Pop!_OS is an open source Linux distribution based on Ubuntu. The distribution is developed by American Linux computer manufacturer System76. While Pop!_OS is primarily bundled with computers made by System76, it can also be downloaded and installed on most computers.

A major feature of Pop!_OS is the customized version of the GNOME desktop environment it uses – COSMIC, but due to the many limitations of GNOME and their differences with the GNOME developers on the desktop experience, System76 is developing anot based on A new desktop environment for GNOME, written in Rust.

Recently Pop!_OS official social mediapostindicating that zram is enabled by default in the system:

Pop!_OS now has zram enabled. zram actively compresses memory in the background, increasing the amount of memory available to the system. This can increase the game’s FPS, or lead to faster simulation and compiler runs.

zram is a Linux kernel module for creating a compressed block device in RAM, ie a RAM with on-the-fly disk compression. Instead of moving infrequently used data to a separate swap partition on disk (which is slow), zram compresses the data and puts it in RAM (which is faster), improving performance. Since zram can use memory instead of hard disk to provide swap space for the system, zram can allow Linux to make better use of RAM when swapping/paging is required, especially on older computers with low physical memory.

zram was merged into the mainline of the Linux kernel on 3.14. At present, operating systems including chromeOS, Android, and Fedora have enabled zram by default. For Pop!_OS, it is finally catching up with these operating systems.