Try the COSMIC Desktop from System76

COSMIC is System76's in-house desktop environment, written entirely in Rust using the iced GUI toolkit. It is not GNOME with a skin — it is a ground-up reimplementation with first-class tiling, a custom compositor (cosmic-comp), and its own settings daemon. As of mid-2025 the project is in public alpha: stable enough for daily exploration, not yet recommended for production workstations. This guide walks through installing it on Pop!_OS 24.04 Alpha and on the Fedora COSMIC Spin, configuring tiling, panels, and keyboard shortcuts, and knowing what to watch out for.

What You Need Before Starting

• A machine with a GPU that supports Wayland: Mesa 23+ (AMD/Intel) or NVIDIA with the 535+ proprietary driver. Software rendering works but is painful.
• At least 4 GB RAM; 8 GB recommended.
• A backup of any important data — alpha software can surprise you.
• For Fedora: Fedora 40 or 41 installation media or an existing Fedora 40/41 install.

Option A: Pop!_OS 24.04 Alpha (COSMIC Native)

System76 ships Pop!_OS 24.04 with COSMIC as the default and only session. This is the primary test platform and the path of least resistance.

1. Download and Write the ISO

Grab the latest alpha ISO from System76's release page. Images are published as pop-os_24.04_amd64_nvidia_*.iso or the Intel/AMD variant. Write it with your preferred tool:

sudo dd if=pop-os_24.04_amd64_intel_1.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=4M status=progress oflag=sync

Replace /dev/sdX with your USB device (confirm with lsblk first — wrong target destroys data).

2. Install Normally

Boot the live environment, run the installer from the dock. The installer itself is COSMIC-native. Disk encryption (LUKS), dual-boot alongside other Linux installs, and EFI setups all work. COSMIC runs only under Wayland — there is no X11 fallback session in Pop!_OS 24.04.

3. First Boot and Initial Setup

After install, Pop!_OS drops you into the COSMIC greeter. Log in and the setup wizard asks for appearance (dark/light/auto), input sources, and online accounts. You can skip all of it.

Option B: Fedora COSMIC Spin

The Fedora COSMIC Spin packages COSMIC on top of standard Fedora. It follows Fedora's release cycle and uses dnf. If you already run Fedora 40 or 41, you can install the desktop group without reinstalling.

1. Install the COSMIC Desktop Group on Existing Fedora

sudo dnf group install "COSMIC Desktop"

This pulls in cosmic-session, cosmic-comp, the settings stack, and all first-party applets. It will not remove GNOME or KDE if they are present.

2. Enable the COSMIC Session at Login

Reboot and select COSMIC from the session menu in GDM (click the gear icon on the login screen). COSMIC uses its own greeter (cosmic-greeter) when installed from the spin ISO, but GDM works fine on an upgrade.

3. Keeping COSMIC Updated on Fedora

sudo dnf upgrade --refresh

COSMIC components are standard RPMs; updates come through the normal Fedora update stream. No COPR is required for Fedora 40/41.

Understanding the COSMIC Shell Layout

COSMIC's default layout has a top panel (clock, system tray, workspace indicator) and an optional dock at the bottom. Neither is a taskbar in the traditional sense — COSMIC is workspace-first.

• Super opens the launcher (app search + calculator + file search).
• Super + W shows the workspace overview.
• Super + Arrow keys move focus between tiled windows.
• Super + Shift + Arrow keys swap windows within the tiling grid.
• Super + M toggles maximize for a focused window.

Configuring Tiling

COSMIC's tiler is built into the compositor. It is opt-in per workspace, not global.

Enable Auto-Tiling

Open Settings → Desktop → Tiling. Toggle Auto-tile new windows on. New windows on that workspace will split automatically: the first window fills the screen, the second splits it 50/50, and so on, using a binary-space-partitioning approach similar to PaperWM or i3.

Manual Tile Controls

With auto-tiling on, you can still override splits:

• Super + Slash — toggle between horizontal and vertical split for the focused container.
• Super + G — toggle floating for the focused window (pull it out of the tile grid).
• Drag a window's title bar into a tiled zone to manually dock it.

Per-Workspace Tiling vs. Floating

You can have workspace 1 tiled and workspace 2 floating. Switch workspaces with Super + 1-9 or by clicking the workspace strip in the panel. Right-click a workspace in the overview (Super + W) to toggle its tiling mode.

Customising the Panel and Dock

Right-click the top panel or dock to access Panel Settings. Key options:

• Position: top, bottom, left, right.
• Size: XS through XL — this controls both height and icon scale.
• Anchor/Extend: fill the full edge or float as a centred island (a la macOS Ventura dock).
• Applets: drag applets in/out of the panel. Built-in applets include workspaces, clock, notifications, battery, network, Bluetooth, and audio.

You can create additional panels — useful for a second monitor. Click Settings → Desktop → Panel and hit the + button to add a panel and assign it to a specific display.

Settings and Appearance

COSMIC Settings is a standalone app (not a control-panel GNOME extension). Noteworthy options:

• Appearance: base colour, corner radius (from square to very round), gap between tiled windows, and global dark/light/auto.
• Input Devices: per-device acceleration profiles, keyboard repeat rate, and touchpad gesture config.
• Display: fractional scaling in 25% steps — this works because COSMIC runs entirely on Wayland and uses the fractional-scale protocol.
• Accessibility: large text, high contrast, sticky keys — more complete than most alpha DEs.

Installing Applications

COSMIC ships with a native app store (COSMIC Store), backed by Flatpak from Flathub. Traditional package managers still work for CLI and background services.

# On Pop!_OS (apt)
sudo apt install neovim tmux

# On Fedora
sudo dnf install neovim tmux

For GUI applications, prefer Flatpak — it avoids library conflicts and runs well under COSMIC's Wayland session. Most Flatpaks that work under GNOME/KDE work here without changes.

Verifying the Session

Confirm you are running the COSMIC compositor and Wayland session:

echo $XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP
echo $WAYLAND_DISPLAY
systemctl --user status cosmic-session.target

Expected: XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP returns COSMIC, WAYLAND_DISPLAY returns something like wayland-1, and the systemd user target shows active.

Troubleshooting

Compositor Crash / Black Screen on Login

Switch to a TTY with Ctrl + Alt + F3. Check the journal:

journalctl --user -b -u cosmic-comp --no-pager | tail -40

NVIDIA users: confirm the nvidia-drm.modeset=1 kernel parameter is set. On Pop!_OS it is set by default; on Fedora add it via:

sudo grubby --update-kernel=ALL --args="nvidia-drm.modeset=1"
sudo dracut --force

Applications Not Appearing in Launcher

The launcher indexes .desktop files. Force a rescan:

update-desktop-database ~/.local/share/applications
# then log out and back in, or:
systemctl --user restart cosmic-app-library

Fractional Scaling Looks Blurry for XWayland Apps

Some legacy X11 apps running via XWayland will look blurry at non-integer scales — this is a known XWayland limitation, not a COSMIC bug. Either run them at 100%/200% or use the Flatpak version of the app if it ships a native Wayland backend.

Audio Applet Shows No Devices

COSMIC's audio applet relies on PipeWire. Verify it is running:

systemctl --user status pipewire pipewire-pulse

If either is inactive, enable them:

systemctl --user enable --now pipewire pipewire-pulse