First Public Release of Pop!_OS 24.04 Alpha With COSMIC Desktop Now Available for Testing

Pop!_OS 24.04 Alpha Unveiled With the New COSMIC Desktop Environment

The highly anticipated COSMIC desktop environment is finally ready for its premiere test run. The first public alpha of the COSMIC desktop environment has been launched concurrently with the Pop!_OS 24.04 alpha release. This offers an exciting opportunity for users to download an ISO, boot it up, and examine what this Rust-programmed desktop brings to the table.

Advanced Beginnings of COSMIC Desktop Alpha

Pop!_OS 24.04 employs the same technical foundations as Ubuntu 24.04 LTS but introduces a slew of their exclusive modifications and adaptations. This includes their new COSMIC desktop environment, compositor, greeter, and toolkit. This ambitious project from System76 engineers showcases an entirely new desktop environment developed from scratch using the Rust programming language in just over two years.

Rust-based Innovation of COSMIC

The Rust programming language was chosen for its readability, stability, maintainability, and memory safety which greatly reduce system vulnerabilities associated with memory. Despite being a newer language, System76's engineers succeeded in integrating novel features like compositing and text rendering into the COSMIC desktop environment. This significant technological achievement in COSMIC projects a bright future for its evolution and enhancement.

What's Unique about the COSMIC Desktop Environment?

COSMIC debuts a user experience that closely mirrors the GNOME-based incarnation of the Pop Shell experience. It stands out with its new design language and theming, shareable comprehensive theming system, customization options for dock and top bar amongst other new features. COSMIC also brings new core apps, including a file manager, terminal, text editor, new Settings app, and Pop Store software hub to the users.