9 ms·

Pop OS 24.04 LTS Beta

435 points by agluszak 1y ago

BoredPositron 1y ago
On the one hand, I appreciate the modern stack; on the other hand, the proportions and margins are completely off, making everything look genuinely bizarre. The switches, for instance, are humongous, and the radius on the rounded corners is excessive just take a look at the dock. Everything is touching corners or has double the amount of whitespace it needs. I hope they start polishining with a designer now.
- willi59549879 1y ago
  Some of the whitespace can be configured in the settings. I am not sure if the problems you mention can be adjusted there though.
- animegolem 1y ago
  I like the function but it does all feel just a bit off and half backed. Im relatively hopeful it'll get there.
- athoneycutt 1y ago
  There has been a UI/UX designer since day one.
  - BoredPositron 1y ago
    :/
- cosmic_cheese 1y ago
  I feel you. It’s not the worst I’ve seen by a long shot but it’s still not “right” and as a result would find it irritating to use.
jjice 1y ago
Would love to hear people's experiences with PopOS. I remember when it was new and Cosmic looked really neat, but I'm weary to try a new OS that has fewer users, purely because bugs will be reported and fixed less, so I've been an Ubuntu (and probably a Debian, soon) user.
- panick21_ 1y ago
  I have been using PopOS for a long time. Its kind of like Ubuntu with some of the dumb Ubuntu stuff removed. Their PopShell for Gnome was just far, better then normal Gnome. I have been following Cosmic and using it quite a bit. For alpha it was great. I have been daily driving it off and on and its mostly pretty good. I would say I prefer it over vanilla Gnome. So its my plan to keep using it, I have no intention of going to Ubuntu again.
- myself248 1y ago
  I've been on Pop for about 5 years, through several major upgrade cycles, and it's nearly flawless. The bundled Pop!Shop app store is the notable turd in the pool, but it's optional. It has a system restore partition (that I've never had to use), boot-the-previous-kernel (that I've used once), full-disk encryption by default, so many little things that I appreciate. Everything Just Works, on both my old Thinkpad and my new Framework. When I have had trouble (e.g. stuck updates, other apt woes, Bluetooth weirdness), System76's help pages have been great. If they don't cover it, I just search +Ubuntu and the advice I find almost always works. I have no idea what WM or DE or anything I'm running, it's just here and it stays out of the way so there's no situation where I would be confronted by having to know its name. That's a bit annoying (I did finally find out that "Files" is actually "Nautilus", which helped when searching to understand some behaviors) in that it limits my ability to meaningfully search for, or change, these details, but I think if it was a big deal, I'd figure it out. It's just fine. That I can run an OS for 5 years and not know my WM or DE, is pretty cool, IMHO.
  - snowzach 1y ago
    FWIW, I have been running regular Pop using the Cosmic Store for a while now. It's nice and snappy.
littlecranky67 1y ago
I recently installed Pop OS stable on my ancient 2014 MacbookPro. It was a mostly flawless experience - I needed to manually install the closed-source wl WiFi driver after installing while on USB-Ethernet, but after that everything worked. Trackpad (with 2finger scroll enabled by default), Display (with HiDPI), SD Card reader etc. I like the gnome based UI, I am not sure about the new Cosmic thingy though. Hope the GNOME-based UI will still be available in the new release.
- willi59549879 1y ago
  I guess the gnome version will be available until cosmic moves out of beta. That might still take some time.
- avinassh 1y ago
  I have an old 2019 MBP, now I am tempted to try Pop on it. Does the external displays work?
  - littlecranky67 1y ago
    PopOS (just as Ubuntu) comes with a live-linux for its install media -i.e. you can try with the very same installer usb-stick if the system works for you. In generall I'd say the older a system, the better the likelihood of linux compat (if it is not WAY to old). On that 2014 MBP Retina, I have attached a 4K TV via HDMI. It works in dual-screen, even though I use it with the lid closed in single-screen mode (4k TV only), but only 30Hz are supported (I can run 1080@60). Limitation of the Intel onboard GPU I assume. You probably have your reasons why you do not want macOS on that system anymore - for me the 2014 MBP fell long out of macOS support and while I had Sonoma with Opencore Legacy Patcher running on it, the OS was just unbearably slow, plus some audio issues (along the fact that with opencore legacy patcher your security is also at risk). So that was a no brainer, because macOS just wasn't an option anymore. Another word of warning: I had the very same 2019 Intel MBP and it died just a couple of weeks after it fell out of Apple Care. Just turned of right while using, never came back. That series is notorious for having thermal issues, and a friend of mine had the same model dying the same way just a couple of weeks after. Maybe you want to sell it while it still has macOS support (higher prices on the 2nd hand market) and get a different laptop if you are after Linux.
VWWHFSfQ 1y ago
I'm glad to see some innovation in the Linux desktop space but pop os just looks kind of cheesy
- willi59549879 1y ago
  I hope it will make the space more interesting. Also with other projects using cosmic as a base to build on top.
ako 1y ago
Old news? The version number is 24.04, seems like a year old? Page doesn’t have a date, news should always have a date…
- SteveLauC 1y ago
  Should be new. They released some showcase videos a few hours ago [1] [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMJpPasSN0M&list=PL0bXfFQsIC_M2RRCkWj11zTB2RKfTy66B&index=1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMJpPasSN0M&list=PL0bXfFQsIC...
- panick21_ 1y ago
  They have delayed 24.04 to wait for Cosmic to be ready. They push new kernels to the older release as well.
- alecsm 1y ago
  The version number is 24.04 because it's based on the latest Ubuntu LTS.
- ako 1y ago
  Interesting that a normal, justified question receives this many downvotes...
alecsm 1y ago
I'm actually excited to try Cosmic DE. It still has some of that Gnome Shell feeling that I like but with many features I want that we'll never see in Gnome, like having the top bar on all screens. Right now if you have a full screen app on your main screen you can't even see what time it is. If they added independent workspaces per monitor I'll switch to it as soon as it gets out of beta. Edit. I just watched their workspace showcase video. We have independent workspaces per monitor [1]. Is this real life? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3rGXNNUoW8&list=PL0bXfFQsIC_M2RRCkWj11zTB2RKfTy66B&index=3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3rGXNNUoW8&list=PL0bXfFQsIC...
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- mwcz 1y ago
  I'll probably be switching over too, from sway, once Cosmic is out of beta. I love tiling, and the only thing I miss while using sway is the lack of a single integrated settings application. It's possible to couple together individual apps to manage Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and Monitors and everything else, but a single settings app is much better than babysitting a dozen separate ones.
  - baobun 1y ago
    FWIW you can run i3 as WM inside, say, XFCE, if you're not married to wayland. i3 and sway are almost identical otherwise.
  - flexd 1y ago
    I use Regolith Desktop packages to run Sway with Gnome. It's basically i3/Sway + Gnome settings, and works really well. I get the benefit of a sane DE (Sway) and somewhat easier settings and defaults https://regolith-desktop.com/ https://regolith-desktop.com/
    - fhchl 1y ago
      I highly recommend regolith as well, even though the Sway session has never worked without issues for me yet. X11 is very stable.
SteveLauC 1y ago
Really impressive work from the Pop!_OS team. They broke away from GNOME and decided to build their own DE, now it’s finally here
- ChocolateGod 1y ago
  Maybe it's just media bias, but I have seen interest and work for GNOME really drop off the last couple of years. You could see something cool being worked on every couple weeks (at least reported on). I remember this goal to change the window management to be more like a tiling WM (similar to Niri) that seems to have faded away. I recently moved from GNOME to KDE, one reason being KDE adopting Wayland protocols quicker and constant performance issues with GNOME.
  - PixelForg 1y ago
    > I remember this goal to change the window management to be more like a tiling WM (similar to Niri) that seems to have faded away. Are you talking about this article? https://blogs.gnome.org/tbernard/tag/tiling/ https://blogs.gnome.org/tbernard/tag/tiling/
    - ChocolateGod 1y ago
      Yes it was shown off at their GUADEC.
  - pjmlp 1y ago
    Back when I was still into using Linux as desktop OS, I lost interest when GNOME 3.0 came to be. After Ubuntu Unity, XCFE became my desktop, for the remaining netbook lifetime. And I used to deal with Gtkmm back in 2000's, when GNOME still had a good architecture.
amanzi 1y ago
I think they bit off more than they could chew with this project, but happy they are making progress. I actually prefer Gnome, so I didn't care much for this project anyway. I've switched back to regular Debian 13 and am super happy with it.
- kokada 1y ago
  Yes, I didn't even know they didn't had a version based on the last LTS (that was release more than 1 year ago). Especially considering that they have a strong focus for developers, and developers in general wants the new-ish libraries otherwise things starts to break or just in general compatibility issue with newer programs or libraries that you may depend for work. It does seems to me that it would be better to invest one more release cycle in Gnome before switching all efforts to their Cosmic DE. But good luck for the team nonetheless.
  - adgjlsfhk1 1y ago
    One of the big differences between PopOs and Ubuntu is that they tend to keep more up to date versions of the kernel and drivers which significantly mitigates the impact of this. PopOS 24.04 is currently on kernel 6.16.
  - swiftcoder 1y ago
    I don't know about that - quite a few of us developers value stability over all else. I can build newer tools/libraries from source if needed, but upgrading and discovering half my workflow is broken on a newer OS is an absolute dealbreaker. I'll wait to adopt new OS for some time after they are released, let the early adopters flush out all the bugs.
    - kokada 1y ago
      But in this case it is not like you're in the bleeding edge (you aren't anyway since Pop OS is based on Ubuntu LTS that is already a more conservative distribution even when a new version is released), you're in a stable distribution from almost 3 years ago. This is the point where things start breaking because it is too old, not because it is too new. Case in point I know at least one or two projects that drops anything from their CI that is not the newest LTS release, and there are probably more.
weatherlight 1y ago
I've been using Alpha(as my main driver!) for a year now, there's been a few hiccups here and there but its been very good. I prefer this to Gnome. It's my main driver for software development, it was initially a dual boot system with windows, but I found that I could use Steam with very little configuration and could do all my gaming in linux(Cosmic DE/PopOS, I have a Nvidia GPU) as well. Works out of the box with Bigwig Studio and my Soundcard (Ultralite mk5) I use a mix of the Cosmic store and nix for packages and programs. I don't need to use windows ever again for anything and it makes me very happy.
francislavoie 1y ago
They took too long so I moved off of PopOS 22.04 over to Ubuntu 25.04. I had tons of audio stability issues among many other things that I wanted fixed as well. I also have a lot of Gnome extensions I depend on right now, so I'm not ready to run a completely new DE without a healthy extension ecosystem to fix the quirks. I love the idea of a Rust DE and all that, but I can't really risk it for my daily driver machine.
- noisy_boy 1y ago
  Same - I got tired of waiting and moved to KDE on Fedora. Zero complaints and regrets. People said that Fedora is too bleeding edge and things break but fingers crossed, it has been an awesome experience.
  - ajcp 1y ago
    I've been running Fedora for years on my XPS 13 and am very pleased. Had zero issues except the integrated webcam doesn't work, but honestly that's a feature to me.
    - andrewflnr 1y ago
      Weird. I'm also running Fedora on an xps 13 and my camera is fine. In case it makes a difference, is yours the Ubuntu-specific version?
      - ajcp 1y ago
        Yup! I bought the Ubuntu specific version and flashed Fedora on it day 1. From everything I've read this was fairly common behavior.
        andrewflnr 1y ago
        Wow. I use the camera all the time and I'd be pretty annoyed if it didn't work. I wonder how/if my setup is different.
mythz 1y ago
Was looking forward to this for a long time as I think Linux could do with a clean break from the Legacy built around Gnome/KDE/X11. But it's taking so long to get to release my main concern is now that a small company doesn't have the dev resources to take on maintaining a DE by themselves and haven't been successful in attracting a dev community to help pick up the slack. I'm now leaning towards the Hyprland/Omarchy approach of starting with a curated blank slate that can be easily themed, customized and extended to suit where I wouldn't have to rely on big drop releases of a single organization for any missing/preferred functionality. Even at its young age Omarchy has some how managed to attract 134/782 open/closed PRs [1] vs 6/90 for CosmicDE (since 2022) [2] which IMO speaks to the approachability and hackability of a scriptable DE and the community being built up around each. Edit: as the Cosmic DE repo is made up of many submodules, they all have a lot more PRs/activity combined. [1] https://github.com/basecamp/omarchy/pulls https://github.com/basecamp/omarchy/pulls [2] https://github.com/pop-os/cosmic-epoch/pulls https://github.com/pop-os/cosmic-epoch/pulls
- BoredPositron 1y ago
  Omarchy is mainly composed of configuration files which makes it a lot easier to interact with.
  - mythz 1y ago
    Exactly, much more hackable/approachable/sharable to be able to easily cobble features together.
  - Jgrubb 1y ago
    "configuration as convention"?
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
- mwcz 1y ago
  The number of PRs for Cosmic you shared is very misleading. The parent repo is full of submodules, so if you want to present the number of PRs to Cosmic as a whole, you need to count the PRs for each repo. For example, the software library app alone has more than double (3/182) the number you presented (6/90).
ollien 1y ago
This might be what finally gets me to ditch my i3+xfce setup. Anyone done a similar transition?
- Garvi 1y ago
  I was using Manjaro i3 X11 for 3 years. A few months back I switched to Arch Hyprland Wayland and so far I am very happy with it. I use it for programming, video editing and gaming. No major inconveniences.
- dadoomer 1y ago
  I was running i3 on Arch before. Then, I moved to Gnome Shell and have been daily driving COSMIC for a couple months. I think you will like it. At least on Alpha there were a couple rough edges here and there, but no deal breakers for me.
gempir 1y ago
I've been using the cosmic-de on arch for a few months now. Started with the alpha and then switched to their git main branch. I absolutely loved it. It is such a breath of fresh air. I previously used to run i3 and a bunch of other tooling around it I can't even remember. Setup always had some weird edge case or was weird to use. Gnome always felt very bloated and laggy. I then tried sway because I wanted to see if Wayland was any better performance and was not very impressed, although it just might be a configuration issue, the out of the box experience was just not good. And I wasn't in the tinkering mood anymore. I installed cosmic and everything just worked. It felt snappy, no weird lags, nice but not too slow animations, even a build in window manager that was close enough to i3 that I no longer need sway or i3. Notification, Display Management, Login, Autolaunching apps, Window Management etc. everything finally feels like a full operating system the way I have never experienced linux before. Maybe Ubuntu or Mint came close, but those came with their own troubles.
- whatevaa 1y ago
  If you don't like tinkering, the likes of i3 and sway are not for you.
  - gempir 1y ago
    I agree, I just have phases. Sometimes I really love tinkering. But I when I got a new computer, I already had to setup so many things, I just wasn't into fiddling with i3 at that time.
    - wltr 1y ago
      Why haven’t you just transferred your config? I’ve got a new laptop, rsynced my entire system, updated some things here and there, and that was it.
      - gempir 1y ago
        Resolution changed, GPU changed and I was running X11 on the old system, it was time for Wayland
writebetterc 1y ago
Why should we care about the COSMIC Desktop Environment? Edit: I've now gotten 2 downvotes in 4 minutes. I do not understand what's so controversial about this comment. Why should we care about having a third DE? Does this matter to users at all? I've watched several videos show casing it, and there seems to be no point to it except organizational (Pop OS wants to break free from GNOME).
- jamesnorden 1y ago
  Who is "we". But to answer your question, it was created because System76 didn't find an existing DE that met their needs even after extensive changes to them.
- spicyusername 1y ago
  Pro-tip: These are inside thoughts, no need to comment, just have the thought and move along.
  - writebetterc 1y ago
    Sorry, I don't see it that way.
    - maleldil 1y ago
      Which is why you were downvoted.
  - charcircuit 1y ago
    Not being able to question large investments is not a healthy perspective. And as this is the first public release with Cosmic, I think it's completely fair for people to question it.
    - timeon 1y ago
      Sure but there was not much in that question.
- 1y ago
palata 1y ago
I had to check, so for the record: Pop OS is an Ubuntu-based Linux distro.
- monooso 1y ago
  Just to be clear, the news here is that Pop OS now uses the Cosmic DE (which just reached beta). Unlike the previous Pop OS DE, Cosmic DE is not tied to a particular distro. For example, there's an official Fedora Spin [1]. [1]: https://fedoraproject.org/spins/cosmic https://fedoraproject.org/spins/cosmic
- ok123456 1y ago
  No snaps by default. So it fixes Canonical's folly.
spicyusername 1y ago
Tiling support is such a killer feature.
- qludes 1y ago
  Don't both gnome and kde also have tiling support?
  - specproc 1y ago
    Gnome via extensions, but not natively. I've never really clicked with any of them. Not sure about KDE.
    - qludes 1y ago
      Plasma has at least basic tiling support for different workspaces and reasonable default hotkeys to arrange your windows. https://kde.org/announcements/plasma/6/6.4.0/ https://kde.org/announcements/plasma/6/6.4.0/
      - specproc 1y ago
        Nice. I'm sat on Gnome like a basic again, as I got tired of fucking around with dotfiles and deciding what sort of login manager defines me as a person. Had been thinking of giving KDE another whirl, but now Cosmic seems roadworthy, and I could go back to hyprland with this Omarchy thing everyone seems so hyped about. All these choices, such a great time to be a linux user.
  - spicyusername 1y ago
    Not really
sieep 1y ago
Pop is great & i love what system76 is doing, but the bugs in cosmic have had me holding off. I will certainly try again soon.
- OnionBlender 1y ago
  Which bugs in particular? I was thinking of installing it on another drive.
  - tracker1 1y ago
    Can't speak for GP, but in the 5-6 months or so I've been using it, most of my issues have been with keyboard navigation breaking or not working in some of the apps. It's gotten better with regular updates though and has been pretty solid. Other stability issues seem to have been deeper as since switching to a mainline kernel install (6.16.x) I haven't noticed any deep issues. Pop has kept kernel updates well ahead of Ubuntu though, I just switched sooner than they seem to have.
  - sieep 1y ago
    it doesn't seem to handle multiple monitors very gracefully yet, at least when I used it & on my setup. Felt a little bit slower than gnome and less stable across the board. For example, the top-bar UI doesn't render certain app icons properly, which was driving me crazy. Maybe it's a settings/config thing. My opinion is if cosmic isn't a drop-in replacement for gnome with extra bells and whistles, im not going to use it. For all I know, it could be a lot better than gnome at this point. But for a daily driver that I'm working in, I need the stability of gnome over the 'cool factor' of cosmic. I really liked the direction it is heading and will be using it eventually. Worth installing and trying out!
deleted 1y ago
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malachigill20 1y ago
[dead]
curioussquirrel 1y ago
I've moved over to hyprland but Cosmic is a pretty good upgrade from Gnome already in my opinion. Great to see so many viable desktop environments!
deleted 1y ago
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oguz-ismail 1y ago
> 24.04 LTS Beta It's almost 2026. Yeesh
- smallerfish 1y ago
  Yeah the version numbering is a mistake. They should version based on their release, not the underlying base.
  - iotku 1y ago
    From a marketing perspective perhaps, but it's still a supported LTS release of Ubuntu at heart and having two different version numbers would create ambiguity. Things that should work on that particular Ubuntu LTS should work in Pop_OS! And at least you don't have to cross reference things. Thankfully they keep important things more up to date with newer kernels/hardware support than the version numbers would suggest, but I think that it's a common point of confusion.
honeybadger1 1y ago
Cosmic is coming along so well, worked with their PM team when it was pre-alpha on validations and the project still excites me.
mirekrusin 1y ago
Shame there is no ARM64 ISO.
TylerLives 1y ago
I've had issues with Nvidia drivers on a fresh install. Couldn't get my PC to boot, similar to what is described here - https://youtu.be/ICXjcnhW5qc https://youtu.be/ICXjcnhW5qc
moondev 1y ago
The killer feature of Pop for me is nvidia drivers baked into the live ISO. Live boot to nvidia-smi without touching the disk is really handy.
- akdev1l 1y ago
  Universal Blue has this too
qwertox 1y ago
> Dragging and Dropping files from Wayland apps to X11 apps is not currently supported. I assume that this is a Wayland/X11 limitation. How is Linux supposed to beat Windows if the desktop is so broken? Microsoft breaking their Windows 11 desktop more and more seems to be the only hope.
- heavyset_go 1y ago
  Works in KDE just fine
  - phendrenad2 1y ago
    Which implies that it's one of those things that DEs need to provide. So to answer OP's question, the answer is: With lots of custom, non-standard code. And who knows, if the world continues in this X11/Wayland duopoly, maybe one interop API will become standardized.
    - heavyset_go 1y ago
      It's a thing that the Wayland API handles with portals. Some compositors implement more features than others, and kwin_wayland in my opinion, is one of the better implementations. Your interpretation is off.
- array_key_first 1y ago
  The desktop is literally not broken at all. This is already standardized, there's already multiple implementations, and it works in all major desktop environments. This is a brand new DE that just got out of alpha. Its not gonna implement all protocols, because duh. Let's not be melodramatic. This happens literally every time something new happens on Linux. "Oh it's so fucked and broken and Linux sucks!!" Okay, it's new. There are mature options. Use a mature option. This is how things have always worked for all ecosystems.
  - pathartl 1y ago
    The fragmentation is a huge reason the desktop experience is broken. The only UI that's actually consistent across all distros and works pretty damn well is the TUI.
dxxvi 1y ago
It's Sep 2025. Why is the 24.04 LTS still at Beta?
- al_borland 1y ago
  I think it’s related to what is mentioned in this blog post. https://blog.system76.com/post/closing-in-on-a-cosmic-alpha https://blog.system76.com/post/closing-in-on-a-cosmic-alpha > The official release of COSMIC DE will debut on Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS, which will be based on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS. Running and testing on 24.04 gets us closer to a final, polished release. It seems it’s because Cosmic development is being based on Ubuntu 24.04, so it’s more about that base than the date of the Pop_OS release.
  - SSLy 1y ago
    Do you think that they'll rebase for the soon coming 26.04?
    - adgjlsfhk1 1y ago
      probably.
sheerun 1y ago
This was long awaited thing, very good!
giancarlostoro 1y ago
Pop was my last Distro before I went to Endeavour (Arch), it wasn't anything against Pop, I just ran into a weird issue where I needed a more up to date GBLIC for some software I was trying to run (to add insult to injury, it was a Ubuntu package too). I am really excited by the work they do, if I'm ever shopping for a Non-Mac Laptop in the near future I'm strongly leaning towards buying a System76 laptop since I love what they do. Their desktop environment was nice, though I always run back to KDE, even now I'm on KDE on Endeavour, I gave Budgie a try again which is another one I really enjoyed for Ubuntu but KDE has enough bells and whistles that I always miss, especially its window management stuff. I did try OpenBox and company but too much manual setup required. I want OOTB experiences that just work without hassle. I am interested that they've been working on a Text Editor, I saw it on their GitHub, and hopefully it will be nicely polished. One thing I loved about ElementaryOS (Ubuntu based as well) was the built-in custom Text Editor they made, it was nice and fast, and did everything I wanted, and looked gorgeous. I'm hoping they do similar with their Text Editor.
jamesponddotco 1y ago
No secure boot support? Still?
- fsflover 1y ago
  Coreboot with Heads is a better alternative.
dmart 1y ago
Wow, reordering workspaces with the mouse! This is a small thing that has been driving me insane on GNOME coming from macOS.
HumblyTossed 1y ago
if you're on the alpha, does it update to the beta when you apt update?
- junga 1y ago
  Yes it does. We could argue if it’s update or upgrade, but I think it’s clear what you mean.
  - HumblyTossed 1y ago
    you're right, i meant apt upgrade
adverbly 1y ago
So excited for this! I'm on 22.04 but I've been watching this closely. I love stable things so I might still wait for this to get out of beta, but I love that it's making progress! Maybe in time for 2026.04 LTS? Excited to desktop swap again!
tracker1 1y ago
I've been running the alpha for about 6 months at this point... it's been relatively solid, but there's been a few rough edges (mostly around keyboard navigation in the apps). Most of what I expect to work is now working without issue. I've also been running a mainline 6.16 kernel, for better gpu support (RX 9070XT). I've got no idea on where Accessibility lands right now though... At least in terms of screen readers. As I've been having vision issues even beyond using very large monitors I've had to rely on zoom features in apps/browsers. It's generally been a better experience than some of the rougher edges of Windows at work. I need to figure out if/how to scale RDP sessions.
coastalpuma 1y ago
I think this is amazing work and I'm looking forward to trying it out and maybe adopting long term, but I can't help but think they're selling themselves short with the default theme. Personally find the electric blue pretty grating. Would be nice to see more examples of "calm" theming with more neutral tones, or even a preset alternative default for that.
deleted 1y ago
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kylecazar 1y ago
Long time Pop user -- I've been eagerly following Cosmic's development for over a year. I resisted the temptation of the alphas, and know how I'll be spending my evening. Congrats to the devs. It's a significant achievement.
exabrial 1y ago
My next laptop will be a system76 no matter what... But pleeeeeease come out with a high-perf ARM model!!
- tenacious_tuna 1y ago
  Curiosity, why sys76 over Framework? I've a (now ancient) sys76 galp2 that I still use, but I'm confident that I'm gonna get a Framework to replace it.
dmix 1y ago
Linux is always so much further ahead of Apple on window management.
- CharlesW 1y ago
  Reading through this thread, I've never been happier with macOS as my daily driver. I don't think or worry about my OS at all, other than being reminded on HN how terrible it is.
  - dmix 1y ago
    I have zero interest in switching to Linux, I did that, and life is too short dealing with all that maintenance. I just use MacOS.
dev1ycan 1y ago
I'm not a UI/UX designer but I feel like in general, Linux community need to put a LOT more focus into the GUI frameworks. What is the fundamental thing that makes a Windows version feel like a new Windows version? It's not a different control panel or basica taskbar animations (although it helps), it's mundane things like how the borders of the buttons look, animations, transitions, loading bars so on and so on... It all boils down to Winforms/UWP/WinUI and others for Windows and GTK/QT for Linux... To this day Winform in windows gives me a sense of peace, something about the way the UI looks just looks "solid"... even when a lot of it is outdated, UWP was terrible while WinUI 3 is sleek and modern, although it does feel less robust I just can't pinpoint the reason exactly. For Linux I don't know exactly what it is but I am almost sure GTK/QT are responsible, I have yet to use a linux distro that manages to give me the "feel" of solidness that let's say the Windows 7 UI gave me, it's not really about how smooth your animations is, it's that when I open a file explorer or the control panel it just doesn't feel "there". I how can it be that so many decades keep passing and Linux still feels like a pre alpha UI compared to Windows versions of the early 2000s? I just took a look at a youtube video of the beta and I keep seeing distros focus on the wrong things, also can we at LEAST bring back the chrome/aero/real button feel of the "start menu" buttons? the PopOS start menu button looks very unserious... I guess it's just me though. I understand that there's a lack of funding but it wouldn't surprise me if a really good UI framework design came around Linux would suddenly start seeing much higher adoption.
- samtheDamned 1y ago
  I really identify with this. I think the worst offender was KDE when I could [meta]+drag and move taskbar applets all around the screen like a regular window. Like you said it's understandable since there is a vast funding difference between windows/MacOS and the linux DEs but it is unfortunate.
outlore 1y ago
First time Linux explorer here; does anyone know how Fedora Atomic Cosmic fares against Pop OS?
- acomjean 1y ago
  I can’t say much about fedora But pop os is not bleeding edge or glitzy. It’s kind of a workhorse distribution. I like Pop!os, despite its strange name. I’ve used it pre installed at work/ home and installed on a work machine to get the nvidia card working after being unable with the original Ubuntu OS. Pop is basically Ubuntu so software that works on Ubuntu works on pop. It’s pretty bullet proof. The “pop shop” (oddly named installer program where you don’t spend money) has a lot of the open source applications with one click install. I think both Fedora and Popos can be run via usb stick if you want to try them out.
wwweston 1y ago
Anyone have this (or another linux distro) working with an nvidia rtx 5060?
Uehreka 1y ago
I’ve been using Pop OS for several years and really like it. However while I think it’s cool that they’re doing some innovative DE stuff, the fact that it has come at such a huge cost to the stability of the OS is extremely frustrating. I’ve been stuck on 22.04 for almost the entire 24.04 cycle at this point, and I occasionally have weird display issues or other bugs that I know are not going to get fixed. At this point my hope is that Cosmic may be stable enough to release as 26.04, since from what I’ve been hearing it sounds like the beta still has a lot of rough edges. I think I would be a lot less salty if they’d just explicitly called a mulligan on 24.04 back in early or mid 2024. I could’ve made an informed decision to switch to an Ubuntu flavor with slightly rockier Nvidia drivers support while I waited until 26.04 to rejoin Pop OS. But instead they just kept drip feeding PR updates saying that it was “coming soon!”, even though it was probably clear to folks working on it that they were over a year away. Edit: To explain why I think it was clear to folks working on the project: I recently went back to look at the Alpha announcements from late last year. I wasn’t going to run an Alpha, so I didn’t read them in depth, but in those announcements they announce that they are BEGINNING work on a media player, which was available in a WIP state in the Alpha. If they were BEGINNING work on the media player in late 2024, then they probably could’ve said in April 2024 (when they hadn’t even started on it) that this was going to take at least another year.
- deleted 1y ago
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hamdouni 1y ago
Funny to see the demo resemble my decade-old DWM setup.

435 points by agluszak 1y ago

On the one hand, I appreciate the modern stack; on the other hand, the proportions and margins are completely off, making everything look genuinely bizarre. The switches, for instance, are humongous, and the radius on the rounded corners is excessive just take a look at the dock. Everything is touching corners or has double the amount of whitespace it needs. I hope they start polishining with a designer now.

willi59549879 1y ago
Some of the whitespace can be configured in the settings. I am not sure if the problems you mention can be adjusted there though.
animegolem 1y ago
I like the function but it does all feel just a bit off and half backed. Im relatively hopeful it'll get there.
athoneycutt 1y ago
There has been a UI/UX designer since day one.
- BoredPositron 1y ago
  :/
cosmic_cheese 1y ago
I feel you. It’s not the worst I’ve seen by a long shot but it’s still not “right” and as a result would find it irritating to use.

jjice 1y ago

Would love to hear people's experiences with PopOS. I remember when it was new and Cosmic looked really neat, but I'm weary to try a new OS that has fewer users, purely because bugs will be reported and fixed less, so I've been an Ubuntu (and probably a Debian, soon) user.

panick21_ 1y ago
I have been using PopOS for a long time. Its kind of like Ubuntu with some of the dumb Ubuntu stuff removed. Their PopShell for Gnome was just far, better then normal Gnome. I have been following Cosmic and using it quite a bit. For alpha it was great. I have been daily driving it off and on and its mostly pretty good. I would say I prefer it over vanilla Gnome. So its my plan to keep using it, I have no intention of going to Ubuntu again.
myself248 1y ago
I've been on Pop for about 5 years, through several major upgrade cycles, and it's nearly flawless. The bundled Pop!Shop app store is the notable turd in the pool, but it's optional. It has a system restore partition (that I've never had to use), boot-the-previous-kernel (that I've used once), full-disk encryption by default, so many little things that I appreciate. Everything Just Works, on both my old Thinkpad and my new Framework. When I have had trouble (e.g. stuck updates, other apt woes, Bluetooth weirdness), System76's help pages have been great. If they don't cover it, I just search +Ubuntu and the advice I find almost always works. I have no idea what WM or DE or anything I'm running, it's just here and it stays out of the way so there's no situation where I would be confronted by having to know its name. That's a bit annoying (I did finally find out that "Files" is actually "Nautilus", which helped when searching to understand some behaviors) in that it limits my ability to meaningfully search for, or change, these details, but I think if it was a big deal, I'd figure it out. It's just fine. That I can run an OS for 5 years and not know my WM or DE, is pretty cool, IMHO.
- snowzach 1y ago
  FWIW, I have been running regular Pop using the Cosmic Store for a while now. It's nice and snappy.

littlecranky67 1y ago

I recently installed Pop OS stable on my ancient 2014 MacbookPro. It was a mostly flawless experience - I needed to manually install the closed-source wl WiFi driver after installing while on USB-Ethernet, but after that everything worked. Trackpad (with 2finger scroll enabled by default), Display (with HiDPI), SD Card reader etc. I like the gnome based UI, I am not sure about the new Cosmic thingy though. Hope the GNOME-based UI will still be available in the new release.

willi59549879 1y ago
I guess the gnome version will be available until cosmic moves out of beta. That might still take some time.
avinassh 1y ago
I have an old 2019 MBP, now I am tempted to try Pop on it. Does the external displays work?
- littlecranky67 1y ago
  PopOS (just as Ubuntu) comes with a live-linux for its install media -i.e. you can try with the very same installer usb-stick if the system works for you. In generall I'd say the older a system, the better the likelihood of linux compat (if it is not WAY to old). On that 2014 MBP Retina, I have attached a 4K TV via HDMI. It works in dual-screen, even though I use it with the lid closed in single-screen mode (4k TV only), but only 30Hz are supported (I can run 1080@60). Limitation of the Intel onboard GPU I assume. You probably have your reasons why you do not want macOS on that system anymore - for me the 2014 MBP fell long out of macOS support and while I had Sonoma with Opencore Legacy Patcher running on it, the OS was just unbearably slow, plus some audio issues (along the fact that with opencore legacy patcher your security is also at risk). So that was a no brainer, because macOS just wasn't an option anymore. Another word of warning: I had the very same 2019 Intel MBP and it died just a couple of weeks after it fell out of Apple Care. Just turned of right while using, never came back. That series is notorious for having thermal issues, and a friend of mine had the same model dying the same way just a couple of weeks after. Maybe you want to sell it while it still has macOS support (higher prices on the 2nd hand market) and get a different laptop if you are after Linux.

VWWHFSfQ 1y ago

I'm glad to see some innovation in the Linux desktop space but pop os just looks kind of cheesy

willi59549879 1y ago
I hope it will make the space more interesting. Also with other projects using cosmic as a base to build on top.

ako 1y ago

Old news? The version number is 24.04, seems like a year old? Page doesn’t have a date, news should always have a date…

SteveLauC 1y ago
Should be new. They released some showcase videos a few hours ago [1] [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMJpPasSN0M&list=PL0bXfFQsIC_M2RRCkWj11zTB2RKfTy66B&index=1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMJpPasSN0M&list=PL0bXfFQsIC...
panick21_ 1y ago
They have delayed 24.04 to wait for Cosmic to be ready. They push new kernels to the older release as well.
alecsm 1y ago
The version number is 24.04 because it's based on the latest Ubuntu LTS.
ako 1y ago
Interesting that a normal, justified question receives this many downvotes...

alecsm 1y ago

I'm actually excited to try Cosmic DE. It still has some of that Gnome Shell feeling that I like but with many features I want that we'll never see in Gnome, like having the top bar on all screens. Right now if you have a full screen app on your main screen you can't even see what time it is. If they added independent workspaces per monitor I'll switch to it as soon as it gets out of beta. Edit. I just watched their workspace showcase video. We have independent workspaces per monitor [1]. Is this real life? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3rGXNNUoW8&list=PL0bXfFQsIC_M2RRCkWj11zTB2RKfTy66B&index=3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3rGXNNUoW8&list=PL0bXfFQsIC...

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mwcz 1y ago
I'll probably be switching over too, from sway, once Cosmic is out of beta. I love tiling, and the only thing I miss while using sway is the lack of a single integrated settings application. It's possible to couple together individual apps to manage Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and Monitors and everything else, but a single settings app is much better than babysitting a dozen separate ones.
- baobun 1y ago
  FWIW you can run i3 as WM inside, say, XFCE, if you're not married to wayland. i3 and sway are almost identical otherwise.
- flexd 1y ago
  I use Regolith Desktop packages to run Sway with Gnome. It's basically i3/Sway + Gnome settings, and works really well. I get the benefit of a sane DE (Sway) and somewhat easier settings and defaults https://regolith-desktop.com/ https://regolith-desktop.com/
  - fhchl 1y ago
    I highly recommend regolith as well, even though the Sway session has never worked without issues for me yet. X11 is very stable.

SteveLauC 1y ago

Really impressive work from the Pop!_OS team. They broke away from GNOME and decided to build their own DE, now it’s finally here

ChocolateGod 1y ago
Maybe it's just media bias, but I have seen interest and work for GNOME really drop off the last couple of years. You could see something cool being worked on every couple weeks (at least reported on). I remember this goal to change the window management to be more like a tiling WM (similar to Niri) that seems to have faded away. I recently moved from GNOME to KDE, one reason being KDE adopting Wayland protocols quicker and constant performance issues with GNOME.
- PixelForg 1y ago
  > I remember this goal to change the window management to be more like a tiling WM (similar to Niri) that seems to have faded away. Are you talking about this article? https://blogs.gnome.org/tbernard/tag/tiling/ https://blogs.gnome.org/tbernard/tag/tiling/
  - ChocolateGod 1y ago
    Yes it was shown off at their GUADEC.
- pjmlp 1y ago
  Back when I was still into using Linux as desktop OS, I lost interest when GNOME 3.0 came to be. After Ubuntu Unity, XCFE became my desktop, for the remaining netbook lifetime. And I used to deal with Gtkmm back in 2000's, when GNOME still had a good architecture.

amanzi 1y ago

I think they bit off more than they could chew with this project, but happy they are making progress. I actually prefer Gnome, so I didn't care much for this project anyway. I've switched back to regular Debian 13 and am super happy with it.

kokada 1y ago
Yes, I didn't even know they didn't had a version based on the last LTS (that was release more than 1 year ago). Especially considering that they have a strong focus for developers, and developers in general wants the new-ish libraries otherwise things starts to break or just in general compatibility issue with newer programs or libraries that you may depend for work. It does seems to me that it would be better to invest one more release cycle in Gnome before switching all efforts to their Cosmic DE. But good luck for the team nonetheless.
- adgjlsfhk1 1y ago
  One of the big differences between PopOs and Ubuntu is that they tend to keep more up to date versions of the kernel and drivers which significantly mitigates the impact of this. PopOS 24.04 is currently on kernel 6.16.
- swiftcoder 1y ago
  I don't know about that - quite a few of us developers value stability over all else. I can build newer tools/libraries from source if needed, but upgrading and discovering half my workflow is broken on a newer OS is an absolute dealbreaker. I'll wait to adopt new OS for some time after they are released, let the early adopters flush out all the bugs.
  - kokada 1y ago
    But in this case it is not like you're in the bleeding edge (you aren't anyway since Pop OS is based on Ubuntu LTS that is already a more conservative distribution even when a new version is released), you're in a stable distribution from almost 3 years ago. This is the point where things start breaking because it is too old, not because it is too new. Case in point I know at least one or two projects that drops anything from their CI that is not the newest LTS release, and there are probably more.

weatherlight 1y ago

I've been using Alpha(as my main driver!) for a year now, there's been a few hiccups here and there but its been very good. I prefer this to Gnome. It's my main driver for software development, it was initially a dual boot system with windows, but I found that I could use Steam with very little configuration and could do all my gaming in linux(Cosmic DE/PopOS, I have a Nvidia GPU) as well. Works out of the box with Bigwig Studio and my Soundcard (Ultralite mk5) I use a mix of the Cosmic store and nix for packages and programs. I don't need to use windows ever again for anything and it makes me very happy.

francislavoie 1y ago

They took too long so I moved off of PopOS 22.04 over to Ubuntu 25.04. I had tons of audio stability issues among many other things that I wanted fixed as well. I also have a lot of Gnome extensions I depend on right now, so I'm not ready to run a completely new DE without a healthy extension ecosystem to fix the quirks. I love the idea of a Rust DE and all that, but I can't really risk it for my daily driver machine.

noisy_boy 1y ago
Same - I got tired of waiting and moved to KDE on Fedora. Zero complaints and regrets. People said that Fedora is too bleeding edge and things break but fingers crossed, it has been an awesome experience.
- ajcp 1y ago
  I've been running Fedora for years on my XPS 13 and am very pleased. Had zero issues except the integrated webcam doesn't work, but honestly that's a feature to me.
  - andrewflnr 1y ago
    Weird. I'm also running Fedora on an xps 13 and my camera is fine. In case it makes a difference, is yours the Ubuntu-specific version?
    - ajcp 1y ago
      Yup! I bought the Ubuntu specific version and flashed Fedora on it day 1. From everything I've read this was fairly common behavior.
      - andrewflnr 1y ago
        Wow. I use the camera all the time and I'd be pretty annoyed if it didn't work. I wonder how/if my setup is different.

mythz 1y ago

Was looking forward to this for a long time as I think Linux could do with a clean break from the Legacy built around Gnome/KDE/X11. But it's taking so long to get to release my main concern is now that a small company doesn't have the dev resources to take on maintaining a DE by themselves and haven't been successful in attracting a dev community to help pick up the slack. I'm now leaning towards the Hyprland/Omarchy approach of starting with a curated blank slate that can be easily themed, customized and extended to suit where I wouldn't have to rely on big drop releases of a single organization for any missing/preferred functionality. Even at its young age Omarchy has some how managed to attract 134/782 open/closed PRs [1] vs 6/90 for CosmicDE (since 2022) [2] which IMO speaks to the approachability and hackability of a scriptable DE and the community being built up around each. Edit: as the Cosmic DE repo is made up of many submodules, they all have a lot more PRs/activity combined. [1] https://github.com/basecamp/omarchy/pulls https://github.com/basecamp/omarchy/pulls [2] https://github.com/pop-os/cosmic-epoch/pulls https://github.com/pop-os/cosmic-epoch/pulls

BoredPositron 1y ago
Omarchy is mainly composed of configuration files which makes it a lot easier to interact with.
- mythz 1y ago
  Exactly, much more hackable/approachable/sharable to be able to easily cobble features together.
- Jgrubb 1y ago
  "configuration as convention"?
  - deleted 1y ago
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mwcz 1y ago
The number of PRs for Cosmic you shared is very misleading. The parent repo is full of submodules, so if you want to present the number of PRs to Cosmic as a whole, you need to count the PRs for each repo. For example, the software library app alone has more than double (3/182) the number you presented (6/90).

ollien 1y ago

This might be what finally gets me to ditch my i3+xfce setup. Anyone done a similar transition?

Garvi 1y ago
I was using Manjaro i3 X11 for 3 years. A few months back I switched to Arch Hyprland Wayland and so far I am very happy with it. I use it for programming, video editing and gaming. No major inconveniences.
dadoomer 1y ago
I was running i3 on Arch before. Then, I moved to Gnome Shell and have been daily driving COSMIC for a couple months. I think you will like it. At least on Alpha there were a couple rough edges here and there, but no deal breakers for me.

gempir 1y ago

I've been using the cosmic-de on arch for a few months now. Started with the alpha and then switched to their git main branch. I absolutely loved it. It is such a breath of fresh air. I previously used to run i3 and a bunch of other tooling around it I can't even remember. Setup always had some weird edge case or was weird to use. Gnome always felt very bloated and laggy. I then tried sway because I wanted to see if Wayland was any better performance and was not very impressed, although it just might be a configuration issue, the out of the box experience was just not good. And I wasn't in the tinkering mood anymore. I installed cosmic and everything just worked. It felt snappy, no weird lags, nice but not too slow animations, even a build in window manager that was close enough to i3 that I no longer need sway or i3. Notification, Display Management, Login, Autolaunching apps, Window Management etc. everything finally feels like a full operating system the way I have never experienced linux before. Maybe Ubuntu or Mint came close, but those came with their own troubles.

whatevaa 1y ago
If you don't like tinkering, the likes of i3 and sway are not for you.
- gempir 1y ago
  I agree, I just have phases. Sometimes I really love tinkering. But I when I got a new computer, I already had to setup so many things, I just wasn't into fiddling with i3 at that time.
  - wltr 1y ago
    Why haven’t you just transferred your config? I’ve got a new laptop, rsynced my entire system, updated some things here and there, and that was it.
    - gempir 1y ago
      Resolution changed, GPU changed and I was running X11 on the old system, it was time for Wayland

writebetterc 1y ago

Why should we care about the COSMIC Desktop Environment? Edit: I've now gotten 2 downvotes in 4 minutes. I do not understand what's so controversial about this comment. Why should we care about having a third DE? Does this matter to users at all? I've watched several videos show casing it, and there seems to be no point to it except organizational (Pop OS wants to break free from GNOME).

jamesnorden 1y ago
Who is "we". But to answer your question, it was created because System76 didn't find an existing DE that met their needs even after extensive changes to them.
spicyusername 1y ago
Pro-tip: These are inside thoughts, no need to comment, just have the thought and move along.
- writebetterc 1y ago
  Sorry, I don't see it that way.
  - maleldil 1y ago
    Which is why you were downvoted.
- charcircuit 1y ago
  Not being able to question large investments is not a healthy perspective. And as this is the first public release with Cosmic, I think it's completely fair for people to question it.
  - timeon 1y ago
    Sure but there was not much in that question.
1y ago

palata 1y ago

I had to check, so for the record: Pop OS is an Ubuntu-based Linux distro.

monooso 1y ago
Just to be clear, the news here is that Pop OS now uses the Cosmic DE (which just reached beta). Unlike the previous Pop OS DE, Cosmic DE is not tied to a particular distro. For example, there's an official Fedora Spin [1]. [1]: https://fedoraproject.org/spins/cosmic https://fedoraproject.org/spins/cosmic
ok123456 1y ago
No snaps by default. So it fixes Canonical's folly.

spicyusername 1y ago

Tiling support is such a killer feature.

qludes 1y ago
Don't both gnome and kde also have tiling support?
- specproc 1y ago
  Gnome via extensions, but not natively. I've never really clicked with any of them. Not sure about KDE.
  - qludes 1y ago
    Plasma has at least basic tiling support for different workspaces and reasonable default hotkeys to arrange your windows. https://kde.org/announcements/plasma/6/6.4.0/ https://kde.org/announcements/plasma/6/6.4.0/
    - specproc 1y ago
      Nice. I'm sat on Gnome like a basic again, as I got tired of fucking around with dotfiles and deciding what sort of login manager defines me as a person. Had been thinking of giving KDE another whirl, but now Cosmic seems roadworthy, and I could go back to hyprland with this Omarchy thing everyone seems so hyped about. All these choices, such a great time to be a linux user.
- spicyusername 1y ago
  Not really

sieep 1y ago

Pop is great & i love what system76 is doing, but the bugs in cosmic have had me holding off. I will certainly try again soon.

OnionBlender 1y ago
Which bugs in particular? I was thinking of installing it on another drive.
- tracker1 1y ago
  Can't speak for GP, but in the 5-6 months or so I've been using it, most of my issues have been with keyboard navigation breaking or not working in some of the apps. It's gotten better with regular updates though and has been pretty solid. Other stability issues seem to have been deeper as since switching to a mainline kernel install (6.16.x) I haven't noticed any deep issues. Pop has kept kernel updates well ahead of Ubuntu though, I just switched sooner than they seem to have.
- sieep 1y ago
  it doesn't seem to handle multiple monitors very gracefully yet, at least when I used it & on my setup. Felt a little bit slower than gnome and less stable across the board. For example, the top-bar UI doesn't render certain app icons properly, which was driving me crazy. Maybe it's a settings/config thing. My opinion is if cosmic isn't a drop-in replacement for gnome with extra bells and whistles, im not going to use it. For all I know, it could be a lot better than gnome at this point. But for a daily driver that I'm working in, I need the stability of gnome over the 'cool factor' of cosmic. I really liked the direction it is heading and will be using it eventually. Worth installing and trying out!

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malachigill20 1y ago

[dead]

curioussquirrel 1y ago

I've moved over to hyprland but Cosmic is a pretty good upgrade from Gnome already in my opinion. Great to see so many viable desktop environments!

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oguz-ismail 1y ago

> 24.04 LTS Beta It's almost 2026. Yeesh

smallerfish 1y ago
Yeah the version numbering is a mistake. They should version based on their release, not the underlying base.
- iotku 1y ago
  From a marketing perspective perhaps, but it's still a supported LTS release of Ubuntu at heart and having two different version numbers would create ambiguity. Things that should work on that particular Ubuntu LTS should work in Pop_OS! And at least you don't have to cross reference things. Thankfully they keep important things more up to date with newer kernels/hardware support than the version numbers would suggest, but I think that it's a common point of confusion.

honeybadger1 1y ago

Cosmic is coming along so well, worked with their PM team when it was pre-alpha on validations and the project still excites me.

mirekrusin 1y ago

Shame there is no ARM64 ISO.

TylerLives 1y ago

I've had issues with Nvidia drivers on a fresh install. Couldn't get my PC to boot, similar to what is described here - https://youtu.be/ICXjcnhW5qc https://youtu.be/ICXjcnhW5qc

moondev 1y ago

The killer feature of Pop for me is nvidia drivers baked into the live ISO. Live boot to nvidia-smi without touching the disk is really handy.

akdev1l 1y ago
Universal Blue has this too

qwertox 1y ago

> Dragging and Dropping files from Wayland apps to X11 apps is not currently supported. I assume that this is a Wayland/X11 limitation. How is Linux supposed to beat Windows if the desktop is so broken? Microsoft breaking their Windows 11 desktop more and more seems to be the only hope.

heavyset_go 1y ago
Works in KDE just fine
- phendrenad2 1y ago
  Which implies that it's one of those things that DEs need to provide. So to answer OP's question, the answer is: With lots of custom, non-standard code. And who knows, if the world continues in this X11/Wayland duopoly, maybe one interop API will become standardized.
  - heavyset_go 1y ago
    It's a thing that the Wayland API handles with portals. Some compositors implement more features than others, and kwin_wayland in my opinion, is one of the better implementations. Your interpretation is off.
array_key_first 1y ago
The desktop is literally not broken at all. This is already standardized, there's already multiple implementations, and it works in all major desktop environments. This is a brand new DE that just got out of alpha. Its not gonna implement all protocols, because duh. Let's not be melodramatic. This happens literally every time something new happens on Linux. "Oh it's so fucked and broken and Linux sucks!!" Okay, it's new. There are mature options. Use a mature option. This is how things have always worked for all ecosystems.
- pathartl 1y ago
  The fragmentation is a huge reason the desktop experience is broken. The only UI that's actually consistent across all distros and works pretty damn well is the TUI.

dxxvi 1y ago

It's Sep 2025. Why is the 24.04 LTS still at Beta?

al_borland 1y ago
I think it’s related to what is mentioned in this blog post. https://blog.system76.com/post/closing-in-on-a-cosmic-alpha https://blog.system76.com/post/closing-in-on-a-cosmic-alpha > The official release of COSMIC DE will debut on Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS, which will be based on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS. Running and testing on 24.04 gets us closer to a final, polished release. It seems it’s because Cosmic development is being based on Ubuntu 24.04, so it’s more about that base than the date of the Pop_OS release.
- SSLy 1y ago
  Do you think that they'll rebase for the soon coming 26.04?
  - adgjlsfhk1 1y ago
    probably.

sheerun 1y ago

This was long awaited thing, very good!

giancarlostoro 1y ago

Pop was my last Distro before I went to Endeavour (Arch), it wasn't anything against Pop, I just ran into a weird issue where I needed a more up to date GBLIC for some software I was trying to run (to add insult to injury, it was a Ubuntu package too). I am really excited by the work they do, if I'm ever shopping for a Non-Mac Laptop in the near future I'm strongly leaning towards buying a System76 laptop since I love what they do. Their desktop environment was nice, though I always run back to KDE, even now I'm on KDE on Endeavour, I gave Budgie a try again which is another one I really enjoyed for Ubuntu but KDE has enough bells and whistles that I always miss, especially its window management stuff. I did try OpenBox and company but too much manual setup required. I want OOTB experiences that just work without hassle. I am interested that they've been working on a Text Editor, I saw it on their GitHub, and hopefully it will be nicely polished. One thing I loved about ElementaryOS (Ubuntu based as well) was the built-in custom Text Editor they made, it was nice and fast, and did everything I wanted, and looked gorgeous. I'm hoping they do similar with their Text Editor.

jamesponddotco 1y ago

No secure boot support? Still?

fsflover 1y ago
Coreboot with Heads is a better alternative.

dmart 1y ago

Wow, reordering workspaces with the mouse! This is a small thing that has been driving me insane on GNOME coming from macOS.

HumblyTossed 1y ago

if you're on the alpha, does it update to the beta when you apt update?

junga 1y ago
Yes it does. We could argue if it’s update or upgrade, but I think it’s clear what you mean.
- HumblyTossed 1y ago
  you're right, i meant apt upgrade

adverbly 1y ago

So excited for this! I'm on 22.04 but I've been watching this closely. I love stable things so I might still wait for this to get out of beta, but I love that it's making progress! Maybe in time for 2026.04 LTS? Excited to desktop swap again!

tracker1 1y ago

I've been running the alpha for about 6 months at this point... it's been relatively solid, but there's been a few rough edges (mostly around keyboard navigation in the apps). Most of what I expect to work is now working without issue. I've also been running a mainline 6.16 kernel, for better gpu support (RX 9070XT). I've got no idea on where Accessibility lands right now though... At least in terms of screen readers. As I've been having vision issues even beyond using very large monitors I've had to rely on zoom features in apps/browsers. It's generally been a better experience than some of the rougher edges of Windows at work. I need to figure out if/how to scale RDP sessions.

coastalpuma 1y ago

I think this is amazing work and I'm looking forward to trying it out and maybe adopting long term, but I can't help but think they're selling themselves short with the default theme. Personally find the electric blue pretty grating. Would be nice to see more examples of "calm" theming with more neutral tones, or even a preset alternative default for that.

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kylecazar 1y ago

Long time Pop user -- I've been eagerly following Cosmic's development for over a year. I resisted the temptation of the alphas, and know how I'll be spending my evening. Congrats to the devs. It's a significant achievement.

exabrial 1y ago

My next laptop will be a system76 no matter what... But pleeeeeease come out with a high-perf ARM model!!

tenacious_tuna 1y ago
Curiosity, why sys76 over Framework? I've a (now ancient) sys76 galp2 that I still use, but I'm confident that I'm gonna get a Framework to replace it.

dmix 1y ago

Linux is always so much further ahead of Apple on window management.

CharlesW 1y ago
Reading through this thread, I've never been happier with macOS as my daily driver. I don't think or worry about my OS at all, other than being reminded on HN how terrible it is.
- dmix 1y ago
  I have zero interest in switching to Linux, I did that, and life is too short dealing with all that maintenance. I just use MacOS.

dev1ycan 1y ago

I'm not a UI/UX designer but I feel like in general, Linux community need to put a LOT more focus into the GUI frameworks. What is the fundamental thing that makes a Windows version feel like a new Windows version? It's not a different control panel or basica taskbar animations (although it helps), it's mundane things like how the borders of the buttons look, animations, transitions, loading bars so on and so on... It all boils down to Winforms/UWP/WinUI and others for Windows and GTK/QT for Linux... To this day Winform in windows gives me a sense of peace, something about the way the UI looks just looks "solid"... even when a lot of it is outdated, UWP was terrible while WinUI 3 is sleek and modern, although it does feel less robust I just can't pinpoint the reason exactly. For Linux I don't know exactly what it is but I am almost sure GTK/QT are responsible, I have yet to use a linux distro that manages to give me the "feel" of solidness that let's say the Windows 7 UI gave me, it's not really about how smooth your animations is, it's that when I open a file explorer or the control panel it just doesn't feel "there". I how can it be that so many decades keep passing and Linux still feels like a pre alpha UI compared to Windows versions of the early 2000s? I just took a look at a youtube video of the beta and I keep seeing distros focus on the wrong things, also can we at LEAST bring back the chrome/aero/real button feel of the "start menu" buttons? the PopOS start menu button looks very unserious... I guess it's just me though. I understand that there's a lack of funding but it wouldn't surprise me if a really good UI framework design came around Linux would suddenly start seeing much higher adoption.

samtheDamned 1y ago
I really identify with this. I think the worst offender was KDE when I could [meta]+drag and move taskbar applets all around the screen like a regular window. Like you said it's understandable since there is a vast funding difference between windows/MacOS and the linux DEs but it is unfortunate.

outlore 1y ago

First time Linux explorer here; does anyone know how Fedora Atomic Cosmic fares against Pop OS?

acomjean 1y ago
I can’t say much about fedora But pop os is not bleeding edge or glitzy. It’s kind of a workhorse distribution. I like Pop!os, despite its strange name. I’ve used it pre installed at work/ home and installed on a work machine to get the nvidia card working after being unable with the original Ubuntu OS. Pop is basically Ubuntu so software that works on Ubuntu works on pop. It’s pretty bullet proof. The “pop shop” (oddly named installer program where you don’t spend money) has a lot of the open source applications with one click install. I think both Fedora and Popos can be run via usb stick if you want to try them out.

wwweston 1y ago

Anyone have this (or another linux distro) working with an nvidia rtx 5060?

Uehreka 1y ago

I’ve been using Pop OS for several years and really like it. However while I think it’s cool that they’re doing some innovative DE stuff, the fact that it has come at such a huge cost to the stability of the OS is extremely frustrating. I’ve been stuck on 22.04 for almost the entire 24.04 cycle at this point, and I occasionally have weird display issues or other bugs that I know are not going to get fixed. At this point my hope is that Cosmic may be stable enough to release as 26.04, since from what I’ve been hearing it sounds like the beta still has a lot of rough edges. I think I would be a lot less salty if they’d just explicitly called a mulligan on 24.04 back in early or mid 2024. I could’ve made an informed decision to switch to an Ubuntu flavor with slightly rockier Nvidia drivers support while I waited until 26.04 to rejoin Pop OS. But instead they just kept drip feeding PR updates saying that it was “coming soon!”, even though it was probably clear to folks working on it that they were over a year away. Edit: To explain why I think it was clear to folks working on the project: I recently went back to look at the Alpha announcements from late last year. I wasn’t going to run an Alpha, so I didn’t read them in depth, but in those announcements they announce that they are BEGINNING work on a media player, which was available in a WIP state in the Alpha. If they were BEGINNING work on the media player in late 2024, then they probably could’ve said in April 2024 (when they hadn’t even started on it) that this was going to take at least another year.

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hamdouni 1y ago

Funny to see the demo resemble my decade-old DWM setup.