COSMIC Desktop Alpha 6 Released with Many Changes

A new alpha release of System76’s emergent Rust-based COSMIC Desktop environment is out with a clutch of important improvements, bug fixes, and new features in tow.

Although COSMIC is very much a work-in-progress (i.e., unfinished, feature incomplete, and lacking polish) some intrepid folks already use it as their daily driver —though most folks eager to sample it will get a better impression from the upcoming COSMIC beta.

Still, these monthly(ish) alpha milestones provide a an easy way to peer through the portal to see how the COSMIC desktop UI, UX, and burgeoning app ecosystem is shaping up.

Below, I recap the notable (i.e., most visible) changes COSMIC Alpha 6 offers—wha follows is not an overview, introduction or review of COSMIC desktop as a whole.

COSMIC DE Alpha 6 Changes

Accessibility

Accessibility features are important in almost-all Linux desktop environments, COSMIC is no exception. Indeed, System76 has been committed to ensuring that the first stable release of COSMIC DE (dubbed ‘Epoch 1’) covers essential accessibility needs.

To which COSMIC Alpha 6 expands with a new Desktop Zoom feature. This can be activated in a few ways: via Settings > Accessibility; from the Accessibility applet in the panel; or via super + =, super + -, or super + mouse scroll key combos.

Screen reader and screen magnification toggles are also now present in the Accessibility applet for easier access, along with a shortcut to jump to the dedicated Settings > Accessibility panel.

Workflow

COSMIC Desktop Alpha 6 brings many changes

New icon size and grid spacing options are present in the Desktop view settings, providing more ways for users to fine-tune COSMIC desktop experience to their liking. The literal desktop itself now supports dropping files on to it from the file manager.

Results in the COSMIC Launcherbecome scrollable if more than 8 entries/matches are returned for a query.

Additionally, using the launcher to trigger Power Off, Restart, or Log Out actions trigger a countdown timer until they execute, bringing them in-line with how the same options in the Power applet behave.

Workspaces are an integral part of many folks’ workflow, and this sixth alpha dedicated changes to improving the experience of using them.

The workspace overview is now scrollable; the overview will exit once a workspace or empty area is clicked; workspaces previews (in horizontal mode) show name and number; and minimised windows can be dragged and dropped between workspaces.

Fractional scaling values not precise enough? Bump it up a bit

With high-resolution displays ever-more common, so is need for capable scaling options. COMSIC Alpha 6 introduces new ‘Additional scale options’ to support more precise scaling needs, allowing 5% to 20% on top of existing scaling values to increase the size of text.

Finally, clicking a notification toast in the Notification Applet now takes you direct to the application that produced the alert, saving you the hassle of having to switch through or launch it manually – it’s the little timesavers as much as the big I love.

App Changes

Lots of improvements to COSMIC’s core apps

The COSMIC Files file manager finally supports tab completion in the location bar during manual entry; home and end keys now jump to first and last item respectively; drag selection scrolling is now support; and password protected zips can be extracted and compressed.

COSMIC Edit, the native text editor, adds a ‘revert all changes’ option, scrolls view when dragging a cursor to select lots of text (when needed), highlights all matches in ‘Find’ searches, and prompts for auth password if trying to save a file to a root location.

Introduced in COSMIC Alpha 5, the COSMIC Player fleshes out its UI with a user-friendly ’empty state’ showing an ‘open’ button and adds a ‘File’ menu with a small suite of options. If the player window gets resized smaller than a certain width the seek bar moves to a second row.

Music fans using COSMIC Player to listen to tracks will be pleased to see—literally—that the latest version shows track info and art in the main view. It also adds MPRIS support to show active track name, artist and album art in the Sound applet.

Beyond

Some other notable improvements/tweaks in COSMIC Alpha 6 include

• Copy/paste using middle mouse button implemented
• Opens Sans replaces Fira Sans as COSMIC’s default font
• Noto Sans Mono is now default monospace (terminal) font
• Reduced memory usage across all COSMIC apps and applets
• ‘Windows Gravitate to Edges’setting in Window Management
• Settings allows default text editor to be changed

And as this desktop is still a formative work-in-progress, bug fixes include:

• Refresh rates now apply correctly in Settings > Display
• Multi-window app spread thumbnails adapt to the size of windows
• Compositor now plays nice with KVM switches
• COSMIC Files now allows Root folders to be added to the sidebar
• COSMIC Terminal�greys out menu options if they can’t be used
• Fix for a bug causing Steam to crash
• Battery fully charged icon changed
• Automatic colour calculation feature for themes has been updated
• Clicking next/previous month in the calendar widget no longer selects the day

In all, another welcome set of updates – updates that anyone already running Pop!_OS 24.04 Alpha will have received over the past 4 weeks (open COSMIC Store > Upgrades to get the, if you haven’t been updated via apt).

Try Pop!_OS 24.04 with COSMIC Alpha 6

If you want to try out the COSMIC desktop you can do so easily as a new Pop!_OS 24.04 Alpha ISO has been created with COSMIC Alpha 6 preinstalled, ready to go.

Download the ISO from the System76 website then flash to a USB, SD card, etc and boot on real hardware, or launch in a VM for safe play.

If you’re keeping tabs on the COSMIC desktop progression do let me know what you think of it in the comments, along with the top feature or option you’re hoping is added soon!