Note: I am not from the Pop team so this has nothing to do with them. I am just a user who wants shit to work and not distro hop every couple of months.
Not trying to invoke a distro war here, but I recently bought a second hand sys76 laptop. The build is ok not fantastic like thinkpads or macs, but i wanted to try out their distro - Pop OS. It runs pretty great, smooth and very snappy. I really like the best of both worlds - tiling vs floating windows.
That said, I see a lot of hate for this distro. Christ Tirus Tech posted multiple videos ditching this OS like it is garbage. Linus Tech Tips had that self owned moment when he installed Pop and crashed it, so not a good marketing for the OS.
I used Fedora, Mint, Ubuntu, Arch. Each has its pros and cons but the hostility is nowhere near the ones Pop gets. Did the devs fucked up because they did something stupid to the OS, like Manjaro team when they forgot to renew security certificates?
To preface this thought, I believe most distros are fine when matched with the users technical appetite and expectations. I also feel that focusing on the question “which distro?” first is a trap. I would suggest exploring the various window managers first and see what common distros offer it.
For example if you want to use cosmic but would would rather use something popular there is the Fedora COSMIC Spin. Or if you’re just looking for a solid alternative that feels like windows there’s Kubuntu LTS 26.04.
PopOS is essentially maintaining an fork of Ubuntu’s LTS branch with a rolling release kernel and recently bolting on an experimental (not to be read as unstable) window manager.
Personally I feel this makes it a poor choice for users that don’t want frequent updates and/or are uncomfortable with troubleshooting issues.
If you’re leaning on first party support for hardware that ships with popOS that would make it a reasonable candidate.
I don’t see much in the value PopOS provides over Ubuntu flavours like Kubuntu. Or the various spins of Fedora. I would expect the 26.04 release of Ubuntu to cover nearly all first time users and most hardware configurations better than popOS. (With the exception of their own hardware releases.)
Additionally I disagree with the way they maintain their kernel. I would suggest to users that benefit from these frequent updates or value being on the bleeding edge to consider a rolling release such as OpenSUSE TW. (Or Arch if you want to make your computer your hobby and have a strong appetite for technical challenges)
Ultimately it’s fine, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed using popOS if you like their window manager. There are less users using it so problems that arise may take longer to resolve or be detected by the community. Personally if you’re going to be using something based on Ubuntu id suggest just using that or one of their main “flavours”. Especially given your desire for something that just works.
Please forgive any mistakes, I didn’t intend to write this much and it’s late. Hopefully I did alright with exploring the topic without any significant bias or error. I welcome any feedback or corrections.