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Pop_OS 24.04 LTS with COSMIC desktop environment

blog.system76.com

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Re: Pop_OS 24.04 LTS with COSMIC desktop environment

#41

Post by akdor1154 »

ender341341 wrote: post #20
panick21_ wrote: post #12

I have been using is since early Alpha and overall its pretty good. Certainty bug early on but now that I'm thinking on it I don't remember hitting any real issues in a few months now. I still think the name Pop!_OS is dumb, they should just call it CosmicOS, as this new desktop is their defining feature and its a great name. What is really amazing is that thanks to Cosmic now becoming an important part of Wayland, a…

> the community in total can finally move protocol forward that were blocked by really dumb ideological conflicts that are holding back Wayland. If Cosmic can take Gnome market share, people will be more willing to move on protocols without Gnome and hopefully eventually Gnome will realize that they have to implement this stuff, or at least large users of Gnome will realize it. Can you expand on what you mean here? I…

Gnome is wayland, but they are very stubborn about the extensions they will/won't implement. For example, mixed dpi scaling, server side decorations, accessibility protocols all work differently on gnome or not at all.

This makes it very difficult for Wayland to evolve in a way that people want, as Gnome is the biggest player by user count.

Re: Pop_OS 24.04 LTS with COSMIC desktop environment

#42

Post by sho_hn »

phkahler wrote: post #39

I've often said OSes and DEs have stagnated, so web browsers started innovating in areas they shouldn't have needed to. Tabs is one such area. And now with Cosmic: Stacks, snapping, and sticky windows ◦ Stack windows to combine them into tab groups like a browser ••• Right click on the header and choose Create Window Stack. Then drag another window to the stack. ••• When tiling windows, simply drag the window on top…

FWIW, multiple KDE versions had similar group-windows-with-tabs implementations for many years, and the uptake wasn't particularly high.

Cf. https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/archive/kde44...

Re: Pop_OS 24.04 LTS with COSMIC desktop environment

#43

Post by bxparks »

jorvi wrote: post #31
tmtvl wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hard bounced off COSMIC with the complete lack of theming. I can't even set my clock to a reasonable format in it. The only thing it has going for it is sane multi-monitor support, which neither KDE nor GNOME have gotten right so far (though at KDE there is some activity around it, dunno 'bout GNOME).

I really hate that at some point in the past, KDE developers decided that they hated how deeply intuitive virtual desktops are and deprecated them in favor of something deeply unintuitive (Activities). Any issue or complaint mentioning it is shot down with "you're holding it wrong." Please just give virtual desktops first class support and lets forget about the Activities experiment. Most users hate it. The attitude…

I'm not familiar with the Gnome terminologies. Is Overview the one where they removed all the desktop icons, breaking 40 years of GUI conventions going back to the 1970s? (It's impossible to do a search on a product called "Overview".) I blew away Gnome after that, installed Mint MATE (now Cinnamon), and vowed to never touch Gnome again.

Re: Pop_OS 24.04 LTS with COSMIC desktop environment

#44

Post by akdor1154 »

dontlaugh wrote: post #25
tmtvl wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hard bounced off COSMIC with the complete lack of theming. I can't even set my clock to a reasonable format in it. The only thing it has going for it is sane multi-monitor support, which neither KDE nor GNOME have gotten right so far (though at KDE there is some activity around it, dunno 'bout GNOME).

What’s wrong with Gnome’s multi monitor support? My two monitors even have different pixel density.

Gnome works OK with integer scaling, more granular than this and you're up shit creek.

E.G. can you set one screen to 150% and one to 175%? (I think the answer to this is 'technically yes but then everything goes a bit blurry because they do it by rendering at 2x then downscaling')

Proper mixed dpi scaling means stuff will render pixel-perfectly instead of downscaling hacks.

Re: Pop_OS 24.04 LTS with COSMIC desktop environment

#45

Post by baobun »

criddell wrote: post #28
pjmlp wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was introduced to UNIX in 1993, Linux in 1995's Summmer, and have lost count how many X Windows desktops or windows managers have come and gone in 32 years.

What's been your favorite? I wasted too much time tweaking Enlightenment. I remember that was fun but I don't really remember much about actually using it. OS/2's Workplace Shell feels like the biggest lost opportunity (and has nothing to do with UNIXy stuff). I really liked Rexx and the SOM stuff felt cleaner than what became COM in Windows.

Some underappreciated and forgotten tiling wms that are still viable today:

- ratpoison ("tmux for X11". Ultralight, great for kiosks and similar where you barely want a WM at all)

- stumpwm (ratpoison on steroids in Lisp)

- Xmonad (A bit different tiling dynamic that some prefer. I dig it despite Haskell, not because of it)

- Qtile (Very flexible and easily hackable in python yet reasonably stable and fast. You can reproduce for example the Xmonad or i3 experiences pretty easily)

Re: Pop_OS 24.04 LTS with COSMIC desktop environment

#46

Post by MrBra »

kwanbix wrote: post #30

I tried it because another_linux_distro! Sadly, I found the COSMIC dock looks "dead" since they can not implement the genie effect as it is patented by Apple ://///////// EDIT: I refer to this effect: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/eOrvbaKz5H4 It is called magnification effect.

What's the genie effect?

Re: Pop_OS 24.04 LTS with COSMIC desktop environment

#47

Post by dontlaugh »

akdor1154 wrote: post #44
dontlaugh wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s wrong with Gnome’s multi monitor support? My two monitors even have different pixel density.

Gnome works OK with integer scaling, more granular than this and you're up shit creek. E.G. can you set one screen to 150% and one to 175%? (I think the answer to this is 'technically yes but then everything goes a bit blurry because they do it by rendering at 2x then downscaling') Proper mixed dpi scaling means stuff will render pixel-perfectly instead of downscaling hacks.

I have two 4K monitors, one at 150% and another at 175%. Nothing is blurry.

I did have to get a reasonably new Gnome, Ubuntu LTS had one that was broken with fractional scaling.

Re: Pop_OS 24.04 LTS with COSMIC desktop environment

#48

Post by criddell »

mghackerlady wrote: post #35
criddell wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on Ubuntu? So is it basically Ubuntu with Gnome removed and COSMIC added? How compatible are the two OS's? They show icons for Steam, Chrome, Firefox, Zoom, etc... Does that mean they are maintaining their own fork of those applications built for COSMIC?

No? They can run on cosmic, just like they can run on any other desktop. It's a linux distro, it does linux distro things and happens to be built on ubuntu. What part of this are you not getting? Remember when Ubuntu made Unity because they were pissed at the GNOME people? That's what System76 did, they got mad at GNOME because GNOME didn't like how much they were messing with GNOME

I'm not super familiar with the history of GNOME, KDE, or COSMIC and I've never used COSMIC and I haven't been able to see into their app store to see what apps are available.

The version of Chrome (for example) that Google distributes uses GTK which is GNOME, no? So I was wondering if System76 forked that and made a version that uses the COSMIC API.

Re: Pop_OS 24.04 LTS with COSMIC desktop environment

#49

Post by data-ottawa »

MrBra wrote: post #46
kwanbix wrote: post #30

I tried it because another_linux_distro! Sadly, I found the COSMIC dock looks "dead" since they can not implement the genie effect as it is patented by Apple ://///////// EDIT: I refer to this effect: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/eOrvbaKz5H4 It is called magnification effect.

What's the genie effect?

The window being minimized animates.

It goes from bottom to top of the window with a continuous effect, it squishes down in width then gets warped/pulled to the dock icon to minimize.

The effect is like when Genie from Aladdin enters or leaves the lamp, but without smoke.

Re: Pop_OS 24.04 LTS with COSMIC desktop environment

#50

Post by jorvi »

bxparks wrote: post #43
jorvi wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really hate that at some point in the past, KDE developers decided that they hated how deeply intuitive virtual desktops are and deprecated them in favor of something deeply unintuitive (Activities). Any issue or complaint mentioning it is shot down with "you're holding it wrong." Please just give virtual desktops first class support and lets forget about the Activities experiment. Most users hate it. The attitude…

I'm not familiar with the Gnome terminologies. Is Overview the one where they removed all the desktop icons, breaking 40 years of GUI conventions going back to the 1970s? (It's impossible to do a search on a product called "Overview".) I blew away Gnome after that, installed Mint MATE (now Cinnamon), and vowed to never touch Gnome again.

Overview is when you press the Super ('Windows') key.

What appears is an unholy amalgamation of a launcher, a workspace strip, a window overview, workspace peeking, and a dock.

Worse yet is that every time you go in or out of this overview, an animation plays, making things fly and animate everywhere constantly, whenever you want to take any action.

Whenever someone points out to Gnome developers that most people only want to open a launcher to type "52*93" or find a contact, that they just want to mouse over a dock to have a lightweight way to see if an application is open (and to switch to it), they get irate and tell you their vision is vastly superior.

Gnome could be pretty great if the developers their attitude to their users wants and the feedback on their issue tracker wasn't extreme snark and "actually we are right". Even if clear UI defects are pointed out, no, in fact they are right.

The Gnome peoples also frustrate any attempt at improving Wayland at a more rapid clip.

There is a reason why Valve went with KDE. KDE has its own set of problems, but at least they are receptive, cooperative and friendly. I genuinely hope Valve puts enough money into KDE that Gnome with its high and mighty attitude gets completely railroaded.

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