System76 just took everything that was good in Pop!_OS and made it even better

When System76 announced that it would be creating a new Linux desktop environment from scratch and using the Rust programming language, I was skeptical, not in the company’s ability to deliver but the reason behind the choice. Pop!_OS has been an outstanding OS to date, a perfect re-imagining of the GNOME desktop (from which it was based) that was efficient and easy to use.

Then, I started seeing the early mockups and realized the company wasn’t reinventing the wheel. It was re-creating what it already had… only without the GNOME dependencies. 

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That’s when it all made sense. By creating the OS in-house, it could tweak it to the exact specifications needed so that it would run beautifully on its hardware. And given the speed of Rust, it also made perfect sense that it’d use that particular language to build its new platform.

According to the Pop!_OS site, System76 had this to say about its new OS: “We aim to liberate the computer with a new desktop environment powerful enough to build custom OS experiences — for users, developers, and makers of any device with a screen.”

Well, the latest Alpha of Pop!_OS (a4) has been released, and it shows just how serious System76 is with its new operating system.

I’ve been using Pop!_OS for nearly 10 years now (with a brief excursion into Ubuntu Budgie land), so I feel pretty confident when I say that the new COSMIC desktop takes everything that was good in Pop!_OS and made it even better.

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First off, COSMIC is more customizable than the previous incarnation. Without having to install a third-party extension, you can tweak the transparency of both the top bar and the dock. You can also configure the dock to “float” so it doesn’t touch the edge of the display. 

But more than anything, it’s the sheer speed of COSMIC desktop that makes the previous iteration feel sluggish. I installed Pop!_OS Alpha 4 as a virtual machine with only 3GB of RAM and 2 CPU cores and it performed as well (and better in some cases) than the host OS which had the full complement of RAM and CPU cores. That’s impressive.

One of the biggest performance bumps is found in Pop Shop (the Pop!_OS app store, which is now called COSMIC Shop). Previous versions were well known for being slow and problematic. It would take forever to open and randomly crash. The new COSMIC Shop is light years ahead of that. Not only is the new COSMIC Shop exponentially more stable, but it also opens immediately… which is a relief.

Same as it ever was

System76 made the right choice in not totally reinventing the wheel. The developers and designers could have gone back to the drawing board and created a desktop environment that was a total departure from what they’d been offering.

That would have been a mistake.

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Instead, they decided to simply remake what they had, keeping the UI almost identical to the previous releases. By doing this, System76 won’t have a bunch of frustrated users on its hands when COSMIC desktop is finally released for general availability. 

System76 smartly retained Flathub support for the OS (as well as baking it into Pop Shop), so installing applications of all sorts is just a click away.

As far as preinstalled apps go, Pop!_OS is the same as it ever was… it’s minimal. You’ll find Firefox, Thunderbird, Videos, Document Viewer, COSMIC Terminal, COSMIC Text Editor, and not much more. 

In fact, if you look in the Applications Overview, you’ll even notice only four default Groups: Library Home, Office, System, and Utilities. This is the same as found in the previous iteration, so it’s no different. 

The good news is that COSMIC Shop is overflowing with outstanding apps to install. 

What’s new?

Although Alpha 4 really shows off its polish, there are some new additions to be found, such as:

• Dual-paned (and better organized) Settings app.
• New power management options.
• Support for (VRR) Variable Refresh Rate.
• A new Accessibility applet.
• Screenreader now works in more applications and windows.

Of course, there are the usual bug fixes and performance tuning that help make the latest Alpha of Pop!_OS really hum.

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There’s one app that has been held back from Alpha 4 and COSMIC Player, a multimedia player. This app is not ready for prime time, so it wasn’t included with the latest release. My guess is that COSMIC Player will replace the current video player app. My curiosity is what (if anything) will be added as a music player. Of course, you could always install Spotify (or one of the many apps) from the COSMIC Store. I would like to see System76 develop its own music player to rival anything that’s currently available.

Should you try Alpha 4?

Unless you’re really curious as to how this OS is coming along, Pop!_OS Alpha 4 is not ready for general usage (the “Alpha” should be all the clue you need). However, if you want to see just how fast a desktop operating system can be — without sacrificing functionality or a modern look — you should very much download an ISO of the COSMIC-ified Pop!_OS and kick the tires.