Linux distributions ship with a desktop environment that manages everything visually happening on your screen. GNOME is the default option on Ubuntu and a few more Linux distros, and holds a special place in my Linux journey. However, better desktop environments are popping up now, and COSMIC is one of the fresh ones that caught my eye. It has everything that a customization-rich desktop environment should have and works like butter in whatever situation I can imagine.

As a result, I've completely ditched GNOME because I don't need to install extensions to create a better, functional version of the desktop. I never have to compromise on my needs and hunt for alternatives or solutions to improve them to some extent. Let's discuss why COSMIC is life-changing for a longtime GNOME user.

COSMIC is a modern, visually appealing marvel

GNOME doesn't explore beyond the basic

If you think about a desktop environment for a second, it has a bunch of panels and tools arranged to make everything look nice and accessible. GNOME’s design approach isn't bad, but it is outdated for sure.

Its minimalism is starting to get on my nerves, and the whole UI feels very bland. When you use GNOME on a mainstream distro like Ubuntu, it gives you the impression that Linux is nothing beyond this point. A Windows escape might associate this minimalism with the “inadequacy” of the distro or the OS.

COSMIC has a lot going on visually with nice, smooth animations, and multiple desktop elements, including a bottom dock, a top taskbar, a floating app launcher that can run commands, and a better tiling and stacking mechanism. Everything feels cohesive and works together nicely.

Customization isn't secondary

No need for third-party tweaks

When you install a distro, you expect it to offer features and settings to adjust its appearance and behavior. Sadly, when you fire up GNOME, it doesn't have a lot going on in terms of customization. On Ubuntu, there are just a few settings to change the background, dock appearance, and that's about it. If you need to do anything else, GNOME extensions become necessary.

COSMIC doesn't stick to this bare-bones mindset and offers just about everything that you need to tweak. A quick hop into display settings shows that it's possible to alter every minor detail on your desktop. Don't like the default fonts? Change it. Hate the color scheme? Change it. Everything is right there in the settings app. Switch between multiple icon packs, move the panels to a different position, and a lot more.

I won’t rant about how GNOME doesn’t even have anything more than accent color and background. COSMIC has these options and supports changing the interface style, button and window designs, and colors. You can even set different color modes for panels and other desktop elements, which is a nice touch.

Deepin OS is one such distro that packs the same extensive level of customization as COSMIC. However, it needs more storage space and resources, and surely won’t work nicely on low-end systems. GNOME and COSMIC lie in the middle-ground and can work on low-end systems, but shine when there’s ample memory and GPU power available.

Tiling and stacking

GNOME need to put more effort

The window management and tiling features in COSMIC are on par with Windows or any other modern OS. It’s an often overlooked aspect, but if you come from GNOME, you’ll understand its necessity. The situation is very basic in GNOME unless you use an extension, but COSMIC’s tiling is on another level.

For starters, it is so smooth and instantaneous that everything happens in a blink. You can tile windows in any direction, just like in Windows 11. You can even lock the tiling behavior for one workspace, which means that any new app you open will follow the tiling behavior.

As an example, if you have two app windows arranged in split view, launching a third app will push it into a 25% screen area. Adding a fourth app will split it further. Both keyboard and mouse actions are seamless and simple enough to understand. You can do the old-fashioned cursor drag-and-drop or use the provided shortcuts for snappier repositioning.

The next feature that I wholeheartedly appreciate is stacking. When Windows 11 added the tabs feature to File Explorer, I was happy that I didn’t need to open multiple windows. COSMIC takes this concept to another level by introducing tabs for all open windows.

It means that you can combine all open apps into a single tabbed interface. Imagine opening a browser, terminal, settings, and text editor, all in one interface and switching to them just like browser tabs. You only need to enable stacks for one open app, and all the apps that you open later will open as a new tab in the stack.

Stacks essentially disable the need to manage floating windows and act as a support to tiling windows when your screen is full. So you can have four apps open in a 25% screen area (each) and then enable stacking in one of the open tiles to organize even more apps.

COSMIC is better

Despite being the first version of a newly launched product, COSMIC feels polished and functional. Its UI is much better, and the styling and tweaking options will keep you busy. Since Pop!_OS gears more towards gamers, you might leave a GNOME-based distro for it.

COSMIC tries to solve many real-life problems and doesn’t leave everything for you to manage. You don’t need to search for extensions for basic features like advanced tiling, stacking, and workspaces. All the essential stuff is there, along with the core system apps like a file explorer, text editor, and more.

One thing to note is that it’s not as mature as GNOME. So, the app ecosystem is a little tight, and you might notice occasional kinks that are rare in GNOME. I liked it ever since I installed the first-ever COSMIC-based edition, and I’m not going back to any other desktop environment soon.