System76 Launches First Stable Release of COSMIC Desktop and Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS

This week System76 launched the first stable release of its Rust-based COSMIC desktop environment. Announced in 2021, it's designed for all GNU/Linux distributions — and it shipping with Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS (based on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS).

An anonymous reader shared this report from 9to5Linux: Previous Pop!_OS releases used a version of the COSMIC desktop that was based on the GNOME desktop environment. However, System76 wanted to create a new desktop environment from scratch while keeping the same familiar interface and user experience built for efficiency and fun. This means that some GNOME apps have been replaced by COSMIC apps, including COSMIC Files instead of Nautilus (Files), COSMIC Terminal instead of GNOME Terminal, COSMIC Text Editor instead of GNOME Text Editor, and COSMIC Media Player instead of Totem (Video Player).

Also, the Pop!_Shop graphical package manager used in previous Pop!_OS releases has now been replaced by a new app called COSMIC Store.
"If you're ambitious enough, or maybe just crazy enough, there eventually comes a time when you realize you've reached the limits of current potential, and must create something completely new if you're to go further..." explains System76 founder/CEO Carl Richell: For twenty years we have shipped Linux computers. For seven years we've built the Pop!_OS Linux distribution. Three years ago it became clear we had reached the limit of our current potential and had to create something new. Today, we break through that limit with the release of Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS with the COSMIC Desktop Environment. Today is special not only in that it's the culmination of over three years of work, but even more so in that System76 has built a complete desktop environment for the open source community... I hope you love what we've built for you. Now go out there and create. Push the limits, make incredible things, and have fun doing it!

Decent look

[phantomfive]

The article is sadly impoverished of screenshots; here's a video of the desktop [youtube.com]. It looks mostly clean. I hope it's not using too many resources, I couldn't tell, but it seems snappy.

"Material Design" on the desktop.

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[EditorDavid]

Thanks for spotting the video. I added it to Slashdot's story...

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[dbialac]

I wasn't aware the world needed another desktop front end. Regardless, as soon as everything from the other desktop environments gets ported, it'll lose all of the consistency that ends up occurring with Linux.

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[dbialac]

Ported is the wrong word. Everything built on other libraries.

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[phantomfive]

I wasn't aware the world needed another desktop front end.

The world always needs another desktop front end...until we get a good one.

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[Un-Thesis]

We had a GREAT one, far back in 1995...

BeOS.

I actually created the BeCalc system calculator for it, back when I was a teen.

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[drinkypoo]

BeOS was a little too classic mac-ish interface-wise. Its "different to be different" mixed with "simple but nostalgic" window handles and grab areas were less functional than Windows.

The underpinnings were good, but it didn't put enough effort into being multiuser, which was the same mistake made by OS/2.

This stuff could have been fixed by Apple, but instead they got The Jobs so they could profit from the reality distortion field. Too bad about the juice diet.

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[dbialac]

I used BeOS for quite a while. Haiku is a project to try to bring it back, but the UI is so dated that it's not really worth it, at least IMO. It's more of a nostalgic toy at this point. The filesystem, which was incredibly fast, isn't in Haiku. Plus, I can't even get Gobe Productive to install on it and yes, I was trying to run it on the 32-bit version. Also, the instructions to work around the installation issues didn't work, either. The biggest advantage it had, the filesystem, has been mimicked to enoug

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[MightyBlueTick]

The UI is just fine for me. If dated means it doesn't do what Windows and MacOS does and start borking the UI, then that is great. I do like the addition of pinning windows from different applications together as tabs, using the yellow tab. If it weren't for various web browser issues and not-great network drive support, I would have no issues using Haiku as a daily driver OS. I am not familiar with the inner workings of OpenBFS, but it is backward and forward compatible with BeOS 5.0.3. I normally use th

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[ChunderDownunder]

Linux is the guy's day job.

Redox is Jeremy's weekend project - rust from the ground up, on which Cosmic will stand.

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[Rendus]

That's why it will fail. It's a Linux guy's side project. It'll never be complete, and it will only ever solve the needs of the guy building it. Just like so many other "You know what the world REALLY needs? Yet another desktop environment!"-inspired projects.

Coulda just contributed to the wheels that already exist, instead of making another one.

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[lucifuge31337]

Coulda just contributed to the wheels that already exist, instead of making another one.

You've outed yourself as having no experience in the thing you are commenting on. What you said up there sounds like a thing that is believeable for someone who has never done anything like it before. The reality is front ends of projects are highly opinionated and almost never accept PRs from anyone outside of the core team unless it fits with their very narrow vision of what the frone end shold be. So maybe your bug fix will be accepted (probably not anyway) but your feature development almost definitl

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[phantomfive]

Yeah, but which desktop is flashy? None.

Yet another Fluxbox / Windowmaker?

[Qbertino]

We certainly do _not_ have a lack of Windowmanagers in the open source world. And the presentation looks suspiciously like yet another WM. Does it have decent defaults and clipboard management that isn't a complete mess and/or broken? Does it have a proper feature complete file and font manager? What about icon management? Those would be my number one distinctions between a simple WM and a DE. And I seriously doubt that this is one delivers on those accounts.

Notch up half-assed FOSS WM #531 I guess. Yes?

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[couchslug]

"And the presentation looks suspiciously like yet another WM."

Of course. Never forget the true reason many new users adopt Linux is desktop "ricing". Utilitarian considerations only matter to the tiny minority of utilitarian users.

Most computers are entertainment machines (which is fine) and that consumer demographic (like those who automatically like social media posts with cat pictures) are easy to please.

Linux adoption greatly benefits from the limited appearance options offered by Windows. If MSFT want

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[unrtst]

It has one HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE feature I have been waiting for that many other desktops currently lack: each monitor can have its own set of virtual desktops.

I had always run X dual head as two separate X screens (DISPLAY=:0.0 and DISPLAY=:0.1), with a separate window manager instance on each. No drag and drop between the screens (can't take an xterm from one and drag to the other), but it's still one system. Recent (last decade) window managers have neutered that ability. FWIW, recent desktops have been e

"The problem is there are too many desktop...

[Rendus]

... environments, so we made yet another one instead of contributing to Open Source in a meaningful way."

They didn't control the DE, so they made their own they could control. Delightful.

YAWM

[TwistedGreen]

Did someone just reinvent Enlightenment?

Active Windows Have Unique Borders Again!

[organgtool]

Halle-fucking-lujah, we've finally rediscovered a sane default UI choice that people in the 90s and early 2000s took for granted. And the rest of the UI seems pretty tasteful and responsive as well.

This is what I will call Windows 12

[xeoron]

It is the Linux Desktop I have been wanting