The Sundarban
Printed Mar 17, 2026, 2:30 PM EDT
Roine Bertelson is a Stockholm-based entirely tech writer, translator, and digital strategist with bigger than twenty years of hands-on ride in AI tools, Linux, user tech, cybersecurity, and website positioning-pushed explain material. He is smartly-known for turning advanced issues into clear and luminous steering that helps readers solve trusty complications. Other folks belief his work because he in reality makes exhaust of and assessments the tools he writes about, breaks things on purpose, and interprets the chaos of up to date abilities into advice that feels human, suitable, and priceless.
GNOME has been my default Ubuntu desktop for years. It’s stable, polished, and widely supported. In case you set up Ubuntu, GNOME is merely section of the deal. It works correctly ample that most folk never feel the need to exchange it. Nonetheless lately, I defend listening to whispers about something new: the COSMIC desktop. In the foundation developed by System76 for Pop!_OS, COSMIC has evolved trusty into a truly new desktop ambiance constructed from scratch. No longer a theme, not a fork, but a unconditionally new stack, largely written in Rust and designed round up to date Linux workflows. Naturally, my curiosity won.
So I did what any practical Linux user would attain. I replaced GNOME with COSMIC on my Ubuntu machine appropriate to seem what would happen. What I expected became a fun experiment. What I realized in its build became something that in actuality feels like the next generation of Linux desktops.
Installing COSMIC on Ubuntu became surprisingly painless
Swapping desktops without breaking all the things
Let’s invent something clear sooner than we dive in: On my Ubuntu machine, I drag 24.04 (LTS). I hear that users operating later editions may well additionally drag into some points installing COSMIC.
Switching Linux desktop environments continually comes with a runt dose of dismay. Any individual who has experimented with desktop hopping is conscious of the risks. Dependency conflicts, broken login managers, and random graphical glitches that leave you staring at a blinking cursor, wondering the build your life went infamous. Fortunately, COSMIC behaved itself.
Installing it on Ubuntu is rather easy. Once the packages are installed, COSMIC merely looks as a new session possibility on the login veil. After logging out and selecting the COSMIC session, the desktop loaded straight. No drama, no graphics meltdown, and no emergency reboot ritual. Appropriate a great new desktop waiting to be explored. That alone became already a promising initiate.
Add the Cosmic PPA:
sudo add-appropriate-repository ppa:hepp3n/cosmic-epoch
On the entire, Ubuntu auto-updates after including a PPA, but to make it seemingly for it’s completed:
sudo appropriate update
Install:
sudo appropriate set up cosmic-session
Log off and switch to COSMIC sooner than punching in that password, and your new Cosmic desktop may well additionally soundless load appropriate handsome.
The first ingredient you ogle is how briskly all the things feels
COSMIC feels light-weight without feeling unfinished
The first little while inside COSMIC had been oddly relaxing. No longer because it looks to be like radically loads of. In actuality, the invent is luminous and up to date, but familiar ample that you attain not feel lost. In case you’ve extinct GNOME or Pop!_OS sooner than, the classic layout makes sense.
What stood out straight became the responsiveness. Applications opened straight. Workspace switching felt mute. Window animations came about without the runt micro-stutters that generally slither into heavier desktops. The system merely felt … hasty. Fragment of that comes from COSMIC being designed as a Wayland-first desktop ambiance, which helps with smoother rendering and up to date graphics handling.
System76
Cosmic is a desktop ambiance written in RUST. It’s the desktop that ships with Pop_OS, from System76.
Nonetheless another main ingredient is its architecture. COSMIC is written largely in Rust, a programming language known for efficiency and security. That preference alone already makes it loads of from most present Linux desktop environments. The consequence is a desktop that feels light-weight without searching stripped down, making all the things feel intentional.
COSMIC’s architecture is terribly loads of from traditional desktops
A modular invent in its build of one huge desktop ambiance
Here’s the build COSMIC turns into in actuality bewitching. Most Linux desktop environments are massive, tightly constructed-in programs. GNOME and KDE are in reality immense collections of ingredients that count heavily on every other. COSMIC takes a loads of manner.
In its build of one huge ambiance, it’s constructed as a modular stack of just ingredients. Shall we embrace:
The window compositor is a separate project known as cosmic-comp.
The panel is its absorb component.
The launcher is separate.
Particular particular person desktop aspects drag as just applications.
In other words, COSMIC behaves extra like a bunch of coordinated tools than a single monolithic ambiance. This makes the system more straightforward to adapt over time. Parts can even be updated or replaced without rewriting the entire desktop. It’s a surprisingly up to date invent philosophy for a Linux desktop ambiance, and it’s one of the causes many builders are staring at COSMIC carefully.
Constructed-in tiling makes multitasking feel easy
COSMIC treats productivity as a firstclass characteristic
Another ingredient COSMIC does otherwise is how it handles home windows. Tiling window management is constructed without extend into the desktop. You attain not need extensions, and you attain not need to set up a tiling window manager. You attain not need to be taught sophisticated keyboard gymnastics. You merely enable tiling.
Once activated, home windows robotically space up themselves at some level of the veil. Open a new app, and the layout adjusts. Pass a window, and the grid reshapes itself. It sounds easy, but it entirely adjustments how the desktop feels. My standard workflow involves a browser, a writing editor, a terminal, and normally a documentation window someplace on the veil.
On GNOME, that setup normally requires some handbook resizing. On COSMIC, the layout happens robotically. The entire lot finds its advise without the desktop becoming a pile of overlapping home windows. After about a hours of the exhaust of it, the workflow begins to feel strangely natural.
