FOSSPicks
FOSSPicks
Nate explores the top FOSS including the last word in file compression, a superb Mastodon client, a Freeciv fork, and a random task selector.
Desktop environment
COSMIC Epoch 1
System76 is one of a very select group of companies that sell laptops, computers, and servers with only open source software preinstalled. To this end, System76 also bundles Pop!_OS on its devices. The distro is based on Ubuntu but traditionally has used a custom version of Gnome known as COSMIC.
Aside from working with System76 hardware, one of Pop!_OS's biggest draws is that it works out of the box with both NVIDIA and AMD GPUs. The latest version of the COSMIC desktop is now available via Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS alpha. The System76 website also includes instructions for installing the desktop environment in major Linux distros such as Fedora and Arch, but System76 is quick to point out that this is still in the testing stages, so you should only install on a spare or virtual machine (VM).
Keen to take the OS for a test drive, I downloaded the latest Pop!_OS ISO and fired it up in VirtualBox. (For fellow VM users, note that I had to enable 3D acceleration to get it working). While the install failed, I was able to fire up COSMIC in "demo mode" to test out its features. From reviewing the install instructions, I noted that COSMIC is written in Rust. It uses the iced cross-platform GUI library and Smithay as building blocks for its compositor.
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