The nice thing about Linux is that if another distro has a really cool desktop layout that you like, there’s a good chance you can download it on your own PC too. It’s not like, say, Windows versus iOS, where you need third-party apps to emulate what the other operating system uses; If a Linux distribution has an interesting desktop environment that you like, just get it.
While we’ve gotten used to the long legacies of GNOME and KDE, there’s another cool kid on the block. It’s called COSMIC, and it hasn’t even been a year since its full release before some of the biggest names in Linux have adopted it as an option for their users.
COSMIC started life as an alternative to GNOME for Pop!_OS
GNOME was not taking the step
COSMIC came about because Pop!_OS developers System76 wanted something to match their distribution. At first, they settled for GNOME as the face of their distribution, but when System76 started trying to develop it, they realized there were some problems with the desktop environment.
System76 wanted something that people could customize to their liking. After all, it is one of the greatest strengths of using Linux; People have the power to configure their PC however they want. So, they added extensions to GNOME to customize it, but it became clear that every time GNOME was updated, there was a risk of the extensions breaking.
The extensions also had the problem of potentially removing the entire desktop environment. Because extensions had to run within the main shell process, if one failed, it killed all of GNOME. System76 wanted to do some powerful things with extensions, but the risk of one of them going wrong and ruining the user experience was too much.
The System76 team knew something had to be done. So, they decided to create their own desktop environment in Rust. Development began in late 2021 and eventually reached version 1.0 in late 2025.
COSMIC release sees several interesting developments in the Linux scene
It is not just another desktop environment
When COSMIC 1.0 was released, people tested it to see what it was capable of. One of the most attractive features of COSMIC is that it does not force users into a traditional desktop layout or a tiled window manager like Hyprland. COSMIC came with a button that, when pressed, allows you to effortlessly switch between the two. It doesn’t matter if you were a fan of one of the other; COSMIC could work with you. You can even switch between them on the fly if you feel like it.
COSMIC also did not suffer from the problem that older desktop environments have. GNOME and KDE are based on older technology and should continue to support it, but COSMIC came out with a Rust implementation dedicated to Wayland. That means people got snappier performance on the first installation without any adjustments.
Additionally, COSMIC’s desire to have a truly customizable experience came into play. The extensions that caused System76 to leave GNOME behind allowed people to modify COSMIC to their liking, which was a refreshing change from the norm.
COSMIC sees rapid adoption by major distributions
And even some distributions made specifically for it.
As mentioned in the introduction, other distributions don’t have to sit back and watch another operating system get a good-looking desktop environment. As long as people are willing to maintain it, other distributions can have the same desktop environment as an option.
We’re starting to see COSMIC appear on Arch Linux and NixOS. Arch Linux users are used to customizing their computers to the extreme; After all, the raw installation process involves manually building your operating system via a command line. The Arch Linux community quickly got the COSMIC packages up and running in the repositories, where it became popular with users who wanted a modern Wayland desktop environment that had native tiling capabilities from boot.
After that, we saw COSMIC appear on Fedora and openSUSE. The first launched a twist with official support called Fedora Cosmic Twistwhile openSUSE users could enter a terminal command in Leap or Tumbleweed to get it. Other distributions were created, such as Origami Linux and AstrOS. because COSMIC was so good, the first used a Fedora Atomic base and the second used Arch.
COSMIC received a lot of love and it’s not even a year old.
While Linux is known for being built on decades of code, it can also be ahead of the curve. COSMIC is a great example of the latter, and if you’re looking for something new for your distribution, try COSMIC.
