Title: is it new though?
They released their first alpha build today.
Cosmic: A New Desktop Environment
21–30 of 207 posts
Re: Cosmic: A New Desktop Environment
#22One cool feature that I didn’t see described very well here is Cosmic allows you to group windows in tabs, but the tabs can be different applications. Kind of an interesting idea that the OS/window manager is what should be responsible for tab support, not each application.
Stacking is fantastic feature but it's not unique to Cosmic as the current DE for Pop_OS already has this feature. Also available on Windows with FancyWM, which has been growing on me.
Originally from BeOS, I believe. (Thus the funky BeOS window shape. Still quite difficult to discover.)
Re: Cosmic: A New Desktop Environment
#23[flagged]
Who would control it? There isn't just one "Linux community". There are multiple organizations that use Linux, and the ones that are well-managed tend to do the best. How would the key people behind Gnome and KDE resolve their differences, or any of the smaller projects? Should everyone just use ChromeOS?
Re: Cosmic: A New Desktop Environment
#24I see a slightly restyled Mate desktop environment. Nothing really new, some marginal advantage like a tiny bit more visible window focus. Scrollbars still invisible. Buttons even harder to distinguish from not-buttons, and not clear how a disabled button can look when everything is so graywashed. Generally, looks like another designers take on style, not usability.
Re: Cosmic: A New Desktop Environment
#25[flagged]
This is a lot like wishing car manufacturers would unify on how to build a car.
And I mean that not as a dismissal. Standards on many things are nice. So is exploring all of the area left open by the standards.
I think it is an open question on whether or not we could have more standards around what a desktop environment should/could be? Unfortunately, I don't know that there is a company in a good position to build out new standards, at the moment. Most of the big companies are largely content to work alone in their world. Maybe build up a sandbox that keeps developers there.
Re: Cosmic: A New Desktop Environment
#26[flagged]
I disagree. The beauty of open source is that many philosophies have room to prosper. The Linux ecosystem is not the Apple ecosystem.
At first I was going to say something like "Well with that attitude we'll never get the 'year of the Linux desktop.' But actually, what you say describes exactly what the Linux desktop is.
It isn't about hegemony but rather a free marketplace of ideas and philosophies that gives its users a depth of choice between desktops and configurability within desktops that you can't find in any other operating system. So with your philosophy the "year of the Linux desktop" has already happened and is continuing to.
In other words it's ok for people quit obsessing over low market-share and instead enjoy their freedom.
Re: Cosmic: A New Desktop Environment
#27[flagged]
I'm not sure why you are being downvoted. I personally like Elementary the most, and it has an objectively robust strategy of copying macOS.
Why it is hard to take leadership of the desktop on Linux? There's lots of crappy, buggy projects. They differentiate themselves on meaningless, non-functional experiential things like theming specifications, what programming language you write so and so functionality in, the licenses, etc.
The tiny audience of "undecideds" in the Linux ecosystem adopt stuff for stupid reasons. Meanwhile normal people are obviously happy to use macOS. To copy macOS and deliver what those people need, you need millions of dollars of product development every year. You'd have nothing to show for it year after year. So it's very hard.
Re: Cosmic: A New Desktop Environment
#28[flagged]
Re: Cosmic: A New Desktop Environment
#29[flagged]
I gave up entirely and went with xmonad and no decorations, panels or anything at all.
Re: Cosmic: A New Desktop Environment
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree. The beauty of open source is that many philosophies have room to prosper. The Linux ecosystem is not the Apple ecosystem.
At first I was going to say something like "Well with that attitude we'll never get the 'year of the Linux desktop.' But actually, what you say describes exactly what the Linux desktop is. It isn't about hegemony but rather a free marketplace of ideas and philosophies that gives its users a depth of choice between desktops and configurability within desktops that you can't find in any other operating system. So with…
Weird to use market metaphors to describe things that are not commodities. Plurality is the key here, everyone free to choose their own software. The "free marketplace of ideas" metaphor implies that there's some natural process determining which ideas are ultimately the best, when really it's qualitative and very subjective.