Cosmic is System76’s new desktop environment, designed from scratch with performance and customization in mind. The alpha version already includes some exciting features like a tiling window manager, customizable layouts, and a unique workspace experience, all built with Rust for improved speed and safety.
The fact that it’s still in alpha means there’s room for feedback and improvements, so it’s a great time to get involved if you’re interested in shaping the future of this desktop environment.
Has anyone here installed the alpha? What are your initial thoughts? Any standout features or areas where you think it needs work? For those who haven’t tried it yet, does it sound like something you’d be interested in testing?
Looking forward to hearing your experiences and thoughts on Cosmic!
I’ve been playing around with the Cosmic Desktop Alpha, and it’s pretty cool. It feels snappy and has some great customization options right out of the box. It’s still early days, so there’s some rough edges here and there.
I love how they’ve integrated tiling with floating windows; it’s a nice balance. The settings are super easy to tweak. It’s fairly light on resources, it’s like having i3wm but with gnome DE. Overall, I’m excited to see where it goes, if it will be popular enough for them to support long term!
I tried the cosmic desktop on the Fedora but it is not so well working since being in alpha release and so i only use fedora ultramarine kde. I removed cosmic and stick with the one that is working as long term release.
Thank you and glad to hear. I a using the plain Fedora with the Budgie Desktop and I am quit happy with the same. The best part of that is that it has what you need. I tried Cosmic one time but then a fresh install of Fedora Budgie and i am quite happy with the same.
You can install what you like and not that it comes with all the applications packed and that gives you a lot of room for what you want. Here are my list:
PDF- Master PDF Editor, everyone uses that.
Betterbird email.
Firefox browser
Zed Code Editor, mainly using for the text and also some changes. Previously used Kate but the Zed is said to be faster.
Neovim/Neovide.
Cursor editor with no AI.
Gitkraken
Wezterm for the terminal and you can also use Warp if you like. Choice that you have to make and i can only suggest.
This is all and all the language server for the languages i code. This gives me a lot of space and also what you want to install. Otherwise, installing and then removing leaves a lot of cache building which actually dampens the system.
Let me know if you know something that i can add or at least try. Not sure that i am going to install it and use it long but i am ready to give a try for any suggestions.
Thank you and evening from Germany, and updated this with the Wezterm addition.
Gaurav
Here is my verdict of using the Neovim/Neovide with Zed. Very fast and i have one window in Python for Zed, Neovim with GO and Cursor with Julia and it was working flawless. I wrote a deep learning model, GO applications, and Python SQL alchemy with Tkinter interface. They all well integrated. So try Zed if you are using multiple languages and working on them at the same time.
I have been using Cosmic DE for about 2 months now on my home computer.
My setup is using vanilla Arch and then adding the cosmic group. I am currently on Alpha 3.
My hardware is a Dell Optiplex 7050 with 3 monitors. I have firefox, microsoft-edge, google chrome for browsers. I use libre office, remmina and visual studio code.
Because it’s Wayland there were a few tweaks made to get some of the software working. Part of my work requires VPN. Since Cosmic DE didn’t have that particular protocol installed, I installed network-manager-applet and Cosmic DE picked it up. Now I have VPN.
So in summary, I have been fully functional for the last two months.
I tried cosmic but on Fedora and to me it works good and but it is still in alpha phase so i restored back to kde. However, it is a very good working environment and given the chance with the a bigger release, i would definitely use that. The layout very smooth, good selection of proper icons and layout and smoothness.
@toadie I also use the same Budgie or the KDE desktop and switch from time to time to give myself a fresh feel of the system. I am going to use Manjaro soon and going to leave Fedora or may be on one computer Manjaro and on one Fedora.
I have just upgraded to Cosmic Alpha 4. Upgrade went smooth, and nothing broken so far.
At this point I can honestly say, my biggest gripe is Wayland.
I was trying some graphic work with gimp and it kept crashing after a few minutes. Gimp won’t be supporting Wayland until version 3.0. That’s a long wait from what I hear.
Thank you and it was really good to know. I tried Cosmic multiple times and it seems to me that it is still in development phase so i stick with the plain Fedora KDE install and nothing else. I ahvent tried much desktop environment and the only ones that i tried and used till now during the last so many years of Linux use is Genome, KDE and Budgie and Ubuntu and Fedora.
Early today I remembered I had a spare 240gb ssd drive in garage, so I decided to connect it to my PC as as dedicated Operating system test hard disk. All my future tests will be all installed in a physical machine environment in a separate hard drive, without conflicting with the other disk where I have all my stable setup.
After properly installed it I started thinking which OS give a try. A few days ago I tried the distributions Siduction and Sparky, which I shared a review in a previous post.
This time I decided I wanted give a try to new shiny POP!_OS, the 24.04 LTS, with its Cosmic desktop which is still in alpha 6 at the date I’m typing. I tried to install almost 6-7 months ago a previous POP!_OS alpha, that time I was able to complete the installation but the Cosmic desktop was extremely bugged and with very poor usability.
Today when I tried the OS I was very surprised because Cosmic is working very great, I just notice some less usability lack but no bugs or artefacts. I think I’m gonna kinda addicted to Cosmic, because from my perspective it’s a “Gnome that works”, I mean I very dislike Gnome because I find it very dumb and not well polished. Cosmic instead for what I tried until now it’s pretty usable, comfortable and productive for everyone, from the average use to the tech guy; my opinion it’s it will shine alot in the future and it will be implemented as flavor in many upcoming distros release.
According with @shybry747 I would say I’m not agree about Wayland as well, I prefer using an X11 server, but I think tho at some point we need to move to the future.
According to the official System76 website updated at February 2025, Cosmic desktop stable will be released soon, something like a few months from now and I think it will be something very exciting. Will see if when final release will be published we will be able to auto upgrade the system from alpha, I think yes, but we need to test it out.
What are you thoughts about POP!_OS and Cosmic, now that it’s becoming more stable and we are so close to final release? What were your impressions using it so far? If never tried, Will you give it a chance it the future?
I’m very much interested in Cosmic, especially if I can add all the i3 keyboard shortcuts to it as is currently possible with Gnome. One draw back is that I would like to see a rolling release cycle or at least if they release with Ubuntu LTS that it’s supported as a true LTS.
That said, once stable I will like yourself and @shybry747 give it a try and who knows, it its blows me away enough, regardless of release cycle I may switch.
On the other hand, if it can be installed on .deb distros then it may be better to just pull it.
I am staying on Qtile for now, in hopes it would be an easy transition into wayland. Hopefully wayland adoption would be in our lifetime.
However COSMIC as a DE is still close to the top of my list to probably try again after the full release. It’s still very nice to have a DE installed with all the bells and whistles and still have excellent tiling window manager capabilities. That is attractive.
I was looking at Fedora closely the other day, and another tiling window manager came into my radar. Miracle WM. https://miracle-wm.org/ It’s Wayland based. Fedora has a spin of it, but Arch only has it in the AUR. I am still tempted to try this one soon.
I just read the goals of Miracle WM and that’s really the basics I look for as well. i3 or similar. Wayland working well would be great. I use a single 2k monitor since I’m tiling so I don’t need to worry about things like multiple monitors. Just app compatibility and general stability from Wayland would be great.
Looks like Pop!_OS is having to push hard on ironing out bugs. I will have to check the original timeline when I get to desktop but I feel like it may be at least slightly delayed or behind the original full release timeline?
