System76's COSMIC Desktop Nearing Alpha Release

In a Valentine's Day blog post, System76 has outlined how they are nearing the release of their alpha build of the COSMIC desktop environment that they have been developing as part of their Pop!_OS Linux distribution.

COSMIC developers recently wrapped up work on their screenshot functionality, floating window stacks is now implemented in COSMIC, there is better performance out of the COSMIC Terminal, on-screen displays (OSDs) are now complete, animations when going in/out of the maximized window state, completing the display settings, wallpaper settings are complete, and more.

COSMIC developers are still finishing up work on the hybrid graphics support, additional COSMIC Terminal and COSMIC EDIT (text editor) features, tiling improvements, workspaces, login screen support, and other features.

Here are some of the screenshots shared by System76:

The developers are "close" to the COSMIC alpha milestone. The COSMIC desktop will formally debut as part of Pop!_OS 24.04 later this year that in turn is based on the Ubuntu 24.04 LTS package set.

More details on the current state of the COSMIC desktop via the System76.com blog.