[HN Gopher] COSMIC DE: Desktop environment created for Pop!_OS a...
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COSMIC DE: Desktop environment created for Pop!_OS and other Linux
distros
Author : pantalaimon
Score : 122 points
Date : 2023-07-14 15:10 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.system76.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.system76.com)
| jaakkonen wrote:
| I'm so stoked about a well supported tiling Wayland compositor!
| Now KDE/Gnome are the only secure options in a world where all
| others implement screen capture, virtual keyboard and virtual
| mouse interfaces without access restrictions (looking at you sway
| and all of wlroots)
| linsomniac wrote:
| Does this mean I can do screenshots and video conferencing
| screen sharing?
| zdragnar wrote:
| You've been able to do that for quite awhile, though zoom in
| particular is a pita on arch.
| ugh123 wrote:
| One thing i've seen desktop Linux struggle with, or rather the
| kernel or some other subsystem/drivers, is mouse and trackpad
| handling.
|
| On OSX (and possibly Windows although its been a long time), its
| soooooo silky smooth. But on multiple Linux distros i've used,
| including Pop and Ubuntu, it just doesn't feel right even after
| adjusting all sorts of settings.
|
| This is one thing thats kept me from full time Linux DE usage :(
|
| Edit: i'm using an Apple trackpad.
| beebeepka wrote:
| What are you complaining about? It's one thing to like MacBook
| trackpads but what exactly is wrong with trackpad/mouse
| handling in Linux?
|
| I use the same mouse on Mac, Linux, and windows. It feels
| exactly the same on each OS when configured to the same
| dpi/speed/accell and polling rate
| [deleted]
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| I've shared my opinion before on why mouse/trackpad handling is
| terrible on most Linux distributions [0], thanks to a misguided
| obsession w/ rewriting the entire stack and throwing away
| vendor-provided acceleration curves (most recently in order to
| provide gesture support instead of just building it on top of
| the correct, working solution).
|
| More importantly, there is a solution for fixing this and I've
| done my part by open sourcing a multi-touch gesture solution
| (userland daemon) that's driver-agnostic and runs on top of the
| vendor-provided drivers w/ their correct acceleration curves
| [1].
|
| (But TBH I don't know if this applies to Apple's trackpad
| because I don't know if there are any first-party drivers w/
| proper acceleration curves for Linux or if they've all been -
| unfortunately poorly - reverse engineered.)
|
| [0]: https://neosmart.net/blog/multi-touch-gestures-on-linux/
|
| [1]: https://github.com/mqudsi/syngesture/
| tannhaeuser wrote:
| Interesting. I came to accept the rewrite for libinput,
| considering it's being developed by the same developer as
| synaptics, and he/she who codes gets to decide whether to
| maintain something he/she considers a mess of course.
| However, the only possible reaction from my side was to leave
| behind what was causing physical pain for me and return to
| Mac OS. From past discussions ([1], [2]), it appears I'm far
| from the only one. I hope the extant desktop devs at Red Hat
| and elsewhere enjoy their big refactorings for the sake of it
| as a hobby (wayland, gnome, libinput, systemd) but man does
| it suck. It's such a regression I've given up any hope and
| think desktop Linux has already peaked around 2016-18.
|
| [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35313903
|
| [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35428847
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| You're not the only one to express this sentiment; a lot of
| people grappling with the discontinuities in the X11 to
| Wayland migration (and the gnome 2 to gnome 3 to gnome 4)
| have been saying the same thing. And that's just for cases
| where the same developers have decided to move on to a new
| approach and the community has begrudgingly agreed to march
| along.
| sebastiandb wrote:
| I'm using a Dell laptop, but I'm running vanilla GNOME on
| EndeavourOS (took out the distro-specific customizations in the
| installer), and its trackpad support seems perfect on mine.
| Everything is as smooth as I've seen on Windows or MacOS. The
| settings menu for it is nice. I especially like how it comes
| with a three-finger swipe left or right to switch
| workspaces/desktops, or a three-finger swipe up to get an
| overview of your current desktop. It all feels natural, and it
| gives me a sense of control; if I swipe slowly, it switches
| slowly, rather than just make the transition deterministically
| after I've swiped in some direction (something I've experienced
| elsewhere on Linux).
|
| I also like that you can use two-fingers to zoom in on a
| webpage with Firefox, just as on Windows.
|
| GNOME is the first DE I've tried where all of this touchpad
| support was implemented so well, although I haven't tried that
| many, to be fair.
|
| Sorry if I sound like an advertisement; I just wanted to be
| specific about what I like about GNOME's trackpad support as
| opposed to just saying that it "works fine for me."
| littlestymaar wrote:
| I got forced by my employer to use a mac two years ago, and I
| had the exact opposite experience: the trackpad was so far from
| what I was used to (from reversed scroll motion, to the many
| accidental and undiscoverable multi-touch or smart gesture
| shennanigans) that I just hated it, and I soon plugged a mouse.
|
| UX is a very subjective thing, and it depends a lot on your
| background: you're never going to feel instantly home when
| switching platform no matter how "polished" it is supposed to
| be.
| windthrown wrote:
| I may just not be as picky as others but I have felt my
| System76 laptop's trackpad with PopOS is quite smooth. Improved
| from when I previously just installed Ubuntu on random Dell
| laptops.
| serf wrote:
| >it just doesn't feel right even after adjusting all sorts of
| settings.
|
| personal opinion: have you looked at the sheer number of
| options exposed for a modern trackpad in linux?
|
| it's insane; I don't really have any problem understanding the
| difficulty in achieving a good set of defaults -- there were
| like 200 exposed parameters the last time I tried to get it
| 'just right'. (a modern synaptics' touchpad on a new dell XPS.)
|
| if I was on some quest to make it feel like Windows or OSX i'd
| probably have to give up -- not that those two feel better to
| me, but the sheer granularity is intimidating.
|
| NOTE: this isn't to say that I dislike how the trackpad feels
| in Linux; I usually always get to a nice set of parameters that
| feels good to me, they just _aren 't_ the same as Windows or
| OSX, although I have little doubt that the granularity is there
| for _someone_ to get it right.
| jwells89 wrote:
| This is partially due to hardware.
|
| Trackpads are anything but standardized. For example those
| Apple's been using for quite a while now are built with the
| same touch controllers they use in iPhones (essentially making
| them iPhone screens sans screen panel), and on the extreme
| opposite end you've got cheap ones like is built into a
| Logitech media center combo board I bought several years ago
| which emulates a mouse instead of presenting itself to the
| connected device as a trackpad (and as you might expect, is
| terrible to use).
| smoldesu wrote:
| I'm using a Magic Trackpad 2; my experience has been just about
| perfect on KDE Wayland. GNOME's implementation is good too, but
| KDE's feels slightly more intuitive to me.
|
| KDE gives you more granular trackpad settings than MacOS offers
| out-of-box, and the Wayland session has more gestures than you
| can shake a stick at. I think you owe yourself another visit :)
| pjerem wrote:
| There have been incredible improvements on this precise topic
| during 2022.
|
| You should give your Apple Trackpad a new try on the latest
| Gnome on Wayland.
| tryptophan wrote:
| I'm using a razor basilisk and it just feels so awful to use on
| linux. The best part of the mouse is the great scroll
| wheel(very similar to the mx master but better) and this part
| does not work at all on linux. Scrolling in general is just a
| total mess in linux and it frustrates me so much that I went
| back to windows. The mouse movements also feel so janky for
| reasons I can't really put my finger on.
| wffurr wrote:
| There was a project to address this but it's been slow going:
| https://www.gitclear.com/blog/linux_touchpad_update_january_...
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| Right now, at least on my machines, Linux/X11 is better than
| Windows.
|
| I think that on macOS, the hardware is also miles ahead of what
| you can get on a pc. This isn't to downplay the software
| because I remember my MBP's touchpad being wonky under windows
| a few years back.
|
| But things have improved. My HP EliteBook 845 G8 is fine under
| Linux/X11. Still somewhat worse than the 2013 MBP, but not
| nearly as horrible as the HP two generations back. I'd rate it
| as comparable to my 2012 unibody MBP.
|
| Under windows, it's fine, too, but it has a weird lag if you
| pay attention.
| babypuncher wrote:
| I've never had a problem getting good mouse performance on
| Windows, under what circumstances are you noticing any lag?
|
| Windows, like X11, uses a hardware mouse cursor. It sends a
| sprite to the GPU along with coordinates and it is drawn by
| the GPU outside your compositor's pipeline.
| dmz73 wrote:
| Mac trackpad keeps getting mentioned as something that is
| leagues above the rest. I recently had to use MacBook air M2
| and the trackpad was horrible. It was big but hard to use and
| it couldn't handle simple click and drag style of gesture
| that works on both windows and Linux. The buzzing feedback
| was random and confusing. I had to get a mouse after a few
| minutes struggling with it. For me experience on 15yo Dell
| with trackpad 1/4 the size feels superior to Mac.
| klooney wrote:
| It's all about what you're used to, they're all fine until
| you switch.
| jwells89 wrote:
| Where are you encountering buzzing feedback? I don't think
| I've experienced that in any Mac laptop I've used in the
| past 20 years. There's the haptic feedback from clicking
| but that's singular, distinct, and non-repeating.
| smohare wrote:
| Sounds like you're just not familiar with the relevant
| gestures? I can't say I've had a single issue with my M2
| trackpad.
| kccqzy wrote:
| I'm also using an Apple trackpad on Linux (over both Bluetooth
| and USB) and it works absolutely fine. I didn't need to adjust
| any settings. It feels native. No difference whatsoever that I
| can perceive between this trackpad on Linux and on macOS.
| babypuncher wrote:
| Apple's Magic Trackpad has a disappointingly low polling rate.
| It feels bad even on my Mac when using it with a 120hz display.
| The built-in trackpad on the other hand feels great. Is it
| possible this is your problem?
| mark_l_watson wrote:
| I agree about the trackpad. I have two old Max Laptops running
| Ubuntu and the trackpad experience is perfect.
|
| That said, I have a style involving sometimes using both index
| fingers on my System76 trackpad and the experience is really
| good, but to be honest it always takes me a minute to get in a
| groove with it.
| WD-42 wrote:
| This is the first time in recent memory that a company's software
| has made me want to buy their hardware. They are doing such cool
| stuff with Pop_OS, figure my next laptop will be from System76.
| winrid wrote:
| I'll agree when PopShop doesn't take 800mb of ram idle in the
| background (it keeps the entire repo in memory instead of in a
| DB).
| isthisfoss wrote:
| Is there any legitimate reason for this? I also find it
| generally unresponsive and it lags hard inbetween searches
| and clicks. I mean I always update from terminal but for how
| they're trying to develop the desktop experience I don't get
| why it takes up so many resources despite being sluggish
| winrid wrote:
| All the work is done in the UI thread. They did some work
| on that, not sure if merged.
|
| I'd fix it myself but it's all in Vala and I don't have
| time to learn another language.
| jwells89 wrote:
| Genuine question, are any of the package manager "app store"
| style front ends actually nice to use right now? From my
| perspective having used several different distributions and
| environments over the course of the last ~15 years, they've
| all been "just ok" at best, very obviously webviews with some
| native chrome glued on, and had issues with resource usage,
| glitchy UI/UX, lagginess, etc.
|
| Is it a matter of these particular bits not receive adequate
| attention or something else? I'm not opposed to trying to
| pitch in and help improve them but before that's feasible the
| root problem needs to be understood.
| winrid wrote:
| Synaptic works great. Not super newbie friendly though.
| [deleted]
| rglullis wrote:
| Having had one of their laptops and realizing how poorly
| constructed it is, I believe you should re-think it.
|
| Besides, there is nothing stopping you from using their DE on
| any other PC.
| ndiddy wrote:
| I'm looking forward to their Virgo laptops, which will be
| designed and manufactured in-house instead of being rebadged
| Sager/Clevo laptops. If they're able to pair high-quality
| hardware with a high quality Linux desktop experience, I
| think a lot of developers will switch over.
| rglullis wrote:
| Too late for me. The framework is doing everything I need
| and I hope that I never ever get to buy another full
| laptop.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| I use their os on an old xps 13, and it's fully replaced
| ubuntu (I hate snaps!) as my go to distribution. It's pretty
| flawless.
|
| I do hope they take the time to fully iron out the bugs on
| cosmic before making it the default. I was an early wayland
| adopter but after facing issue after issue, I eventually
| realized that the jump from xorg to wayland was all about
| making the _developers_ life easier, with little to any
| benefit to me as an end user.
| kibwen wrote:
| The designs for their most recent laptops are also freely and
| openly licensed, using the CERN Open Hardware License:
| https://github.com/system76/virgo/
| Longlius wrote:
| My experience with System76 laptops has been mixed. Some of
| their models are great, many are fraught with issues.
|
| I would definitely not buy one if you're not in North America
| as there's a decent chance you'll need hardware support.
| nescioquid wrote:
| I've had mixed luck as well.
|
| Hardware (darter pro 7, everything maxed):
|
| Recently, the keyboard and trackpad of my two-year-old laptop
| suddenly became a convex surface. Had to open a support
| ticket to _ask_ how to get a replacement battery.
|
| Many days later, I got a reply that it would be $120 +
| shipping and do I want to go ahead and order one? No advice
| on how to mitigate a potentially hazardous situation caused
| by their product and full retail price on replacing the
| defective part.
|
| Pop!_OS:
|
| Before I had actually moved into the laptop or installed
| anything (other than emacs and firefox), the package manager
| crapped itself with some circular dependency. As I started to
| work through unfucking the situation, it occurred to me this
| wasn't my fault and why am I putting up with this?
| sp33der89 wrote:
| Can one try out this new DE right now?
| opencl wrote:
| The repo readme has instructions for installing test builds.
|
| https://github.com/pop-os/cosmic-epoch
| kaladin-jasnah wrote:
| The effort to write a DE in Rust (especially with iced) is
| impressive and will definitely improve Rust GUI efforts. I am
| surprised, however, the margins around buttons and layouts in the
| settings are uneven (eg. no margins around the "Wallpaper" title
| but large margins on the toggles on "Background fit" or
| "Slideshow"). Is this a beta thing, or how the UI is supposed to
| be designed?
| stavros wrote:
| Hmm, it's in Rust? That's interesting, if they manage to make a
| snappy DE, I'm switching to Pop!_OS in a heartbeat.
| bdeshi wrote:
| ~~I think that's supposed to be the scroll bar~~. what's caught
| my eye is the gaps between the content and the border in the
| window corners.
| dlivingston wrote:
| Can you provide any references on the DE being written with
| Rust + iced? That's huge news in my book. This would be, AFAIK,
| the first major production UI written with a Rust GUI
| framework.
| MegaDeKay wrote:
| Its use of iced is mentioned in the article itself, second
| paragraph from the bottom. That same paragraph has a link to
| cosmic-text on github & its Rust code.
| kaladin-jasnah wrote:
| I found this: https://www.reddit.com/r/pop_os/comments/xs87ed
| /is_iced_repl...
|
| The commenter is a System76 employee.
| Klonoar wrote:
| It's better than it was in previous previews, which makes me
| think we're probably seeing the result of "get a bunch of shit
| done" with sprints of "now make it look better", cycle and
| repeat.
| isthisfoss wrote:
| They've been talking about this for years I feel like. Are they
| committed to releasing it any time soon? The last Pop update was
| well over a year ago. Are they moving to a rolling distribution
| model once cosmic is completed? I recall System76 saying they'd
| do annual releases but again they haven't delivered on that
| beanjuiceII wrote:
| kind wish popOS + framework laptop, wasn't crazy about my
| system76 laptops :(
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| Considering you can install the current Pop!_OS on non-S76
| laptops, I don't see why COSMIC wouldn't become more widely
| available when it's done.
|
| Heck, if it stays true to the idea of being just a Desktop
| Environment and not an entire OS, there's no reason we couldn't
| start to see it become a standard Ubuntu flavor or a Fedora
| Spin.
| mfer wrote:
| I'm sending you this message from popOS on a Framework laptop.
| claytonjy wrote:
| As am I; it's been a very reliable combination for me.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| pop on xps13 here. It's dreamy
| WhereIsTheTruth wrote:
| Resizing looks very sluggish
|
| I suspect they use Gnome Shell.. what a mistake if they do..
|
| https://hyprland.org/ is where it's at
| jwells89 wrote:
| This looks super smooth but I wish there were a floating-first
| version. All of the notable standalone Wayland WMs I know about
| are tiling-first which doesn't work well for me at all.
| codeusr014123 wrote:
| The regular popos shell is built on top of gnome, but I believe
| COSMIC is a brand new DE built with rust/js.
|
| > https://hyprland.org/ is where it's at
|
| also, thanks for sharing this.
| sdwvit wrote:
| do you know what js engine do they use?
| sharms wrote:
| These early results look very promising, it is really interesting
| to see the high quality and speed of iteration and they are
| tackling some hard problems such as High DPI right off the bat.
| Hoping to get to try this out soon
| SomeRndName11 wrote:
| Although I am myself running PopOS LTS on my machine right now,
| for historical reasons, I see no value proposition compared to
| Debian 12. If their Cosmic DE does not handle scaling at least as
| good as KDE (which is alow bar) I won't use it.
| mark_l_watson wrote:
| That looks pretty good! I have a System76 laptop running PopOS
| somI will try it this weekend.
|
| A little off topic, sorry, but I bought my System76 laptop about
| 5 years ago, and it is still a workhorse. Good but old i7 and
| 1080 GPU and software is up to date.
| locusofself wrote:
| The silly name Pop!_OS has kept me from even trying it.
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| Your loss, it's quite good. I've been using it for 3 years on a
| Ryzen laptop and it's the best Linux experience out of the box
| and with minimal customization that I've ever had in decades of
| Linux desktop use.
| Karsteski wrote:
| Yay love these updates. I'm looking forward to hearing HDR news
| from system76
| claytongulick wrote:
| I love what's going on with Pop!_OS but I wish they'd simplify
| the name and rebrand it.
|
| The exclamation point rubs me wrong.
| mometsi wrote:
| Without zany capitalization or symbols how would people know
| it's an operating system?
|
| UNIX: not an acronym, but all-caps anyway
|
| iOS: inverted titlecase helps us stand out
|
| Microsoft(r) Windows(tm): these are _our_ brand names! no
| trespassing!
| Zambyte wrote:
| To be fair, the first two are also trademarked brand names
| isthisfoss wrote:
| It really is the worst name. 76OS is much more mature
| Zambyte wrote:
| I believe it's meant to be pronounced like "pop bang", but no
| one says the bang part.
| SkyMarshal wrote:
| Yeah it's just too much to bother saying.
| samschooler wrote:
| For anyone who was confused: I'm from Colorado and I like
| astronomy so I was pretty excited to read about well... that.
|
| This is about System76 which is also pretty cool but for people
| looking for Cosmic Skies of a Colorado July, please see the below
| links:
|
| - https://csastro.org/events-calendar/event/
|
| - https://www.denverpost.com/2022/01/03/2022-astronomy-meteor-...
|
| - https://www.denverastro.org/das-events/event-calendar/
|
| - https://www.9news.com/video/tech/science/starlink-satellites...
| bkjelden wrote:
| I didn't see any reference to Colorado in the article besides
| the title, did I miss something?
|
| (I _also_ only clicked because I'm from Colorado...)
| Jtsummers wrote:
| They're based in Denver, CO.
| ThatGeoGuy wrote:
| System76 is based in Denver, Colorado. Presumably, this is
| where COSMIC is being developed.
| DMell wrote:
| Also from Colorado and this very much confused me.
| seanthemon wrote:
| Not from Colorado, also disappointed - give me my promised
| cosmic skies!
| dang wrote:
| Submitted title was "COSMIC Skies of a Colorado July", which
| HN's software changed to "Cosmic Skies of a Colorado July",
| which was even more generic. I've replaced the title with
| representative language from the article now.
| freedomben wrote:
| Would it have been better if in the headline, instead of
| "Cosmic" they had put "COSMIC" ?
| stavros wrote:
| I think HN autocorrects capitals to title case.
| jsh_jhnsn wrote:
| COSMIC!_
| samschooler wrote:
| Looking at their previous headlines, that would make sense :)
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(page generated 2023-07-14 23:01 UTC)