Nix vs Pop!_OS

Nix is a purely functional package management system. This means that the act of building a package does not have side effects, such as destructively updating or deleting files that may be used by other packages.

Nix allows the creation of project-specific shell and build environments which are isolated from the rest of the system. These environments are defined declaratively to ensure reproducibility.

Because of the functional approach it takes, Nix makes it easy for systems to use multiple versions of the same package simultaneously, and ensure that updating or removing a package can't break other packages.

No more of the traditional: "it works on my machine". When it says reproducible, this is the real deal.

If you're a fan of flat desktop interfaces reminiscent of Material design on Android, you'll like the theme that comes as a default in Pop! OS. The desktop and title bars all use a bright turquoise theme that makes the interface feel happy and borderline retro-chic. I found it to be like something you'd find printed on a ringer t-shirt.

The visually appealing and easy to use installer makes dual booting as easy as it can be.

Has nice gnome theme looks really good.

If you still miss how easy it was to just click-install and play games in Windows, Pop! will give you that similar expectation.

Most linux distros seem to hate Nvidia's graphics cards e.g. Fedora and OpenSUSE. System76 have decided to be kind. They have decided to form a good relationship with Nvidia fans and Nvidia itself. By creating a separate installation media that is dedicated for providing support to Nvidia's graphics cards. Even going as far as putting Nvidia's driver updates on Pop!_Shop for users to easily access and install.

Whereas normally, to use a brand new computer with a Linux OS, you would typically try to use unstable and sometimes buggy drivers - or struggle without hardware support until a stable release comes along.

System76 is a hardware company. It configures machines to ship with Linux pre-installed. This means its entire business model centers around delivering a quality desktop Linux experience.

As a result, the company pours more attention onto the desktop. It can fix visual issues and may be able to provide a smoother overall experience than you would have installing a different version of Linux on your machine yourself. Providing Pop!_OS also empowers System76 to make certain fixes for users directly rather than having to coordinate with Canonical or the broader Ubuntu community.