On one hand, the amount of fragmentation on desktop Linux is absurd. On Mac and Windows the desktop environment is synonymous with the operating system. On Linux, you can run one of 30 different desktop environments on the same distribution. This means that userspace bugs can manifest for any desktop-distro combination.
On the other hand, System76 is well positioned to create a desktop environment that is cohesive and complete since they’re trying to sell computers running them. Linus on the server has financial backing, and Linux on the desktop has precious little.
There are dozens of GUI libraries and platform toolkits available to both Mac and Windows. In fact, there are plenty of GTK and Qt applications floating around on these platforms. As well as a lot of applications using custom frameworks. Then of course the unfortunate web-apps-as-desktop-apps pipeline in the form of Electron. Fragmentation is a very loaded and derogatory term used to express disdain for the openness and freedom that open source desktops have. Fragmentation is a strength of open source.
I'm sorry, but windows itself, let alone applications are anything but consistent. There are still corners of the UI that have a look and feel dating back to NT4/Win9x. And some of the new functionality is oddly worse UX.
In terms of fragmentation, gnome and kde are the vast majority of configurations. Even other DE are likely using the underlying graphics library.
Given the level of customization that System 76 has to do with gnome for every release, it's probably easier for them to just create something more congestive for their designs.
And given that they actually sell and support hardware, are far more likely to make better choices for more general users than a lot of other DE in my opinion.
I do wish they'd make a deal with framework to get it with Pop as an in the box option supported by System 76... I'd pay a bit extra for that.
A warning for anyone who tests the Cosmic Desktop on their distro: It’s possible (if very much in a pre-alpha state), but it makes your file system read-only, which can be a bit of a surprise if you’re not aware it’s coming.
It’s easily reversible, fortunately, but it really threw me for a loop when I wasn’t able to update my Tumbleweed packages. Heh.
This is not true, and I do not know what gave you that impression. What you're describing is a side effect of using systemd-sysext, but I do not know why you would be using that.
I've been using linux for some 15-20 years depending on how you count. The last 3 i've been using PopOs! as a complete windows replacement. Gaming works great (with the usual caveats) and everything has been a pleasant experience.
I've never been a gnome fan almost always switching to xfce but on PopOs! its alright!
I'm very much looking forward being able to drop Gnome and use Cosmic instead - having thumbnailsupport is going to be an improvement.
I was working with a product designer as a UI/UX test subject a few years back before the first release of Cosmic. What a long way it has came since then! I am a huge fun of the effort put in to PopOS to make Linux interesting to the average desktop user.
> Dragging your cursor to a window’s title bar to move it takes an unneeded level of precision. To maintain focus — as well as comfort on trackpads — simply clicking any region of a window while holding Super will allow dragging it to your preferred location and quickly get back to your important task.
> Dragging your cursor to a window’s title bar to move it takes an unneeded level of precision
So does ... to a windows's resize border. Have they/do they plan to implement a similar thing for resize where instead you can drag to any ~20% of the side (with a modifier)?
Super + Left Click lets me drag a tiled window to a different location, while Super + Right Click lets me drag to resize. I usually do both with my keyboard but it's nice to have the option.
This is a big deal if you want to use common Linux desktops in pure "tablet" mode, with no keyboard or mouse attached. You can move windows easily enough by grabbing the header bar, but there's no equivalent for resizing. You can of course rely on full-screen or half-screen tiled windows, but it's a big UX downgrade compared to using a mouse and/or keyboard.
(Mind you, a tablet PC running Linux will nonetheless be vastly more productive than even an iPad. But still.)
They did like GNOME, but needed it to costumize it to fit their needs. And that what 'Cosmic' plugins do for GNOME. But with the newer version Gnome would have broken many of their plugins, a frequent issue with Gnome. They are currently selling products with Gnome as default.
So they could either spend resources continually keeping up with Gnome and adopting all their changes, or they could go away from Gnome. Gnome is increasingly pushing in their own direction, so this would increasingly get harder and more time consuming in the future.
Given what their costumers expect, it makes sense not to go into a totally different direction and invent something totally new and revolutionary. The new Cosmic should be reasonably close to the older Gnome based Cosmic.
They now have the freedom to evolve their DE away from Gnome, they are no longer constrained by Gnome applets (and their long term support) and I suspect in a couple years the difference to Gnome will be bigger then it is now. This is already visible, with the raw default version of newest Gnome (not the one Ubuntu or PopOS delivers) being quiet a bit different from what you get with Cosmic DE.
What would you have liked to see be different is maybe a more interesting question.
I seem to remember one of the points was the way GNOMEs plugin system was implemented plugins have no isolation so one bad plugin can cause all sorts of problems.
They were also limited in things they wanted to do with the default window tiling ui.
Did they say that they set out to do that? (not sure, genuinely asking)
I was under the impression that the point of doing this was to have control over the hardware and the software to build a complete package a-la-Apple (though nowhere as deep) because once they have the software stack too, they have the flexibility to quickly add a lot of end-user life-improvement enhancements. Maybe I was presuming too much.
Vaguely related I'm finding UIs are so flat, we must be getting close to single gold atom thickness. I wonder when bevels and skeumorphs will be back? These days there's tons of nostalgia for 90s magazine style serifs, but without the gonzo UI. What gives?
Came to say almost exactly that. It’s interesting how much nostalgia there is for peak 90s UI, but not even Linux distros can escape the flat, uncontrasting, large padding interfaces.
It's kind of crazy that Gnome only went "full flat" in september of 2022, with Gnome 43. Such a stupid move, in addition to making it harder to actually change the theme.
Even though Cosmic has a similar flat look, I'm still looking forward to it since theming does seem to be something they're open to.
Looking back, one of my regrets is that I didn't make my own Window manager, or at least customize or skin one with longevity and stick to it. I am pretty much tired of being jostled around by UX engineers repeatedly reinventing the wheel in dozens of lumpy ways. The fads just keep going around and around and around.
> I wonder when bevels and skeumorphs will be back?
I don't really understand the purpose to be honest. With the exceptions of interfaces that are explicitly designed to simulate physical environments, what's the point? Flat designs are a logical consequence of form reflecting function, you're interacting with digital, binary elements that are on or off. Skeuomorphism existed because familiarity of mechanical or analog elements was maybe useful for someone who didn't know digital interfaces, but we've grown out of this.
It's good to see that it still seems to be reasonable to create new compositors. The amount and diversity of requirements regarding this type of software seems to be still managable. That was one of the concerns I had regarding giving up Xorg.
It does all feel a little disorganized/wild-west-y compared to say, a .vimrc with a list of plugins and bindings, which is something that makes a system like Nix (or a fully containerized DE of some kind) appealing
libadwaita/GTK4 is to GNOME what libcosmic is to COSMIC.
COSMIC has no need for an alternative to GLib or GIO. Rust's standard library, the futures crates, and tokio are more than sufficient for handling I/O and asynchronous code execution. libcosmic uses tokio executors for handling application commands by default. You can bring your own executor and thread pool libraries if you want.
My biggest curiosity is how easy it hard it will be to use their UI widgets for third party software and release on other DE.
I like the idea of writing more apps with Rust and if the ergonomic fit is better than alternatives, this could be a great way Forward. Bridging themes with gnome/gtk in the other direction likely a necessity for that use case.
My only other concern is getting kde tray apps to work out of the box. With budgie/Gnome, I've had to install an add on for that.
Not that I have a lot of things needing the integration. Variety and Dropbox being the main ones for me.
It's also annoying when Windows don't have a corresponding handle in the taskbar.
If they deal with these annoyances well, I'll be more than happy with the next Pop release.
Unusable until moving your mouse to the edges of the screen and clicking makes it hit the scrollbar, or the exit button. Right now it initiates a resize. For maximized windows.
I am looking forward to trying this. Currently use KDE(Wayland) and was looking to move to Wayfire as I really don't need all the things being offered in KDE and Wayfire satisfied all my needs from a WM/Compositor.
I appreciate that System76 is making the changes that they want to see in the DE themselves, and I think overall it looks very cohesive and I can understand what they are trying to achieve. But unfortunately it has the same problems that I have with modern GNOME - it looks like a mobile phone/tablet UI. I really can't understand the design trend of hiding all but basic functionality behind a hamburger menu, or if you're lucky a few unlabeled toolbar icons to decipher, on a destkop PC. Or shoving a search bar and all of the application's menu/toolbar (what's left of it) into the title bar. It makes perfect sense on a small screen, but their flagship products are desktop and laptop PCs.
Have you never heard of tiling window management? You do realize that tiling window managers are used on multi-display setups with multiple 4K displays, right? Windows have to be responsive to very narrow widths to be comfortable for use in a tile. Regardless if you have a small screen, or use 4K displays like I do.
[+] [-] MatthiasPortzel|1 year ago|reply
On one hand, the amount of fragmentation on desktop Linux is absurd. On Mac and Windows the desktop environment is synonymous with the operating system. On Linux, you can run one of 30 different desktop environments on the same distribution. This means that userspace bugs can manifest for any desktop-distro combination.
On the other hand, System76 is well positioned to create a desktop environment that is cohesive and complete since they’re trying to sell computers running them. Linus on the server has financial backing, and Linux on the desktop has precious little.
[+] [-] smashed|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] mmstick76|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] tracker1|1 year ago|reply
In terms of fragmentation, gnome and kde are the vast majority of configurations. Even other DE are likely using the underlying graphics library.
Given the level of customization that System 76 has to do with gnome for every release, it's probably easier for them to just create something more congestive for their designs.
And given that they actually sell and support hardware, are far more likely to make better choices for more general users than a lot of other DE in my opinion.
I do wish they'd make a deal with framework to get it with Pop as an in the box option supported by System 76... I'd pay a bit extra for that.
[+] [-] shortformblog|1 year ago|reply
It’s easily reversible, fortunately, but it really threw me for a loop when I wasn’t able to update my Tumbleweed packages. Heh.
[+] [-] mmstick76|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] pxc|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] mrmlz|1 year ago|reply
I've never been a gnome fan almost always switching to xfce but on PopOs! its alright!
I'm very much looking forward being able to drop Gnome and use Cosmic instead - having thumbnailsupport is going to be an improvement.
[+] [-] thrawaway3292|1 year ago|reply
What is this referring to?
[+] [-] Perizors|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] honeybadger1|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] CarVac|1 year ago|reply
On most Linux DEs you hold Alt for that...
[+] [-] skerit|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] beepbooptheory|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] eviks|1 year ago|reply
So does ... to a windows's resize border. Have they/do they plan to implement a similar thing for resize where instead you can drag to any ~20% of the side (with a modifier)?
[+] [-] paranoidxprod|1 year ago|reply
Super + Left Click lets me drag a tiled window to a different location, while Super + Right Click lets me drag to resize. I usually do both with my keyboard but it's nice to have the option.
[+] [-] zozbot234|1 year ago|reply
(Mind you, a tablet PC running Linux will nonetheless be vastly more productive than even an iPad. But still.)
[+] [-] dartharva|1 year ago|reply
If this was all it's going to be I don't understand what the point was.
[+] [-] panick21_|1 year ago|reply
So they could either spend resources continually keeping up with Gnome and adopting all their changes, or they could go away from Gnome. Gnome is increasingly pushing in their own direction, so this would increasingly get harder and more time consuming in the future.
Given what their costumers expect, it makes sense not to go into a totally different direction and invent something totally new and revolutionary. The new Cosmic should be reasonably close to the older Gnome based Cosmic.
They now have the freedom to evolve their DE away from Gnome, they are no longer constrained by Gnome applets (and their long term support) and I suspect in a couple years the difference to Gnome will be bigger then it is now. This is already visible, with the raw default version of newest Gnome (not the one Ubuntu or PopOS delivers) being quiet a bit different from what you get with Cosmic DE.
What would you have liked to see be different is maybe a more interesting question.
[+] [-] kule|1 year ago|reply
They were also limited in things they wanted to do with the default window tiling ui.
Sorry bit vague it was ages ago I listened to the talk - probably this one: https://youtu.be/ioswlaxdhSA?si=DlVQ-jDu5G3A3Iru
[+] [-] noisy_boy|1 year ago|reply
I was under the impression that the point of doing this was to have control over the hardware and the software to build a complete package a-la-Apple (though nowhere as deep) because once they have the software stack too, they have the flexibility to quickly add a lot of end-user life-improvement enhancements. Maybe I was presuming too much.
[+] [-] walteweiss|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] tigerlily|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] voxadam|1 year ago|reply
https://i.redd.it/2ua33higrtic1.png
[+] [-] Waterluvian|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] skerit|1 year ago|reply
Even though Cosmic has a similar flat look, I'm still looking forward to it since theming does seem to be something they're open to.
[+] [-] smokel|1 year ago|reply
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40071956
[+] [-] titzer|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] PixelForg|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] Barrin92|1 year ago|reply
I don't really understand the purpose to be honest. With the exceptions of interfaces that are explicitly designed to simulate physical environments, what's the point? Flat designs are a logical consequence of form reflecting function, you're interacting with digital, binary elements that are on or off. Skeuomorphism existed because familiarity of mechanical or analog elements was maybe useful for someone who didn't know digital interfaces, but we've grown out of this.
[+] [-] hkwerf|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] sandreas|1 year ago|reply
Although I could just save all dotfiles, configs and extensions via file backup, I always struggle to create a script based setup.
I would love to maintain a list of extension names, settings etc and have something like:
just a little more reliable... Maybe a hard problem, but I think this would be great.Export settings would also be great.
:-)[+] [-] stijnveken|1 year ago|reply
[0] https://nix-community.github.io/home-manager/
[+] [-] micimize|1 year ago|reply
And then for something more sophisticated there are extensions like https://github.com/Bismuth-Forge/bismuth.
It does all feel a little disorganized/wild-west-y compared to say, a .vimrc with a list of plugins and bindings, which is something that makes a system like Nix (or a fully containerized DE of some kind) appealing
[+] [-] unknown|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] curt15|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] panick21_|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] mmstick76|1 year ago|reply
COSMIC has no need for an alternative to GLib or GIO. Rust's standard library, the futures crates, and tokio are more than sufficient for handling I/O and asynchronous code execution. libcosmic uses tokio executors for handling application commands by default. You can bring your own executor and thread pool libraries if you want.
[+] [-] tracker1|1 year ago|reply
I like the idea of writing more apps with Rust and if the ergonomic fit is better than alternatives, this could be a great way Forward. Bridging themes with gnome/gtk in the other direction likely a necessity for that use case.
My only other concern is getting kde tray apps to work out of the box. With budgie/Gnome, I've had to install an add on for that.
Not that I have a lot of things needing the integration. Variety and Dropbox being the main ones for me.
It's also annoying when Windows don't have a corresponding handle in the taskbar.
If they deal with these annoyances well, I'll be more than happy with the next Pop release.
[+] [-] entropy1111|1 year ago|reply
Illustrated example from a different compositor https://github.com/WayfireWM/wayfire/issues/570
It's the only DE I'm excited about it so I hope they fix that. Very very promising and the best part is that it made the GNOME people mad.
GNOME: "Sorry I don't see the use case for that, PR closed. Make your own project."
Cosmic: "Yes"
[+] [-] jchoksi|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] gradstudent|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] nazgulsenpai|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] panick21_|1 year ago|reply
You can still grab the window or double click it even if part of it has a search bar in it.
[+] [-] mmstick76|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] noisy_boy|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] g5095|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] ln_00|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] redder23|1 year ago|reply
I would like to fire up a VirtualBox VM to try it out.
[+] [-] sphars|1 year ago|reply