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REVIEW
LINUX DISTRIBUTION
POP!_OS ON RASPBERRY PI 4

Written: 20211105
Updated: 20211107

Hardware:

• Raspberry Pi 4 Model B 8GB
• Argon ONE M.2 Case for Raspberry Pi 4
• Samsung SSD 860 EVO M.2 250GB (MZ-N6E250BW)

Software:

• Pop!_OS 21.10 Beta (from Pop!_OS' GitHub Beta repo)

-

This will be brief.

The installation was easy and problem free.
Pop!_OS actually works on Raspberry Pi... but...

• The super annoying bug in Gnome Terminal is still present.
• There's not really any good GPU acceleration. The very nice NVIDIA GPU acceleration (on x64_86) just isn't here, at all. This makes the desktop a bit slow, like most other Raspberry Pi Desktop OS:es.
• Since it is ARM (aarch64), several of the nice x86_64 applications aren't here. Like "Signal Desktop", "Steam" or "VMware Workstation".
• Encrypted root file system (i.e. LUKS) just doesn't work here. This is cleartext filesystem only. To be fair, this it true for all Rasbperry Pi OS:es. Raspberry Pi simply lacks hardware support for encryption. However, I'm comparing this to the x86_64 version.
• Playing YouTube (not even in fullscreen) makes the entire desktop super slow. Like the mouse barely works.

Also (but this could be a beta hiccup):

• It doesn't support sound via HDMI

So everything that makes Pop!_OS stand out in the PC worlds, is missing here. The only benefit is that the desktop looks like Pop!_OS and the Pop!_Shop (with fewer apps) is here.

Basically, if you're a Pop!_OS fanboy, you can use this too, it's stable. But if you're looking for the best Raspberry Pi Linux distribution, this is probably not it.

I end this brief review with a vanity screenshot of the desktop.