System76 delays Cosmic desktop alpha release as devs tease major strides for Pop!_OS DE

While the current versions of popular Linux distribution Pop!_OS still rely on a Gnome desktop environment with a handful of extensions slathered over the top to customise the experience, System76 is hard at work making its own desktop environment, Cosmic DE. As we recently reported, Cosmic was scheduled for its first alpha version release in March, however that no longer seems to be the case.

According to a recent blog post by System76, Cosmic will now skip its alpha 1 release, instead targeting a May public alpha release. While this is sure to be a bit of a bummer to fans of the Windows alternative, System76's reasoning behind the delay is to give its developers more time to get the features it wants ready in a position where they're ready for public testing.

COSMIC apps showcase what’s possible with the libcosmic widget library, the iced toolkit, and the COSMIC theming system. They also help demonstrate the long-term vision for the platform. With how far they’ve come, we’ve decided to delay the alpha release until the core apps reach MVP (Minimum Viable Product) so that they may be included with the initial ISO.

In short, instead of shipping the first alpha release of Cosmic with a mishmash of Gnome and Cosmic apps, System76 has decided to wait until the core Cosmic apps are ready. System76 also shared some of its progress on the core apps, confirming that features like hybrid graphics support, minimise and restore functionality, the new tiling applet, and the input device settings pages have been completed.

The apps currently being worked on for the alpha release are Cosmic Terminal, Cosmic Edit — the text editor — new app and applet icons, and Cosmic Files, the file manager. It is also working on tweaks and new functionality, including theming support via xdg-desktop-portal and light mode legibility improvements using iced toolkit's new colour management.

After some comments questioned the development team on Reddit for delaying the release, a System76 developer who goes by the handle u/mmstick clarified things yet again. He explained that there is no change to the overall release timeline, which is still planned for release with Pop!_OS 24.04 at the end of summer 2024.

Additionally, he commented that he felt that Cosmic was already more stable than Gnome, which is an impressive feat, considering part of Gnome's mission is stability and simplicity.

How Pop!_OS 24.04 turns out remains to be seen, but it looks as though System76 has some big plans for the new version, and it is always exciting to see a new desktop environment land in the Linux world.

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