{"slug": "cosmic", "name": "COSMIC", "category": "os", "category_name": "Operating systems and desktop", "description": "Rust-based Linux desktop environment developed by System76, the default desktop in Pop!_OS.", "recommenders": 8, "commenters": 12, "warners": 1, "score": 6.965, "rising": -0.29, "first": "2025-12-11", "latest": "2026-10-15", "why": "Liked for its built-in window tiling, including a mixed tiling and floating workflow, and several commenters run it as a smooth daily driver.", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": true, "sentiment": {"recommend": 10, "neutral": 3, "compare": 1, "warn": 1}, "spark": [0, 3, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 2, 0, 2, 1], "listed": true, "loved": ["Window tiling", "Daily driver"], "caveat": "Glitches", "short_quote": "COSMIC's mixed tiling+floating workflow is amazing and my new daily driver", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://system76.com/cosmic", "pricing": "open source", "aliases": ["COSMIC"], "verdict": [{"text": "Liked for its built-in window tiling, including a mixed tiling and floating workflow,", "cites": [{"id": 797303760, "item_id": 49831485, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49831485", "by": "c7b", "date": "2026-09-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "COSMIC's mixed tiling+floating workflow is amazing and my new daily driver", "excerpt": "Two projects that I found brought nice, more incremental changes to the desktop were COSMIC and Omarchy. Both use tiling, COSMIC's mixed tiling+floating workflow is amazing and my new daily driver. I personally don't use Omarchy for a variety of reasons, but I'd love to be able to install its launcher and keyboard integrations.", "context": "", "use_case": "daily desktop", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ideas on modernizing the open-source desktop"}, {"id": 739774512, "item_id": 46235907, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46235907", "by": "foxheadman", "date": "2025-12-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It's surprisingly good: a DE with powerful enough window tiling.", "excerpt": "I used to hear about COSMIC and think \"Glad to see more choice, but I doubt this will go anywhere\". I wanted a Sway-like experience but with a desktop experience, and so tried it. It's surprisingly good: a DE with powerful enough window tiling. It's now my daily driver. Since they're backed by a sole company, I'm still not convinced on their longevity, but remain hopeful! I'm not familiar with Pop OS, which I now rea", "context": "", "use_case": "daily driver desktop", "switched_from": "", "story": "Pop_OS 24.04 LTS with COSMIC desktop environment"}, {"id": 739798752, "item_id": 46237422, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46237422", "by": "swisniewski", "date": "2025-12-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Cosmic on a DGX Spark, as my daily driver, and it works pretty well.", "excerpt": "I use Cosmic on a DGX Spark, as my daily driver, and it works pretty well. They don\u2019t have a pop os iso for arm64, but they do have arm64 Debian repo. So I just took DGX os (what Nvidia ships on the device), added the pos os \u201creleases\u201d repo, and installed cosmic-session. It works like a charm and provides a super useful tiling experience out of the box. This is replacing my M3 Pro as my daily driver and I\u2019ve been pre", "context": "", "use_case": "daily driver desktop with tiling", "switched_from": "", "story": "Pop_OS 24.04 LTS with COSMIC desktop environment"}, {"id": 784491505, "item_id": 49030719, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49030719", "by": "SHaD0S", "date": "2026-07-23", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I like Rust so I tried it and fell in close with cosmic. with auto tiling turned on", "excerpt": "PopOS! I used arch for my intro but shortly got tired of the setup. I like Rust so I tried it and fell in close with cosmic. with auto tiling turned on, of course ;)", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What Linux distro do you daily drive?"}]}, {"text": " and several commenters run it as a smooth daily driver.", "cites": [{"id": 796734880, "item_id": 49795930, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49795930", "by": "thewhitetulip", "date": "2026-09-22", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Yes I use cosmic DE on Fedora. I didn't find it a downgrade at all! Despite not running an M chip it is butter smooth", "excerpt": "Yes I use cosmic DE on Fedora. I didn't find it a downgrade at all! Despite not running an M chip it is butter smooth", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "macOS 27: Workaround to avoid downloading AI models and save storage"}, {"id": 739798752, "item_id": 46237422, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46237422", "by": "swisniewski", "date": "2025-12-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Cosmic on a DGX Spark, as my daily driver, and it works pretty well.", "excerpt": "I use Cosmic on a DGX Spark, as my daily driver, and it works pretty well. They don\u2019t have a pop os iso for arm64, but they do have arm64 Debian repo. So I just took DGX os (what Nvidia ships on the device), added the pos os \u201creleases\u201d repo, and installed cosmic-session. It works like a charm and provides a super useful tiling experience out of the box. This is replacing my M3 Pro as my daily driver and I\u2019ve been pre", "context": "", "use_case": "daily driver desktop with tiling", "switched_from": "", "story": "Pop_OS 24.04 LTS with COSMIC desktop environment"}, {"id": 739781136, "item_id": 46236321, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46236321", "by": "panick21_", "date": "2025-12-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I have been using is since early Alpha and overall its pretty good.", "excerpt": "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", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "Pop_OS 24.04 LTS with COSMIC desktop environment"}, {"id": 739774512, "item_id": 46235907, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46235907", "by": "foxheadman", "date": "2025-12-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It's surprisingly good: a DE with powerful enough window tiling.", "excerpt": "I used to hear about COSMIC and think \"Glad to see more choice, but I doubt this will go anywhere\". I wanted a Sway-like experience but with a desktop experience, and so tried it. It's surprisingly good: a DE with powerful enough window tiling. It's now my daily driver. Since they're backed by a sole company, I'm still not convinced on their longevity, but remain hopeful! I'm not familiar with Pop OS, which I now rea", "context": "", "use_case": "daily driver desktop", "switched_from": "", "story": "Pop_OS 24.04 LTS with COSMIC desktop environment"}, {"id": 797303760, "item_id": 49831485, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49831485", "by": "c7b", "date": "2026-09-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "COSMIC's mixed tiling+floating workflow is amazing and my new daily driver", "excerpt": "Two projects that I found brought nice, more incremental changes to the desktop were COSMIC and Omarchy. Both use tiling, COSMIC's mixed tiling+floating workflow is amazing and my new daily driver. I personally don't use Omarchy for a variety of reasons, but I'd love to be able to install its launcher and keyboard integrations.", "context": "", "use_case": "daily desktop", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ideas on modernizing the open-source desktop"}]}, {"text": " The most common caveat is remaining glitches and growing pains,", "cites": [{"id": 773279617, "item_id": 48329976, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48329976", "by": "ntnsndr", "date": "2026-05-29", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "keeping GNOME for the handful of things Cosmic glitches out on", "excerpt": "I recently got a FW12 and, for a random data point, my kids love it: the color, the ability to do art on the touchscreen, the foldability. And I love all those things too, in addition to getting to play with various flavors of Linux on it. (Now running Fedora with Cosmic, but keeping GNOME for the handful of things Cosmic glitches out on.) It is just a fun computer, and I appreciate that playfulness about it every da", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "It's hard to justify buying a Framework 12"}, {"id": 777471634, "item_id": 48591977, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48591977", "by": "tracker1", "date": "2026-06-18", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Even the growing pains for Cosmic have been less annoying than some of the \"features\" of Windows.", "excerpt": "I'm not really using anything too exotic... my hardware all works, and my printer has generally been without issue (HP Color Laser on ethernet) regardless of what I use to print from. For me, I switched when the start menu started showing internet ads as part of the results... I ran insiders for years, often joking that WSL was my favorite Linux distro... I love the new MS Terminal, and pretty happy with a lot of thi", "context": "not a gamer, Linux dev target for server software", "use_case": "Linux desktop", "switched_from": "Windows", "story": "Microsoft new Outlook takes 10 seconds to do what Outlook Classic does instantly"}, {"id": 739781136, "item_id": 46236321, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46236321", "by": "panick21_", "date": "2025-12-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I have been using is since early Alpha and overall its pretty good.", "excerpt": "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", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "Pop_OS 24.04 LTS with COSMIC desktop environment"}, {"id": 759185234, "item_id": 47449077, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47449077", "by": "geophile", "date": "2026-03-19", "stance": "warn", "quote": "That new DE is another source of instability.", "excerpt": "I have been using Pop_OS for many years, and I\u2019m still on 22.04, which uses X11. I don\u2019t understand the pros and cons of X11 vs. Wayland, I just want a working desktop. 24.04 uses Wayland, and while some people have had no problems migrating, many people are having serious problems. From what I can tell, it\u2019s not a good choice for me yet. This article tells me that it may not be a good choice ever. I am a huge fan of", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Wayland set the Linux Desktop back by 10 years"}]}, {"text": " and one commenter doubts the longevity of a project backed by a single company.", "cites": [{"id": 739774512, "item_id": 46235907, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46235907", "by": "foxheadman", "date": "2025-12-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It's surprisingly good: a DE with powerful enough window tiling.", "excerpt": "I used to hear about COSMIC and think \"Glad to see more choice, but I doubt this will go anywhere\". I wanted a Sway-like experience but with a desktop experience, and so tried it. It's surprisingly good: a DE with powerful enough window tiling. It's now my daily driver. Since they're backed by a sole company, I'm still not convinced on their longevity, but remain hopeful! I'm not familiar with Pop OS, which I now rea", "context": "", "use_case": "daily driver desktop", "switched_from": "", "story": "Pop_OS 24.04 LTS with COSMIC desktop environment"}]}], "praise": [{"label": "Window tiling", "summary": "Commenters praise its tiling, especially mixing tiling with floating windows.", "quotes": [{"id": 797303760, "item_id": 49831485, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49831485", "by": "c7b", "date": "2026-09-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "COSMIC's mixed tiling+floating workflow is amazing and my new daily driver", "excerpt": "Two projects that I found brought nice, more incremental changes to the desktop were COSMIC and Omarchy. Both use tiling, COSMIC's mixed tiling+floating workflow is amazing and my new daily driver. I personally don't use Omarchy for a variety of reasons, but I'd love to be able to install its launcher and keyboard integrations.", "context": "", "use_case": "daily desktop", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ideas on modernizing the open-source desktop"}, {"id": 739774512, "item_id": 46235907, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46235907", "by": "foxheadman", "date": "2025-12-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It's surprisingly good: a DE with powerful enough window tiling.", "excerpt": "I used to hear about COSMIC and think \"Glad to see more choice, but I doubt this will go anywhere\". I wanted a Sway-like experience but with a desktop experience, and so tried it. It's surprisingly good: a DE with powerful enough window tiling. It's now my daily driver. Since they're backed by a sole company, I'm still not convinced on their longevity, but remain hopeful! I'm not familiar with Pop OS, which I now rea", "context": "", "use_case": "daily driver desktop", "switched_from": "", "story": "Pop_OS 24.04 LTS with COSMIC desktop environment"}, {"id": 739798752, "item_id": 46237422, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46237422", "by": "swisniewski", "date": "2025-12-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Cosmic on a DGX Spark, as my daily driver, and it works pretty well.", "excerpt": "I use Cosmic on a DGX Spark, as my daily driver, and it works pretty well. They don\u2019t have a pop os iso for arm64, but they do have arm64 Debian repo. So I just took DGX os (what Nvidia ships on the device), added the pos os \u201creleases\u201d repo, and installed cosmic-session. It works like a charm and provides a super useful tiling experience out of the box. This is replacing my M3 Pro as my daily driver and I\u2019ve been pre", "context": "", "use_case": "daily driver desktop with tiling", "switched_from": "", "story": "Pop_OS 24.04 LTS with COSMIC desktop environment"}]}, {"label": "Daily driver", "summary": "Several commenters use it every day and report few real issues lately.", "quotes": [{"id": 739798752, "item_id": 46237422, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46237422", "by": "swisniewski", "date": "2025-12-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Cosmic on a DGX Spark, as my daily driver, and it works pretty well.", "excerpt": "I use Cosmic on a DGX Spark, as my daily driver, and it works pretty well. They don\u2019t have a pop os iso for arm64, but they do have arm64 Debian repo. So I just took DGX os (what Nvidia ships on the device), added the pos os \u201creleases\u201d repo, and installed cosmic-session. It works like a charm and provides a super useful tiling experience out of the box. This is replacing my M3 Pro as my daily driver and I\u2019ve been pre", "context": "", "use_case": "daily driver desktop with tiling", "switched_from": "", "story": "Pop_OS 24.04 LTS with COSMIC desktop environment"}, {"id": 739781136, "item_id": 46236321, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46236321", "by": "panick21_", "date": "2025-12-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I have been using is since early Alpha and overall its pretty good.", "excerpt": "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", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "Pop_OS 24.04 LTS with COSMIC desktop environment"}, {"id": 784616224, "item_id": 49038514, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49038514", "by": "tracker1", "date": "2026-07-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I switched to Linux for non-work and mostly Cosmic since later alphas.", "excerpt": "Nifty to see... I always liked BeOS/Haiku from a tech perspective, but really don't care nearly as much for the UX or ergonomics... I really like a lot of the Windows 10 start menu and taskbar, but I do hate the MS search results/ads,etc so I switched to Linux for non-work and mostly Cosmic since later alphas.", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "Windows 10", "story": "Half-Life 2 running natively on HaikuOS"}]}, {"label": "Smooth performance", "summary": "One user calls it butter smooth even without high-end hardware.", "quotes": [{"id": 796734880, "item_id": 49795930, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49795930", "by": "thewhitetulip", "date": "2026-09-22", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Yes I use cosmic DE on Fedora. I didn't find it a downgrade at all! Despite not running an M chip it is butter smooth", "excerpt": "Yes I use cosmic DE on Fedora. I didn't find it a downgrade at all! Despite not running an M chip it is butter smooth", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "macOS 27: Workaround to avoid downloading AI models and save storage"}, {"id": 739798752, "item_id": 46237422, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46237422", "by": "swisniewski", "date": "2025-12-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Cosmic on a DGX Spark, as my daily driver, and it works pretty well.", "excerpt": "I use Cosmic on a DGX Spark, as my daily driver, and it works pretty well. They don\u2019t have a pop os iso for arm64, but they do have arm64 Debian repo. So I just took DGX os (what Nvidia ships on the device), added the pos os \u201creleases\u201d repo, and installed cosmic-session. It works like a charm and provides a super useful tiling experience out of the box. This is replacing my M3 Pro as my daily driver and I\u2019ve been pre", "context": "", "use_case": "daily driver desktop with tiling", "switched_from": "", "story": "Pop_OS 24.04 LTS with COSMIC desktop environment"}]}, {"label": "Polished UI", "summary": "Recommended to people who like a fancy UI, and preferred over macOS on an ultrawide monitor.", "quotes": [{"id": 801666212, "item_id": 50104138, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50104138", "by": "c7b", "date": "2026-10-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "If you like fancy UI, check out the COSMIC desktop environment", "excerpt": "CachyOS is probably the new hip one (Arch-based). The new \"I use x, btw\" would be nixOS. Arguably, the distro matters a lot less if you use containers or flatpaks for most things (which I'd recommend). So there's nothing standing against using just boring Debian stable these days, or Fedora if you want to be more up to date. If you like fancy UI, check out the COSMIC desktop environment, should work on all mentioned.", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ubuntu 26.10 (Stonking Stingray) released"}, {"id": 739798752, "item_id": 46237422, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46237422", "by": "swisniewski", "date": "2025-12-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Cosmic on a DGX Spark, as my daily driver, and it works pretty well.", "excerpt": "I use Cosmic on a DGX Spark, as my daily driver, and it works pretty well. They don\u2019t have a pop os iso for arm64, but they do have arm64 Debian repo. So I just took DGX os (what Nvidia ships on the device), added the pos os \u201creleases\u201d repo, and installed cosmic-session. It works like a charm and provides a super useful tiling experience out of the box. This is replacing my M3 Pro as my daily driver and I\u2019ve been pre", "context": "", "use_case": "daily driver desktop with tiling", "switched_from": "", "story": "Pop_OS 24.04 LTS with COSMIC desktop environment"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "Glitches", "summary": "Users report bugs early on and some tasks where it still glitches out.", "quotes": [{"id": 773279617, "item_id": 48329976, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48329976", "by": "ntnsndr", "date": "2026-05-29", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "keeping GNOME for the handful of things Cosmic glitches out on", "excerpt": "I recently got a FW12 and, for a random data point, my kids love it: the color, the ability to do art on the touchscreen, the foldability. And I love all those things too, in addition to getting to play with various flavors of Linux on it. (Now running Fedora with Cosmic, but keeping GNOME for the handful of things Cosmic glitches out on.) It is just a fun computer, and I appreciate that playfulness about it every da", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "It's hard to justify buying a Framework 12"}, {"id": 739781136, "item_id": 46236321, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46236321", "by": "panick21_", "date": "2025-12-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I have been using is since early Alpha and overall its pretty good.", "excerpt": "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", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "Pop_OS 24.04 LTS with COSMIC desktop environment"}, {"id": 777471634, "item_id": 48591977, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48591977", "by": "tracker1", "date": "2026-06-18", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Even the growing pains for Cosmic have been less annoying than some of the \"features\" of Windows.", "excerpt": "I'm not really using anything too exotic... my hardware all works, and my printer has generally been without issue (HP Color Laser on ethernet) regardless of what I use to print from. For me, I switched when the start menu started showing internet ads as part of the results... I ran insiders for years, often joking that WSL was my favorite Linux distro... I love the new MS Terminal, and pretty happy with a lot of thi", "context": "not a gamer, Linux dev target for server software", "use_case": "Linux desktop", "switched_from": "Windows", "story": "Microsoft new Outlook takes 10 seconds to do what Outlook Classic does instantly"}]}, {"label": "Instability", "summary": "A long-time Pop!_OS user calls the new desktop another source of instability.", "quotes": [{"id": 759185234, "item_id": 47449077, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47449077", "by": "geophile", "date": "2026-03-19", "stance": "warn", "quote": "That new DE is another source of instability.", "excerpt": "I have been using Pop_OS for many years, and I\u2019m still on 22.04, which uses X11. I don\u2019t understand the pros and cons of X11 vs. Wayland, I just want a working desktop. 24.04 uses Wayland, and while some people have had no problems migrating, many people are having serious problems. From what I can tell, it\u2019s not a good choice for me yet. This article tells me that it may not be a good choice ever. I am a huge fan of", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Wayland set the Linux Desktop back by 10 years"}]}, {"label": "Longevity", "summary": "One commenter is unsure about its future because one company backs it.", "quotes": [{"id": 739774512, "item_id": 46235907, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46235907", "by": "foxheadman", "date": "2025-12-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It's surprisingly good: a DE with powerful enough window tiling.", "excerpt": "I used to hear about COSMIC and think \"Glad to see more choice, but I doubt this will go anywhere\". I wanted a Sway-like experience but with a desktop experience, and so tried it. It's surprisingly good: a DE with powerful enough window tiling. It's now my daily driver. Since they're backed by a sole company, I'm still not convinced on their longevity, but remain hopeful! I'm not familiar with Pop OS, which I now rea", "context": "", "use_case": "daily driver desktop", "switched_from": "", "story": "Pop_OS 24.04 LTS with COSMIC desktop environment"}]}], "who": [{"by": "tracker1", "context": "not a gamer, Linux dev target for server software", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48591977", "date": "2026-06-18"}, {"by": "chao-", "context": "Linux user for 17 years", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46484952", "date": "2026-01-03"}], "tags": ["for tiling fans", "for Fedora users", "for Windows switchers", "for Pop!_OS users", "runs on ARM64"], "use_cases": ["desktop environment", "daily desktop", "linux desktop", "stacked tiling desktop", "linux desktop environment", "daily driver desktop with tiling"], "compared": [{"slug": "pop-os", "name": "Pop!_OS", "co": 4, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "fedora", "name": "Fedora", "co": 4, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "windows", "name": "Windows", "co": 1, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "kde", "name": "KDE", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "gnome", "name": "GNOME", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "windows-10", "name": "Windows 10", "co": 1, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "arch-linux", "name": "Arch Linux", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "sway", "name": "Sway", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46235618", "title": "Pop_OS 24.04 LTS with COSMIC desktop environment", "mentions": 3}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50102423", "title": "Ubuntu 26.10 (Stonking Stingray) released", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49825642", "title": "Ideas on modernizing the open-source desktop", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49787535", "title": "macOS 27: Workaround to avoid downloading AI models and save storage", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49034868", "title": "Half-Life 2 running natively on HaikuOS", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49029345", "title": "Ask HN: What Linux distro do you daily drive?", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {"recommend": 3}, "2026-01": {"compare": 1, "neutral": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {"recommend": 1, "warn": 1}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-06": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-07": {"recommend": 2}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {"recommend": 2}, "2026-10": {"recommend": 1}}, "quotes": [{"id": 801666212, "item_id": 50104138, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50104138", "by": "c7b", "date": "2026-10-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "If you like fancy UI, check out the COSMIC desktop environment", "excerpt": "CachyOS is probably the new hip one (Arch-based). The new \"I use x, btw\" would be nixOS. Arguably, the distro matters a lot less if you use containers or flatpaks for most things (which I'd recommend). So there's nothing standing against using just boring Debian stable these days, or Fedora if you want to be more up to date. If you like fancy UI, check out the COSMIC desktop environment, should work on all mentioned.", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ubuntu 26.10 (Stonking Stingray) released"}, {"id": 797303760, "item_id": 49831485, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49831485", "by": "c7b", "date": "2026-09-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "COSMIC's mixed tiling+floating workflow is amazing and my new daily driver", "excerpt": "Two projects that I found brought nice, more incremental changes to the desktop were COSMIC and Omarchy. Both use tiling, COSMIC's mixed tiling+floating workflow is amazing and my new daily driver. I personally don't use Omarchy for a variety of reasons, but I'd love to be able to install its launcher and keyboard integrations.", "context": "", "use_case": "daily desktop", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ideas on modernizing the open-source desktop"}, {"id": 796734880, "item_id": 49795930, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49795930", "by": "thewhitetulip", "date": "2026-09-22", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Yes I use cosmic DE on Fedora. I didn't find it a downgrade at all! Despite not running an M chip it is butter smooth", "excerpt": "Yes I use cosmic DE on Fedora. I didn't find it a downgrade at all! Despite not running an M chip it is butter smooth", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "macOS 27: Workaround to avoid downloading AI models and save storage"}, {"id": 784616224, "item_id": 49038514, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49038514", "by": "tracker1", "date": "2026-07-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I switched to Linux for non-work and mostly Cosmic since later alphas.", "excerpt": "Nifty to see... I always liked BeOS/Haiku from a tech perspective, but really don't care nearly as much for the UX or ergonomics... I really like a lot of the Windows 10 start menu and taskbar, but I do hate the MS search results/ads,etc so I switched to Linux for non-work and mostly Cosmic since later alphas.", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "Windows 10", "story": "Half-Life 2 running natively on HaikuOS"}, {"id": 784491505, "item_id": 49030719, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49030719", "by": "SHaD0S", "date": "2026-07-23", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I like Rust so I tried it and fell in close with cosmic. with auto tiling turned on", "excerpt": "PopOS! I used arch for my intro but shortly got tired of the setup. I like Rust so I tried it and fell in close with cosmic. with auto tiling turned on, of course ;)", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What Linux distro do you daily drive?"}, {"id": 777471634, "item_id": 48591977, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48591977", "by": "tracker1", "date": "2026-06-18", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Even the growing pains for Cosmic have been less annoying than some of the \"features\" of Windows.", "excerpt": "I'm not really using anything too exotic... my hardware all works, and my printer has generally been without issue (HP Color Laser on ethernet) regardless of what I use to print from. For me, I switched when the start menu started showing internet ads as part of the results... I ran insiders for years, often joking that WSL was my favorite Linux distro... I love the new MS Terminal, and pretty happy with a lot of thi", "context": "not a gamer, Linux dev target for server software", "use_case": "Linux desktop", "switched_from": "Windows", "story": "Microsoft new Outlook takes 10 seconds to do what Outlook Classic does instantly"}, {"id": 773279617, "item_id": 48329976, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48329976", "by": "ntnsndr", "date": "2026-05-29", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "keeping GNOME for the handful of things Cosmic glitches out on", "excerpt": "I recently got a FW12 and, for a random data point, my kids love it: the color, the ability to do art on the touchscreen, the foldability. And I love all those things too, in addition to getting to play with various flavors of Linux on it. (Now running Fedora with Cosmic, but keeping GNOME for the handful of things Cosmic glitches out on.) It is just a fun computer, and I appreciate that playfulness about it every da", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "It's hard to justify buying a Framework 12"}, {"id": 759185234, "item_id": 47449077, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47449077", "by": "geophile", "date": "2026-03-19", "stance": "warn", "quote": "That new DE is another source of instability.", "excerpt": "I have been using Pop_OS for many years, and I\u2019m still on 22.04, which uses X11. I don\u2019t understand the pros and cons of X11 vs. Wayland, I just want a working desktop. 24.04 uses Wayland, and while some people have had no problems migrating, many people are having serious problems. From what I can tell, it\u2019s not a good choice for me yet. This article tells me that it may not be a good choice ever. I am a huge fan of", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Wayland set the Linux Desktop back by 10 years"}, {"id": 756340481, "item_id": 47271280, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47271280", "by": "piraccini", "date": "2026-03-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love Pop!_OS (and Cosmic)", "excerpt": "I love Pop!_OS (and Cosmic) but if they start with this bullshit I need to switch to other Linux distributions. Worst case, will build my own...", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "System76 on Age Verification Laws"}, {"id": 749151264, "item_id": 46821954, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46821954", "by": "c7b", "date": "2026-01-30", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "check out stacked tiling. It comes natively in COSMIC", "excerpt": "I don't get the hype for scrolling WMs. It feels like the app switcher view on phones. Never thought I needed that on desktop, normally it just freaks me out with how much stuff is open. If you like this, check out stacked tiling. It comes natively in COSMIC and I believe it can be configured in i3, Sway and Hyprland as well. It's basically tabs across windows, but thanks to tiling you have different regions of the s", "context": "", "use_case": "stacked tiling desktop", "switched_from": "", "story": "The Dank Case for Scrolling Window Managers"}, {"id": 743759234, "item_id": 46484952, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46484952", "by": "chao-", "date": "2026-01-03", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I am also watching COSMIC closely", "excerpt": "I value and appreciate good documentation, and am continually disappointed at how overlooked it is in so many ecosystems. I am also a caveman who still uses Cinnamon on X11, but I use an old system to install and test other DEs once or twice a year, just to keep a sense of what exists out there. Over my 17 years running Linux, I think KDE is the major DE I have run the least, but I have to say: KDE has gotten really ", "context": "Linux user for 17 years", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "KDE onboarding is good now"}, {"id": 743570386, "item_id": 46473149, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46473149", "by": "sandreas", "date": "2026-01-02", "stance": "compare", "quote": "KDE and the new COSMIC desktop environment with tiling support are tempting", "excerpt": "Long time Linux Desktop user here. I really think Linux is a great choice as a Desktop in days of liquid glass and webviews. There are a lot of choices to make, but in the end it is working out really well (at least for me). KDE and the new COSMIC desktop environment with tiling support are tempting, but for now I keep using GNOME until I have more time to check them out. The things I personally had problems with is ", "context": "Long time Linux Desktop user", "use_case": "Linux desktop environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop"}, {"id": 739798752, "item_id": 46237422, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46237422", "by": "swisniewski", "date": "2025-12-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Cosmic on a DGX Spark, as my daily driver, and it works pretty well.", "excerpt": "I use Cosmic on a DGX Spark, as my daily driver, and it works pretty well. They don\u2019t have a pop os iso for arm64, but they do have arm64 Debian repo. So I just took DGX os (what Nvidia ships on the device), added the pos os \u201creleases\u201d repo, and installed cosmic-session. It works like a charm and provides a super useful tiling experience out of the box. This is replacing my M3 Pro as my daily driver and I\u2019ve been pre", "context": "", "use_case": "daily driver desktop with tiling", "switched_from": "", "story": "Pop_OS 24.04 LTS with COSMIC desktop environment"}, {"id": 739781136, "item_id": 46236321, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46236321", "by": "panick21_", "date": "2025-12-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I have been using is since early Alpha and overall its pretty good.", "excerpt": "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", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "Pop_OS 24.04 LTS with COSMIC desktop environment"}, {"id": 739774512, "item_id": 46235907, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46235907", "by": "foxheadman", "date": "2025-12-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It's surprisingly good: a DE with powerful enough window tiling.", "excerpt": "I used to hear about COSMIC and think \"Glad to see more choice, but I doubt this will go anywhere\". I wanted a Sway-like experience but with a desktop experience, and so tried it. It's surprisingly good: a DE with powerful enough window tiling. It's now my daily driver. Since they're backed by a sole company, I'm still not convinced on their longevity, but remain hopeful! I'm not familiar with Pop OS, which I now rea", "context": "", "use_case": "daily driver desktop", "switched_from": "", "story": "Pop_OS 24.04 LTS with COSMIC desktop environment"}]}