 76’s Cosmic UX. The Cosmic Desktop Environment remains in development, with an alpha expected this summer.
The new release brings all the improvements from Ubuntu 22.04, including kernel 5.16.19 (which will be regularly updated), and adds some more of its own, such as turning off automatic updates and streamlining them into a weekly notification to reduce distractions. There's a new Support panel for troubleshooting, including access to documentation, community support chat, and log files. 

Further improvements include better multi-monitor support and fixed Hi-DPI layouts, plus new Nvidia GPU drivers. There's a scheduler that flings resources at whichever window is in focus, as well as a CPU governor that keeps the processor ticking over at the optimum frequency. Remote desktop is handled via RDP by default, and audio processing now uses PipeWire.

Pop!_OS uses both APT and Flatpak package management, and there are plenty of libraries and tools at the user’s disposal for things like software development, machine learning, and media production. Linux gamers are well catered-for too, with a mix of Steam, Lutris, and GameHub to make sure your game library is available, and the hybrid graphics engine allowing you to choose which apps get to use the GPU.

Absent from the updates is a new version of the Raspberry Pi 4 technical preview of Pop!_OS, which remains stuck at 21.10. This is a shame, as Ubuntu 22.04 is highly Pi-compatible, all the way down to boards with 2GB of RAM, so we hope to see a Pi-specific release of the updated OS soon.