Pop!_OS 22.04 Has Officially Been Released

System76 has officially released the latest iteration of Pop!_OS. This time around, the operating system is based on Ubuntu 22.04 and includes plenty of improvements. Although the changes found in 22.04 aren't nearly as dramatic as those in past releases, this new version still offers plenty to get excited about.

The Pop!_OS COSMIC desktop is based on GNOME 42, but has been stripped down to align with the vision System76 has with its desktop. This means the look and feel of the desktop will remain fairly consistent with what you experienced since COSMIC was first introduced. In fact, although GNOME 42 migrated away from Gedit and GNOME Terminal, Pop!_OS is sticking with those two apps for the time being.

Two of the biggest additions to Pop!_OS 22.04 come in the form of automatic updates (which are configured in Settings > OS Recovery & Update and Pipewire now shipping as the default audio server.

Other highlights for the new version include a new screenshot tool, a Support option in the Settings app, kernel 5.16, GNOME Settings 41.4, Firefox 98, GNOME Terminal 3.43.9, and Gedit 41.4.

You can either download a copy of Pop!_OS from the official site, or you can upgrade your current release using the sudo pop-upgrade release upgrade -f command. Just remember, if you run an upgrade, backup all of your important data before doing so.