COSMIC Desktop

Currently an incomplete alpha. Testing instructions below for various distributions.

Components of COSMIC Desktop

COSMIC libraries/crates

Setup on distributions without packaging of cosmic components

The COSMIC desktop environment requires a few dependencies: (This list does not try to be exhaustive, but rather tries to provide a decent starting point. For detailed instructions, check out the individual projects):

just
rustc
libwayland
mesa (or third-party libEGL/libGL implementations, though interfacing with mesa's libglvnd is generally recommended).
libseat
libxkbcommon
libinput
udev
dbus

optionally (though the build-system might currently require these libraries):

libsystem
libpulse
pop-launcher
libexpat1
libfontconfig
libfreetype
lld
cargo
libgbm-dev
libclang-dev
libpipewire-0.3-dev

Note: libfontconfig, libfreetype, and lld are packages specific to Linux distributions. You may need to find the equivalent version for your distribution if you are not using Pop!_OS.

The required ones can be installed with:

sudo apt install just rustc libglvnd-dev libwayland-dev libseat-dev libxkbcommon-dev libinput-dev udev dbus libdbus-1-dev libpam0g-dev libpixman-1-dev libssl-dev libflatpak-dev -y

and the optional ones with:

sudo apt install libsystemd-dev libpulse-dev pop-launcher libexpat1-dev libfontconfig-dev libfreetype-dev mold cargo libgbm-dev libclang-dev libpipewire-0.3-dev -y

They can be installed all at once with:

sudo apt install just rustc libglvnd-dev libwayland-dev libseat-dev libxkbcommon-dev libinput-dev udev dbus libdbus-1-dev libsystemd-dev libpixman-1-dev libssl-dev libflatpak-dev libpulse-dev pop-launcher libexpat1-dev libfontconfig-dev libfreetype-dev mold cargo libgbm-dev libclang-dev libpipewire-0.3-dev libpam0g-dev -y

Testing

The easiest way to test COSMIC DE currently is by building a systemd system extension (see man systemd-sysext).

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/pop-os/cosmic-epoch
cd cosmic-epoch
just sysext

This will create a system-extension called cosmic-sysext, that you can move (without renaming!) into e.g. /var/lib/extensions. After starting systemd-sysext.service (sudo systemctl enable --now systemd-sysext) and refreshing (sudo systemd-sysext refresh) or rebooting, COSMIC will be an available option in your favorite display manager.

If you have SELinux enabled (e.g. on Fedora), the installed extension won't have the correct labels applied. To test COSMIC, you can temporarily disable it and restart gdm (note that this will close your running programs).

sudo setenforce 0
sudo systemctl restart gdm

Note: An extension created this way will be linked against specific libraries on your system and will not work on other distributions. It also requires the previously mentioned libraries/dependencies at runtime to be installed in your system (the system extension does not carry these libraries).

Read-Only Filesystem: If you're not on an immutable distro you may notice that /usr/ and /opt/ are read-only. this is caused by systemd-sysext being enabled, when you are done testing you can disable systemd-sysext (sudo systemctl disable --now systemd-sysext)

It is thus no proper method for long term deployment.

Packaging

COSMIC DE is packaged for Pop!_OS. For reference, look at the debian folders in the projects repositories. These and the justfile inside this repository may be used as references on how to package COSMIC DE, though no backwards-compatibility guarantees are provided at this stage.

Versioning

COSMIC DE is very much still work-in-progress and thus does not follow a versioning scheme so far. We do our best to keep the referenced submodule commits in this repository building and working together, as a consequence they might not contain the latest updates and features from these repositories (yet).

Notes on versioning and packaging all these components together properly will be added at a later stage once COSMIC DE gets its first release.

Installing on Pop!_OS

COSMIC DE is in its first alpha release. Using and testing the alpha is welcome. Bugs and breakage are expected.

Enable Wayland

sudo nano /etc/gdm3/custom.conf

Change WaylandEnable to true:

WaylandEnable=true

Reboot for this change to take effect.

Update udev rules for NVIDIA users

sudo nano /usr/lib/udev/rules.d/61-gdm.rules

Look for LABEL="gdm_prefer_xorg" and LABEL="gdm_disable_wayland". Add # to the RUN statements so they look like this:

LABEL="gdm_prefer_xorg"
#RUN+="/usr/libexec/gdm-runtime-config set daemon PreferredDisplayServer xorg"
GOTO="gdm_end"

LABEL="gdm_disable_wayland"
#RUN+="/usr/libexec/gdm-runtime-config set daemon WaylandEnable false"
GOTO="gdm_end"

Restart gdm

sudo systemctl restart gdm

Install COSMIC

sudo apt install cosmic-session

After logging out, click on your user and there will be a sprocket at the bottom right. Change the setting to COSMIC. Proceed to log in.

Installing on Arch Linux

Install via cosmic-session or the cosmic group, e.g.: pacman -S cosmic-session or pacman -S cosmic

Then log out, click on your user, and a sprocket at the bottom right shows an additional entry alongside your desktop environments. Change to COSMIC and proceed with log in. For a more detailed discussion, consider the relevant section in the Arch wiki.

Installing on Fedora Linux

Cosmic may be installed via a Fedora COPR repository.

dnf copr enable ryanabx/cosmic-epoch
dnf install cosmic-desktop

Then log out, click on your user, and a sprocket at the bottom right shows an additional entry alongside your desktop environments. Change to COSMIC and proceed with log in. For further information, you may check the COPR page.

Installing on openSUSE tumbleweed

Cosmic can be installed by adding X11:COSMIC:Factory repo with opi.

opi patterns-cosmic

Select X11:COSMIC:Factory, after installing keep the repo.

Then log out, click on your user, and a sprocket at the bottom right shows an additional entry alongside your desktop environments. Change to COSMIC and proceed with log in. For further information, you may check the OBS page.

Installing on Gentoo Linux

COSMIC can be installed on Gentoo via a custom overlay. Add the overlay using your preferred overlay manager (such as eselect), and then install the desktop environment:

eselect repository add cosmic-overlay git https://github.com/fsvm88/cosmic-overlay.git

Next, install the COSMIC desktop environment and its associated themes:

emerge -1 cosmic-meta pop-theme-meta -pv

Then log out, click on your user, and a sprocket at the bottom right shows an additional entry alongside your desktop environments. Change to COSMIC and proceed with log in. For further information, you may check the Overlay Repository.

pop-os / cosmic-epoch