Pop!_OS 24.04

Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS is made by System76, a Linux hardware company. It features the in-house COSMIC desktop environment (written in Rust) or the GNOME option, outstanding out-of-the-box NVIDIA GPU support, and a hybrid graphics switching system. It's regarded as the best Linux distro for gaming thanks to Steam and Proton integration, and excellent AMD/NVIDIA driver management.

Desktop Environment & Package Management

The default desktop is COSMIC (in-house) / GNOME. Package management is handled via APT + Flatpak. Pre-installed multimedia codecs mean it plays audio and video out of the box without extra configuration.

Performance & Use Cases

Minimum RAM: 4 GB, Disk: 20 GB. Pop!_OS 24.04 has solid gaming support — Steam and Proton work well out of the box. Pop!_OS 24.04 is designed primarily as a desktop distribution.

Who Should Use Pop!_OS 24.04?

Gamers, developers, NVIDIA GPU users, power users who want polish. Built on Ubuntu with an LTS release model.

1. Pick the right ISO from pop.system76.com — a dedicated NVIDIA build if you have an NVIDIA GPU, or the standard Intel/AMD build otherwise.
2. Create a bootable USB drive (4 GB or larger) using balenaEtcher or Rufus, or the command below on Linux/macOS.
3. Boot from the USB — restart and enter your boot menu (usually F12, F2, or Esc).
4. Run the installer — Pop!_OS's own installer handles partitioning, including automatic full-disk encryption as an option.
5. Reboot into Pop!_OS once setup finishes and remove the USB drive.

# Write the ISO to a USB drive on Linux/macOS — replace /dev/sdX with your actual drive
sudo dd if=pop-os_24.04_amd64_nvidia_1.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=4M status=progress && sync

⚠️ Double-check the device path with lsblk before running dd — writing to the wrong drive will erase it.

NVIDIA GPUs: this is Pop!_OS's signature strength — the dedicated NVIDIA ISO ships with the correct proprietary driver pre-installed and pre-configured, with zero manual setup required. Hybrid laptop graphics switching between integrated and NVIDIA GPUs also works out of the box.

AMD GPUs: work immediately via open-source Mesa drivers, with Pop!_OS's kernel tuned for good AMD performance too.

Wi-Fi: most Intel and Realtek chipsets work out of the box, inherited from Ubuntu's hardware support.

System76 hardware: if you're running actual System76 laptops or desktops, firmware updates and hardware-specific tweaks are delivered automatically through System76's own driver repository.

Secure Boot: supported, including on the NVIDIA ISO with signed proprietary drivers.