Since I've made the switch from Windows to Linux as my primary go-to OS on laptops, I've tried a few desktop environments, from Cinnamon, to GNOME, and eventually settled on KDE Plasma as a personal favorite. But recently, a new contender has entered the discussion, and it comes from a familiar group: System76, the team behind Pop!_OS.
The new COSMIC desktop entered beta just a couple of weeks ago, after spending over a year in alpha testing, and I decided to jump in and give it a shot. And from what I've seen so far, it's looking very promising as an alternative to the existing desktop environments. Plus, it comes with one feature that Microsoft promised Windows users for years before giving up on it.
Sets, is that you?
Your windows are tabs now
Among the many features that Windows users have lost in recent years, one of the most interesting is one we never truly got in the first place. Sets was a feature Microsoft introduced to the Windows Insider Program during the development of Windows 10 in 2017, and it essentially allowed any app to run inside a tab, so you could have multiple apps running side-by-side in the same window. However, it was removed before the launch of the next major update, only to reappear again in the Insider program with some enhancements in tow. Unfortunately, those enhancements weren't enough, and the feature was once again removed before the next major update, never to be seen again.
One of the standout features of the COSMIC desktop environment is the ability to easily stack windows into the same window, essentially replicating Sets, but in an even more seamless way. When they're not tabbed, windows are shown as normal without any indication that tabs are even supported, so there's no wasted screen space. But if you want to combine them, you can right-click the title bar in any app and enable stacking for that window, so you can then drag other windows over it to add more tabs to it.
You can then keep adding more apps to that window, or you can just as easily drag one tab out of the window stack to make it into its own window. You can even easily drag a tab from one stacked window to another. There isn't even a visual glitch or anything that really makes the experience feel disjointed or anything, everything happens very smoothly, even in this beta form.
While we're on the topic of window options, there are some other cool options here, like being able to easily turn any window into a "sticky window", meaning it's always on top. You can also take a screenshot of any given window through its context menu.
To tile or not to tile
Easily organize your desktop
Another interesting new feature in COSMIC desktop is how you can manage windows, including built-in support for tiling, but giving the user plenty of control. At any point, you can enable tiling for your current workspace, or switch back to floating mode, as modern desktops tend to work. Turning tiling on means your apps will automatically be added to your screen, splitting your view as needed to fit all your open apps. You can also choose the default behavior for new workspaces, and you can change the behavior for each workspace as you please.
Of course, even if you use floating mode, there are still options for easily snapping windows side by side. You can easily make an app take half the screen, or snap them into quarters for more complex setups. It all works very well. I know some people would like to have a tool that automatically suggests snapping more apps next to your initial one, and that's unfortunately not here. But if you don't mind individually snapping windows into each area, then this is still great.
Theming made easy
Choose your style
Customization is a big aspect of many Linux distros, but COSMIC has its own interesting approach to it, allowing any user to have easy control over what their computer looks like. At any point, you can head into the settings and change the color of various UI elements, including text, backgrounds, and more. You can also choose things like how round corners should be for buttons, or how compact the interface should be in general.
What's even more interesting is that not only can you do this for your own computer, but you can export your settings and share them with the world so they can import them and use your theme easily.
As far as customization goes, COSMIC isn't really on the level of something like KDE, where you can install very elaborate themes that change icons and the like, but there's still a good bit of freedom in this more limited theming engine. It reminds me a lot of Telegram's Android app and how it can be customized in a very similar way, but it's made more approachable here.
Hints of GNOME
COSMIC has some similarities, but it's very different
COSMIC was born because System76 — which had previously relied on GNOME extensions to provide its custom desktop experience for Pop!_OS — had some disagreements with the developers of GNOME. But while COSMIC is still totally independent, it's still very influenced by GNOME, with some elements such as the top menu bar still being present.
However, even for the things that are clearly inspired by GNOME, COSMIC still has some distinctive factors that give it its own flavor, for better or for worse. For example, instead of a single menu in the top right corner with quick buttons for various actions, COSMIC gives you individual applets for various system settings, such as power, networking, Bluetooth, and so on. Each of these provides fairly detailed settings that might otherwise take a few extra clicks in GNOME.
Other differences include the built-in search/launcher, which now opens over the desktop, rather than being part of the workspace overview. By default, you can simply press the Super key, and it automatically launches the keyboard-based launcher rather than opening the applications menu, and you can then start searching for the apps or settings you want right away. It's very fast, too, which means I kind of like it more than KLauncher already.
There are some odd decisions, like the applications menu opening at the top of the screen by default, and some things that appear to be bugs, as you would expect from a beta. I installed COSMIC on top of Arch Linux, and it includes things such as two different icons showing network connectivity information, or an icon that always shows in the dock until I open an app, but it doesn't do anything. These are all things I expect will be polished up before a stable release.
COSMIC is looking great
I haven't set up COSMIC on my main machine yet, but I'm very excited to see how this beta evolves and gets better. I'm still not sure if it can replace KDE Plasma for me, but it does look very promising already, and it could end up joining the ranks as one of the most popular options.