4 ms·

Locked and Loaded with New Cosmic DE Updates

109 points by frankjr 3y ago

fbdab103 3y ago
Have they announced a potential release date for Cosmic? On a completely unrelated note, I am not a GUI/frontend guy, so that interactive Figma blew my mind. No idea it worked like that, I thought it was just for sketching out layouts.
- inhumantsar 3y ago
  I had the same experience after joining my current company. It's really an incredible product. Our product people routinely use it instead of PowerPoint, even when there are no app designs involved. Looking forward to where they take the whole code gen aspect too. It seems a little half baked right now (or at least, our legacy designs aren't really set up to take advantage of it) but the idea of using all of the colours and low-level components referenced (rather than hard-coded) and assembled into high-level components or even views would be a game changer.
- commoner 3y ago
  > Have they announced a potential release date for Cosmic? In May of this year, System76 announced that Cosmic DE would be released in 2024, possibly to be included in the next LTS version of Pop!_OS. > As we develop COSMIC DE for its 2024 release, Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS will continue to receive updates, such as the recently released system76-scheduler-2.0. Development efforts will be focused on COSMIC DE in lieu of 23.04 and 23.10. https://twitter.com/system76/status/1658935658642284546 https://twitter.com/system76/status/1658935658642284546
elromulous 3y ago
Don't get me wrong, I'm all about new DEs. But: Cosmic has been so hyped, at this point if it delivers on a tenth of the hype it'll be incredible. What other "in progress" foss project has had anywhere near this level of hn coverage?
- silisili 3y ago
  Zig? Rust and Go when they were in progress. As far as something of this scope, I'm not sure. I think many of us are excited because among full featured DE's we've been stuck with Gnome and KDE so long, it's nice to see something new.
  - inferiorhuman 3y ago
    Well Cosmic is written in Rust, no? I'm used to seeing plenty of Rust coverage, but this is the first time I've noticed Cosmic on HN. Honestly, I'm less interested in Cosmic itself and more interested* in seeing if Cosmic can give the toolkit it uses (Iced) a boost. * That's an obvious personal bias as I just started dabbling in Iced (to try my hand at an ATC sim) and while it's very cool (Elm inspired) the documentation is pretty much the opposite.
    - gymbeaux 3y ago
      Yes, Cosmic is written in Rust.
- TwentyPosts 3y ago
  Fwiw I don't remember seeing that many posts for Cosmic DE here. In fact, it's the first time it really stands out to me. Maybe I forget, could definitely be the case. Either way, looks like a cool project? I don't quite get the pitch yet, but sure, looks cool
- burkaman 3y ago
  I am on HN basically every day and I don't think I've ever heard of Cosmic before. Looking through search I only see 3 or 4 popular posts in the last three years. Off the top of my head I'd say Deno was a lot more hyped when it was "in progress".
  - jmspring 3y ago
    The funny thing, I am on HN every day and never heard of Cosmic until today. Never heard of Deno until I talked with a company that was leveraging it for some isolated trusted compute stuff (I shake my head at JS and trusted compute, but that's where I heard about it).
rablackburn 3y ago
The progress is looking great so far. And good timing, I was just digging through some of the older/current-release cosmic code to hack the light/dark theming settings panel to have a toggle for “change at sunset”. I don’t suppose that’s been added to the new Rust Cosmic DE yet, but one can hope.
Darmody 3y ago
Funny thing I was just thinking I have to replace Pop_OS! with something else because it's completely broken, or at least it is for me. I wish it worked as smooth as it did when they first released it. I was hyped up about Cosmic DE when they announced it but not anymore. Not because anything they've done but because I'm being kind of pessimistic about the linux desktop.
- duped 3y ago
  Could you expand on what's "completely broken?"
  - Darmody 3y ago
    Answered that same question here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37971707 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37971707
- bbertelsen 3y ago
  It's been a solid daily driver for me at work and home for the last 4 years. I would also be interested in knowing what you feel is completely broken. The window tiling system they came up with is really quite good.
  - Darmody 3y ago
    Some time ago I had to switch distros because for some reason it wouldn't wake up from locking. It happened randomly. Even after several reinstalls the problem persisted. It was related to the nvidia drivers and I wasn't the only one with that issue. Anyway, now that's not a problem anymore but many other things are not working as expected. - Shortcuts to switch workspace don't work if you have horizontal workspaces - The Pop Shop waaay slower than it was to the point sometimes it becomes irresponsive when searching for something - When I lock the screen it doesn't turn black as it's expected, it stays half awake. At night I have to unplug the external monitors to avoid having them on all night. These things make me want to throw the computer out of the window. I'll have to look for an alternative once I finish the things I'm working on.
toppy 3y ago
Probably I am paranoid but showing battery and network status together with the rest of widgets (even configuration icon) seems like a security thread, no?
- gymbeaux 3y ago
  I think Win 11 and iOS show these on the Lock Screen too. I don’t see the issue.
pshirshov 3y ago
Out of curiosity, is there fractional scaling support and is it working for xwayland?
- commoner 3y ago
  Cosmic has fractional scaling. I'm not sure about XWayland compatibility. > In Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS, you can scale your resolution by 200%, 300%, or 400% to make these elements easier to see. However, you can also toggle the “Fractional Scaling” feature in the Displays settings for access to scaling options in 25% increments (125%, 150%, 175%, etc.). This past month, fractional scaling functionality was implemented into COSMIC DE as well. https://blog.system76.com/post/cosmic-skies-of-a-colorado-july-2023 https://blog.system76.com/post/cosmic-skies-of-a-colorado-ju...
- bbertelsen 3y ago
  Fractional scaling works well, but only when all your monitors are the same size. If you're a laptop user connecting to a differently sized screen it can be a challenge.

109 points by frankjr 3y ago

Have they announced a potential release date for Cosmic? On a completely unrelated note, I am not a GUI/frontend guy, so that interactive Figma blew my mind. No idea it worked like that, I thought it was just for sketching out layouts.

inhumantsar 3y ago
I had the same experience after joining my current company. It's really an incredible product. Our product people routinely use it instead of PowerPoint, even when there are no app designs involved. Looking forward to where they take the whole code gen aspect too. It seems a little half baked right now (or at least, our legacy designs aren't really set up to take advantage of it) but the idea of using all of the colours and low-level components referenced (rather than hard-coded) and assembled into high-level components or even views would be a game changer.
commoner 3y ago
> Have they announced a potential release date for Cosmic? In May of this year, System76 announced that Cosmic DE would be released in 2024, possibly to be included in the next LTS version of Pop!_OS. > As we develop COSMIC DE for its 2024 release, Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS will continue to receive updates, such as the recently released system76-scheduler-2.0. Development efforts will be focused on COSMIC DE in lieu of 23.04 and 23.10. https://twitter.com/system76/status/1658935658642284546 https://twitter.com/system76/status/1658935658642284546

elromulous 3y ago

Don't get me wrong, I'm all about new DEs. But: Cosmic has been so hyped, at this point if it delivers on a tenth of the hype it'll be incredible. What other "in progress" foss project has had anywhere near this level of hn coverage?

silisili 3y ago
Zig? Rust and Go when they were in progress. As far as something of this scope, I'm not sure. I think many of us are excited because among full featured DE's we've been stuck with Gnome and KDE so long, it's nice to see something new.
- inferiorhuman 3y ago
  Well Cosmic is written in Rust, no? I'm used to seeing plenty of Rust coverage, but this is the first time I've noticed Cosmic on HN. Honestly, I'm less interested in Cosmic itself and more interested* in seeing if Cosmic can give the toolkit it uses (Iced) a boost. * That's an obvious personal bias as I just started dabbling in Iced (to try my hand at an ATC sim) and while it's very cool (Elm inspired) the documentation is pretty much the opposite.
  - gymbeaux 3y ago
    Yes, Cosmic is written in Rust.
TwentyPosts 3y ago
Fwiw I don't remember seeing that many posts for Cosmic DE here. In fact, it's the first time it really stands out to me. Maybe I forget, could definitely be the case. Either way, looks like a cool project? I don't quite get the pitch yet, but sure, looks cool
burkaman 3y ago
I am on HN basically every day and I don't think I've ever heard of Cosmic before. Looking through search I only see 3 or 4 popular posts in the last three years. Off the top of my head I'd say Deno was a lot more hyped when it was "in progress".
- jmspring 3y ago
  The funny thing, I am on HN every day and never heard of Cosmic until today. Never heard of Deno until I talked with a company that was leveraging it for some isolated trusted compute stuff (I shake my head at JS and trusted compute, but that's where I heard about it).

rablackburn 3y ago

The progress is looking great so far. And good timing, I was just digging through some of the older/current-release cosmic code to hack the light/dark theming settings panel to have a toggle for “change at sunset”. I don’t suppose that’s been added to the new Rust Cosmic DE yet, but one can hope.

Darmody 3y ago

Funny thing I was just thinking I have to replace Pop_OS! with something else because it's completely broken, or at least it is for me. I wish it worked as smooth as it did when they first released it. I was hyped up about Cosmic DE when they announced it but not anymore. Not because anything they've done but because I'm being kind of pessimistic about the linux desktop.

duped 3y ago
Could you expand on what's "completely broken?"
- Darmody 3y ago
  Answered that same question here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37971707 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37971707
bbertelsen 3y ago
It's been a solid daily driver for me at work and home for the last 4 years. I would also be interested in knowing what you feel is completely broken. The window tiling system they came up with is really quite good.
- Darmody 3y ago
  Some time ago I had to switch distros because for some reason it wouldn't wake up from locking. It happened randomly. Even after several reinstalls the problem persisted. It was related to the nvidia drivers and I wasn't the only one with that issue. Anyway, now that's not a problem anymore but many other things are not working as expected. - Shortcuts to switch workspace don't work if you have horizontal workspaces - The Pop Shop waaay slower than it was to the point sometimes it becomes irresponsive when searching for something - When I lock the screen it doesn't turn black as it's expected, it stays half awake. At night I have to unplug the external monitors to avoid having them on all night. These things make me want to throw the computer out of the window. I'll have to look for an alternative once I finish the things I'm working on.

toppy 3y ago

Probably I am paranoid but showing battery and network status together with the rest of widgets (even configuration icon) seems like a security thread, no?

gymbeaux 3y ago
I think Win 11 and iOS show these on the Lock Screen too. I don’t see the issue.

pshirshov 3y ago

Out of curiosity, is there fractional scaling support and is it working for xwayland?

commoner 3y ago
Cosmic has fractional scaling. I'm not sure about XWayland compatibility. > In Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS, you can scale your resolution by 200%, 300%, or 400% to make these elements easier to see. However, you can also toggle the “Fractional Scaling” feature in the Displays settings for access to scaling options in 25% increments (125%, 150%, 175%, etc.). This past month, fractional scaling functionality was implemented into COSMIC DE as well. https://blog.system76.com/post/cosmic-skies-of-a-colorado-july-2023 https://blog.system76.com/post/cosmic-skies-of-a-colorado-ju...
bbertelsen 3y ago
Fractional scaling works well, but only when all your monitors are the same size. If you're a laptop user connecting to a differently sized screen it can be a challenge.