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PayPalSystem76 are making a bit of a splash today, ahead of the Alpha release of their new desktop environment named COSMIC. They told me that COSMIC is still planned to have an Alpha release in late July, although that's still just an estimate it could be pushed back if there's issues.
To get things started, they've released the COSMIC branding:
Pictured - COSMIC logos, colours, gradients, and tagline.
Speaking about COSMIC and their new branding, here's what they said:
COSMIC makes it easy for distro developers to create the experience they envision for their users, while empowering users to curate an environment that works for them. This is the crux of COSMIC that became its slogan: Visions enacted, users empowered. And not just on the desktop, either. COSMIC is designed for creating custom experiences on any device with a display.
The open-ended ‘O’ logo mark not only represents a display, but also signifies an unwavering commitment to open source, an invitation for community, and vast possibility through customization. Beneath it, the System76 blip in an orange-red gradient resembles a keyboard with customized LEDs, representing what’s possible with COSMIC.
COSMIC offers the freedom to put your best foot forward across workflow, navigation, theming,
updates, security — and stability, thanks to its memory-safe Rust code.
On top of that, they've revealed the COSMIC Freedom Sale where you can get some big discounts on Desktops, Laptops, and Keyboards. To entice you even further you'll even get a free COSMIC T-Shirt with every laptop or desktop order, and COSMIC stickers with every computer.
Items on sale:
- $100 off the Lemur Pro 14” ultraportable laptop.
- $200 off the Pangolin 16” ultraportable laptop.
- $200 off the Oryx Pro 16” powerful laptop.
- $200 off the Thelio Spark starter desktop.
- $200 off the Thelio small form factor desktop.
- $30 off the Launch Lite 67% keeb.
- $50 off the Launch 76% keyboard.
- $50 off the Launch Heavy full-size keyboard.
The sale runs through July 9th.
Here's also a recent shot of COSMIC in action that the System76 Founder showed off on Mastodon:
Some you may have missed, popular articles from the last month:
Quoting: Vortex_AcheronticQuoting: tohurman IMO cosmic looks uuugly af.. no amount of theming gona help it either as it isn't just cosmic but every GUI rust app I have ever seen looks uuugly
You can use any GUI framework with Rust. Be it GTK3, GTK4, Qt5, Qt6 or just the dedicated rust-written UI frameworks.
Also I need to admit Cosmic looks to me very similar to Gnome but with a flatter theme and less round corners. The rest is just different colours.
Those are the only rust apps that do look good to me.. but these rust apps that use rust based GUI tool kits are uuugly lmao. thats just my opinion so not aiming to offend anyone such as the guy that replied just below my OG post lol
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pleasereadthemanual Jun 27
Quoting: tohurthats just my opinion so not aiming to offend anyoneNo, why would anyone be offended by that?
Rust just compiles to C in the end. Iced is several decades younger than GTK or Qt.
GNOME and Libadwaita certainly have the best design on the Linux desktop. The design for COSMIC looks somewhat incomplete, which makes sense—they're not even in Alpha yet. GNOME has had over 20 years to perfect their design. I think it started looking really good around the start of the 2020s.
GNOME looked like this in 2011: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/21/Fedora_15_Lovelock_Gnome3.png/1600px-Fedora_15_Lovelock_Gnome3.png
Give them time. It looks fine, in my opinion, but lacking contrast. And then they went too far in adding contrast to the active window with the thick, bright blue border. Something subtler would be better.
I don't think the design and UI is fundamentally flawed; it's something that can be improved iteratively.
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pleasereadthemanual Jun 27
It's impressive how far System76 has come with COSMIC in less than two years. They've gone from nothing to a full desktop written in an up-and-coming language—Rust—and they've made countless contributions to foundational projects along the way, like gtk4-rs, iced, Smithay, and Wayland Protocols.
I've always loved the idea of a tiling window manager that's batteries included (like what Zellij is to terminal multiplexers). I spent so many hours configuring Sway but in the end it just didn't have the features I needed, nor did it make it easy to change things. COSMIC looks exactly like the middle ground I'm looking for.
I'm looking forward to trying out COSMIC soon. It'll be great to recommend a distribution anyone can use that has fully embraced modern technologies for the Linux desktop, and I hope Pop!_OS is that next year.
And I really want to write something with libcosmic.
I've always loved the idea of a tiling window manager that's batteries included (like what Zellij is to terminal multiplexers). I spent so many hours configuring Sway but in the end it just didn't have the features I needed, nor did it make it easy to change things. COSMIC looks exactly like the middle ground I'm looking for.
I'm looking forward to trying out COSMIC soon. It'll be great to recommend a distribution anyone can use that has fully embraced modern technologies for the Linux desktop, and I hope Pop!_OS is that next year.
And I really want to write something with libcosmic.
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I hope that they succeed, looks like it will be the only wayland alternative to KDE and GNOME, I tried a lot of times to use KDE (3, 5, 6...), I sincerely can't like it, too much bugs and pretty bad apps (even the calculator is bad IMO). Gnome just feels better and looks like they are improving the gaming aspect of it. However I dislike the way gnome works, I mean, the UX is perfect to me, but sounds like they aren't helpful to keep compatibilities with other DEs.
COSMIC sounds like it picks the best of both DEs.
I want to try it as soon it releases, and after that I hope that soon they develop a Fedora Spin with it.
COSMIC sounds like it picks the best of both DEs.
I want to try it as soon it releases, and after that I hope that soon they develop a Fedora Spin with it.
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pleasereadthemanual Jun 27
Quoting: fagnerlnI tried a lot of times to use KDE (3, 5, 6...), I sincerely can't like it, too much bugs and pretty bad apps (even the calculator is bad IMOThere's no reason you can't use GNOME's calculator on KDE. I mean, it's what I do. I use Solanum, Amberol, Bottles, Evolution, Folaite, Loupe, Lutris, Errands, GNOME Boxes, and Remmina on KDE. GNOME applications look pretty good on KDE with only slight weirdness in some cases. Nautilus is probably the most pronounced instance of this, but it looks nowhere near as bad as Dolphin looks on GNOME.
I also use plenty of applications that KDE does well, like Kdenlive, Krita, and Qbittorrent.
I really like the way GNOME works, but I needed to move to KDE because it's just not built for multiple monitors. Not much has changed for me now that I'm here.
But I'd also love to try out COSMIC.
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Quoting: pleasereadthemanualThere's no reason you can't use GNOME's calculator on KDE.
I knew you could put gnome's default stuff on KDE (I do that every time for its disk utility), but the calculator never occurred to me for some reason, even though I just go over to my phone for calculations. Maybe I should just brush up on coding, if I didn't fall off, I'd probably have made KCalc that understands context myself lmao
Last edited by pilk on 27 June 2024 at 4:28 am UTC
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Quoting: Purple Library GuyCosmic? Duuuuude.She's just a cosmic girl, from another galaxy.
Last edited by Pengling on 27 June 2024 at 4:44 am UTC
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Quoting: Vortex_AcheronticAlso I need to admit Cosmic looks to me very similar to Gnome
That was definitely my thought, seeing the screenshot.
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Vortex_Acherontic Jun 27
Quoting: tohurrust based GUI tool kits are uuugly lmao
I think part of the reason is that Rust is, beside it being popular in terms ppl know about it, is still a niche programming language if it comes down to the actuall usage of it and ppl using it for more serious stuff beside a "Hello World".
What I want to say is, that most rust developers are probably no UI / UX designers and thus if they do UIs it's just to have something that works. Rather than tweaking the UI till the very end of time.
As someone who works in software development and uses rust for also UI apps (GTK4) I must say tweaking UIs is a very daunting task. Also it is often a lost battle. Because what looks and feels nice to one person might feel complete arse for another person. I mean just take a look at r/unixporn or even the distribution of desktop environments used there are so many ways to tweak and customize the way a user interface can look like that it is impossible to make all ppl happy.
Anyhow. I have no issues if someone does not like rust written GUI apps and you are free to not like it. I don't want to convince you otherwise. But ugly UI / UX is not limited to rust.
1 Likes, Who?
Quoting: Vortex_AcheronticWhat I want to say is, that most rust developers are probably no UI / UX designers and thus if they do UIs it's just to have something that works. Rather than tweaking the UI till the very end of time.
I don't think it's that. System76 had a designer work on the screens and IMO it just doesn't look good - even those designs (as in pictures)
On top of that, I also think some of the UX is bad, but not sure if that will matter.
But it's easy to iterate on. At leas I do hope that for them :)
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