When comparing Gallium OS vs Pop!_OS, the Slant community recommends Pop!_OS for most people. In the question“What is the best laptop OS?” Pop!_OS is ranked 15th while Gallium OS is ranked 38th. The most important reason people chose Pop!_OS is:
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.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Chromebook hardware support baked in
Many things work out of the box that do not with other distros, such as touchscreens.
Pro Chromebook specific OS
Gallium OS is engineered with Chromebook hardware in mind to make the best use of Chromebook CPU's, limited RAM, and storage limitations.
Pro Easy to install
Using chrx on Chromebook there are only two or three straightforward steps to get Gallium OS running.
Pro Lightweight
Based on Xubuntu and requires a low hardware spec. Thus it supports almost all Chrome OS devices.
Pro Dual boot
Installation option to dual-boot GalliumOS alongside ChromeOS.
Pro Battery life
Efficient in using the battery.
Pro Pop! makes GNOME look really good
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.
Pro User-friendly installer
The visually appealing and easy to use installer makes dual booting as easy as it can be.
Pro Nice gnome theme dy default
Has nice gnome theme looks really good.
Pro Ready to play games, out of the box
If you still miss how easy it was to just click-install and play games in Windows, Pop! will give you that similar expectation.
Pro A separate NVIDIA version
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.
Pro Optimized for modern hardware
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.
Pro Made by a hardware seller
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.
Cons
Con Not updated since 2019
Con Bad speaker support
Speaker support is often broken, either no sound or lots of noise/distortion.
Con Not the best looking UI
It's not the best in terms of UI but you can always install themes.
Con Too large
Too large to install on chromebook.
Con Uses Xfce
Not realy useful for touchscreen devices.
Con Firmware update
Required opening the back and removing the firmware write-protect screw and running a script.
Con 64-bit only
Some older PCs still have 32 Bit processors. This limitation will be a major con for those who use an older PC since they will not be able to install, run it in a VM or live media