How to Install Pop!_OS 24.04 (Step by Step for Beginners)

This tutorial takes about 11 minutes to complete.

This guide shows how to install Pop!_OS 24.04 on your PC, from downloading the ISO to your first login, and which installer options to pick as a beginner and why. It follows the video, with the exact keys, button names and options from the recording.

New to Ventoy? The Ventoy page explains what it is, and the Windows 11 Ventoy walkthrough shows the Windows steps in more detail. If you are already running Pop!_OS, there is also a guide to installing Ventoy on Pop!_OS 24.04.

Warning: this is a fresh install. Clean Install and Erase and Install erase the whole drive you select, and there is no disk partitioning or dual boot. Back up anything important first.

Before you start

You need a PC, a USB stick or an external drive larger than 8 GB, and a minimum of 25 GB of free disk space. You will also need a second computer, or the same PC while it still runs its current system, to download the ISO and prepare the USB drive. The video does this part on Windows 11, because many people switching to Linux are coming from Windows.

A wired internet connection is the easiest and most reliable way to connect.

Jump to a chapter in the video: Intro · Get the ISO · Ventoy USB · Copy ISO · Boot menu · Secure Boot fix · Install Pop!_OS · First boot

Step 1: Download the Pop!_OS 24.04 ISO

Open your browser and go to the official Pop!_OS download page. Scroll down: there are two versions of Pop!_OS 24.04. If you have an older NVIDIA series GPU or an AMD graphics card, choose the first one. If you have one of the newer NVIDIA GPUs, select the second option. The download page describes the first as for Intel or AMD graphics or NVIDIA 10 Series and older, and the second as for NVIDIA 16 Series graphics or newer.

The video has a 5060 Ti 16GB, so it selects the newer one. Click Download, and your download should begin. The video skips through the wait. When the download is done, go to your Downloads folder, and you should see the Pop!_OS 24.04 ISO.

Note: the download page also says to disable Secure Boot in your BIOS to install Pop!_OS. The video does not do that. It keeps Secure Boot on and shows how to fix the Secure Boot failure with Ventoy in step 9.

The video also puts the ISO in its own folder, which is optional but keeps it easy to find. Right-click the ISO and click Cut. Go to This PC and the C drive, right-click, choose New, then Folder, and name it ISO. Open the folder and paste the ISO there.

Step 2: Download Ventoy

To make a bootable ISO drive, the video uses Ventoy. It turns your USB stick or external drive into a multi-boot ISO drive, so you can store multiple ISOs on it and boot from them.

Open the browser and go to ventoy.net. Click Downloads, scroll down, find the Ventoy Windows zip file and click it. Scroll down and find the Windows zip file again, then click it. Your download should start shortly.

Step 3: Extract Ventoy and open Ventoy2Disk

Once the download is finished, go to your Downloads folder and close the browser. Now you need to extract the zip file: right-click it, click Extract All, and then click Extract. The new folder should open.

Go inside the Ventoy folder and look for the Ventoy2Disk application. Double-click it, and click Yes to give administrator access. Now the Ventoy application is open.

Step 4: Select your USB drive

Connect your external USB drive. If you do not see your USB stick or external storage device, click the green refresh button. If you still do not see it, open the Options menu and click Show All Devices. This shows all the drives on your PC, and it is off by default.

Warning: make sure not to install Ventoy on your main drive. Make sure you install it on your external drive. Also back up any important files you have, because this will format and erase everything on the disk.

Step 5: Turn on Secure Boot Support

Open the Options menu again and make sure Secure Boot Support is checked. In case you have any problems with Secure Boot errors, this should help fix it. Step 9 shows how to fix the Secure Boot errors if you still get one.

Step 6: Install Ventoy on the USB drive

Make sure you have everything backed up from your drive, and then click Install. A warning says the device will be formatted and all the data will be lost. Click Yes to continue.

A second window double-checks that you want to format the device and lose all the data. You can click Yes.

When it is finished you will see Congratulations: Ventoy has been successfully installed to the device. Click OK, and then close the Ventoy application.

Step 7: Copy the Pop!_OS ISO to your Ventoy drive

Open the file manager. If you look on the side, you can see your Ventoy drive. Go to This PC and the C drive, click the ISO folder, right-click the ISO file and select Copy. Go back to This PC, double-click the Ventoy drive, then right-click and paste. When the ISO file has finished copying to the Ventoy drive, close the window.

Tip: for blazing fast speeds and more storage space, use an external NVMe drive. The NVMe enclosure tutorial shows how to build your own NVMe drive with an NVMe enclosure, and the Orico M.2 NVMe enclosure page has the product details.

Step 8: Boot from the USB with the boot menu key

Shut down your computer and reboot into the BIOS or boot menu. Plug the USB into the PC you are installing on, then restart and tap the boot menu key right as it powers on. The key depends on the brand. Here are some common ones.

You could also check your motherboard's documentation. Keys vary by model. If yours does not work, check the manual of your computer or motherboard.

Tap the key, do not hold it. Tap it repeatedly right after you press the power button, with the USB already plugged in. The boot menu lets you pick the USB drive once, and the BIOS setup key opens the firmware settings, where you can change the boot order.

Acer: on some models the F12 boot menu must first be enabled in the BIOS. Press F2, go to Main, set F12 Boot Menu to Enabled, then save and restart. Lenovo: many models also have a small Novo button that opens a boot menu.

If the key does nothing: fast boot can use up your keystrokes. On a Windows PC, hold Shift and click Restart, then choose Use a device and pick your USB drive. To open the BIOS setup that way, go to Troubleshoot, Advanced options, then UEFI Firmware Settings.

The boot menu keys for Dell, HP, Lenovo, ASUS, Acer, MSI and Gigabyte are the ones said in the video. The BIOS setup keys, the Novo button and the Acer setting come from the manufacturers' support pages and other published lists: Dell, HP, MSI, Acer and the Gigabyte BIOS manual.

In your boot menu, locate your Ventoy drive. In the video, the first device shown is the Ventoy drive. Select it and press Enter.

Step 9: If you get the Secure Boot failure

If you see the error Verification failed: (0x1A) Security Violation, the video calls it the infamous secure boot failure. This is one of the Secure Boot errors, and the fix only takes a minute. Press Enter for OK. When it asks you to press any key to perform MOK management, press Enter.

Go down to Enroll key from disk and press Enter. The selected key will be enrolled into the MOK database. Make sure you select VTOYEFI and press Enter. Then scroll down until you see ENROLL_THIS_KEY_IN_MOKMANAGER.cer and press Enter.

Go down to Continue and press Enter. Choose to enroll the keys, scroll down to Yes and press Enter. Then press Enter again to reboot the PC.

Step 10: Boot the Ventoy drive and start Pop!_OS

After the reboot you have successfully booted the Ventoy drive. To install Pop!_OS 24.04, press Enter, boot into normal mode, and then click Try or Install Pop!_OS and press Enter.

Step 11: Choose your installer options

When the installation menu has started up, these are the choices from the video, one screen at a time.

Language, country and keyboard

Select your language. The video selects English. Select your country, and then select your keyboard layout, which is English in the video. You can also set a second keyboard layout, and the video just chooses the default.

Clean Install

The video is not doing a dual boot installation. It does a full clean install, which will format your hard drive and erase everything, so make sure to back up all your important files before you do this. Click Clean Install, and then go down and click clean install again to continue.

Choose the drive

Now you need to verify the correct drive that you want to format to use for Pop!_OS. The installer lists your drives, so check the sizes and do not choose your Ventoy USB drive. The video chooses its 50 GB hard drive, and then clicks Erase and Install.

Account and drive encryption

Enter your full name and username and click Next, then choose a secure password to log into your account. You will need to type it twice to confirm. Click Next.

For extra protection, the installer lets you encrypt the whole drive, and you will need to set a password for that. The video does not want to encrypt the drive, so it unchecks the box and clicks Don't Encrypt.

Step 12: Finish the install and set up Pop!_OS

The installer now partitions the drives and prepares them for setup. The video skips ahead through this part. When it says setup is almost complete, restart your device, and then enter your password to log in.

Quick setup

The first screen is the accessibility setup, and the screen reader is on, so the video turns it off. The display scaling is fine, so click Next. If you have Wi-Fi on your computer, you can check it on if you want, then click Next. Confirm you have the correct language selected and click Next, make sure you have the correct keyboard layout selected and click Next, and choose your closest time zone by typing the city you are closest to. Click Next.

The video sticks with the COSMIC Dark theme and clicks Next. Then you can configure your layout: you can use the top panel and bottom dock or the bottom panel. The video sticks with the top panel and bottom dock and clicks Next. The next screens tell you about tiling the windows: use Shift, Super and an arrow key, or drag the pointer to move the windows, and you get visual hints when you use automatic window tiling. Click Next, and now you can click Finish.

Fix the display

Now a few things to take care of. To change the display resolution, right-click, click Display Settings, and then change the resolution. The video changes it to 4K, 3840 by 2160, keeps the changes, and increases the scaling to 175% so it is easier to see. Then close the window.

Update the system

The next thing to do is update your system packages. Click the COSMIC Store icon in the dock, click Updates, and then click update system packages. Or you can just click Update all, then enter your password. This will update your whole system.

After the updates are done, close the window and reboot your computer, then log in.

You have now downloaded the Pop!_OS 24.04 ISO, made a Ventoy USB, booted it with your boot menu key, installed Pop!_OS with Clean Install and finished the first-boot setup. In the next video you will see how to set up local AI with Ollama.

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