Linux @lemmy.ml filister @lemmy.world 4 mo. ago

First Pop!_OS 24.04 Alpha with COSMIC DE Drops on August 8 - OMG! Ubuntu

www.omgubuntu.co.uk Pop!_OS 24.04 Alpha Release Coming on August 8th

Course set: the first alpha of Pop_OS 24.04 is scheduled for release on August 8th. So if you've been counting the days until you can try the new COSMIC

46 comments

What I am most excited for in COSMIC is the promise of tiling in a full DE. I like the idea that you can switch back and forth.

I started trying it out a month or so ago. Still pretty incomplete. Promising though.

The fact that it may drive the Rust GUI ecosystem forward is exciting as well. I do not need to see everything re-written in Rust but it will be great if Rust is a realistic option for new app dev.
- Tiling
  
  It's actually really good. I've been running the prealpha at times, and I've had no issues with tiling.
  
  I'm missing 2 things from a real tiler: sloppy focus (WIP), and static workspaces.
- Exactly this! Powerful tiling without the need to build your own DE from scratch sounds incredible!
- I guess I will try it out then.. Is it in conflict with plasma-meta?
I run it on many of my devices, but I am absolutely waiting this one out to see just how useful it is, what's missing, what's not, and until it's ready to be a daily driver. Very exciting.
So what sets COSMIC apart from the rest of the gang?
- Wayland only, built upon only new code, pure rust as much as possible, native tiling, very fast apps
- Full desktop environment with decent window tiling.
I am curious when they will release it as a full GNOME replacement, because that is a crazy task. At the current state, COSMIC is not ready at all. Even though it is already awesome.
Modern design they say? It still looks like 2010. They can't even get the spacings and paddings right.
- The project is motivated by “I like Rust, lets make a whole desktop in it” not by good UX.
  
  Depends on your point of view.
  
  Their motivation was “we have a vision for our UX and GNOME won’t let us do it — so let’s write our own.”
  
  It was only after deciding to write their own that they decided to write it in Rust.
  
  They like Rust, but that is not what motivated them to make COSMIC.
- Yeah.
  
  Don't get me wrong I guess I'm glad to see a bit more diversity in the DE space, but the design of cosmic has always been "Gnome but a bit dated and uglier" to me.
  
  Still, theming exists despite the quirks it can cause sometimes, so it's not the end of the world.
  
  I'm still going to have a little mess around with it and see what it's like though.
- When I used Pop!_OS I disabled their extensions because it felt way more clunky than stock GNOME. The applications menu looks out of place and the bottom bar wastes so much vertical space by default. In the end I just switched to Fedora when I got more comfortable with Linux. I'm a little sad that this looks exactly like GNOME with the extensions baked in and not something novel entirely. It is, however, exciting to see a new player enter the field and learn from their approach.
- Permanently Deleted
  
  I think stock Ubuntu looks sexy af. Plus, they make great use of your Desktop space. Barely any clutter in the way. But that's just personal taste.
  
  I like Cinnamon.
Does it fix window scaling if you have 2 monitors with different resolution settings?
- More importantly to me, can blind users even install the OS.
  
  All current mainstream distros now use Wayland, which has broken screen reading, so the OS cannot be installed.
  
  Fuck. That is way more important.
I've been daily driving for a couple of weeks now, its been great.
- Daily driving it is brave! I've been trying it out in a VM and found it to be pretty... temperamental so far lol. But obviously it's a pre-alpha so that's to be expected.
  
  Yeah, it can be sometimes. But to be completely honest, my workflow is not that deep. I just need neovim, a web browser and spotify. Every other application I use runs natively/smooth on Wayland, so no problems there. My biggest grip right now is that I can't change input methods on the fly for some reason, but I'm sure they will address it at some point.
  
  They also specifically warn that it's not optimized for a VM right now. It's still not quite ready on bare metal, but less so in a VM.
How far is it to be daily drivable, in your opinion? Like, crazy far or just far?
- I have a few machines running Pop. It’s exceptionally good IMO. It’s like an extremely refined Ubuntu. It’s one of my fav distros.
  
  Is that your experience with the OS or cosmic?
  
  Yes, I agree. Pop!_OS gets a lot of hate for some reason, but it's actually a really, really good distro.
  
  I was asking about COSMIC though, since I'm really looking forward to try it!
Yet another DE?
You can’t announce a “drop.” It just drops.
- They just did. What are you gonna do about it?
  
  To be technical, it's not a drop if it's announced. Then it's just a "release". 😆
  
  they meaning omgubuntu said drop.
- My single My Single Is Dropping is dropping

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