System76 Developing a New Desktop Environment
The makers of Pop!_OS are currently in the early stages of creating a brand new, non-GNOME, desktop environment.
System76 is never one to settle. Consider what they’ve done to the GNOME desktop environment with their COSMIC treatment. Effectively, the company has made GNOME their own. But that wasn’t enough, so the developers have set out to create a brand new DE, from scratch, using Rust.
Why? Michael Murphy, Pop!_OS maintainer for System76, said, “There are things we’d like to do that we can’t simply achieve through extensions in GNOME. Extensions in general feel like a hack. And what we want to do with our desktop differs from GNOME, so it’s not like the option to merge pop-shell and COSMIC into GNOME Shell would be a welcome thing.”
Although the new desktop will not be a fork of GNOME, the developers do plan on reusing some of the current GNOME tooling, such as Mutter, KWin, and Wlroots. On this issue, Murphy said, “We’re already using gtk-rs for all of our stuff. My assumption is that it’s likely to see some components in GTK for the foreseeable future.” Murphy continues, “The shell itself though is lower level than a traditional desktop GUI toolkit. It’ll use primitives from the window manager it builds upon. If a mature Rust GUI turns up, then it could be used in the future of course. I’d generally like to use the best tools where possible.”
The System76 desktop will also be distribution-agnostic, so it won’t require Pop!_OS to run. As well, the developers plan on sticking to (when possible) the standards, set by FreeDesktop.
Don’t expect this new desktop environment to appear any time soon. Since this is a brand new project, it'll take some time. Keep a close watch on the System76 blog for more updates.
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
![Learn More](https://www.linux-magazine.com/var/linux_magazin/storage/images/media/linux-magazine-eng-us/images/misc/learn-more/834592-1-eng-US/Learn-More_medium.png)
News
-
NVIDIA Released Driver for Upcoming NVIDIA 560 GPU for Linux
Not only has NVIDIA released the driver for its upcoming CPU series, it's the first release that defaults to using open-source GPU kernel modules.
-
OpenMandriva Lx 24.07 Released
If you’re into rolling release Linux distributions, OpenMandriva ROME has a new snapshot with a new kernel.
-
Kernel 6.10 Available for General Usage
Linus Torvalds has released the 6.10 kernel and it includes significant performance increases for Intel Core hybrid systems and more.
-
TUXEDO Computers Releases InfinityBook Pro 14 Gen9 Laptop
Sporting either AMD or Intel CPUs, the TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro 14 is an extremely compact, lightweight, sturdy powerhouse.
-
Google Extends Support for Linux Kernels Used for Android
Because the LTS Linux kernel releases are so important to Android, Google has decided to extend the support period beyond that offered by the kernel development team.
-
Linux Mint 22 Stable Delayed
If you're anxious about getting your hands on the stable release of Linux Mint 22, it looks as if you're going to have to wait a bit longer.
-
Nitrux 3.5.1 Available for Install
The latest version of the immutable, systemd-free distribution includes an updated kernel and NVIDIA driver.
-
Debian 12.6 Released with Plenty of Bug Fixes and Updates
The sixth update to Debian "Bookworm" is all about security mitigations and making adjustments for some "serious problems."
-
Canonical Offers 12-Year LTS for Open Source Docker Images
Canonical is expanding its LTS offering to reach beyond the DEB packages with a new distro-less Docker image.
-
Plasma Desktop 6.1 Released with Several Enhancements
If you're a fan of Plasma Desktop, you should be excited about this new point release.