The holidays are upon us, and it’s time to check under your tree as we light another candle for the 4th COSMIC Alpha release. There’s lots of gifts to share in the latest early release of our new Rust-based desktop environment for Pop!_OS and other distros: COSMIC. These gifts include updates to settings, COSMIC apps, and another big batch of bug fixes. Let the festivities commence!

Update or install at: https://system76.com/cosmic/

Region & Language Settings

Region & Language Settings have been added to COSMIC. Here you can select your preferred language, as well as preferred formatting for date, time, and numbers used by COSMIC.

Default Applications Settings

A settings page has been added to System & Accounts Settings enabling you to set your default applications for various purposes, including your preferred browser, file manager, email client, music and video players, image viewer, and calendar.

You may notice that “COSMIC Media Player” is listed as the default video and music player. COSMIC Media Player is a Rust-based media player currently being developed! More info on that when it’s closer to being ready!

COSMIC Store

While performing updates and app installs, clicking “Details” in the bottom-left corner will open a context menu where you can view a list of all in-progress and completed tasks.

Display Power Management Settings

Implementation of power management settings for your display are now complete. In Power & Battery Settings, you’ll find options for setting how long until the screen turns off after remaining idle, as well as independent settings for when your system suspends when plugged in and on battery power.

Accessibility Applet & Screenreader Support

Though still in its very early stages, the new Accessibility applet provides a toggle for turning screenreader support on and off. Screenreading now works for COSMIC Settings, Firefox, and GNOME applications. For the alpha, Screenreader testing is performed in COSMIC Settings, and then will be applied to the rest of the COSMIC apps when it’s ready.

Variable Refresh Rate

Variable refresh rate (VRR) allows your display to match the framerate of an image source, such as a game — and doing so prevents screen tearing. Support for VRR has been added to the cosmic-comp compositor and Displays Settings. You can set VRR to be either always on or automatic, which will enable VRR for fullscreen content.

Fixes & Performance Improvements

• Fixed a bug with the context drawer widget related to dropdown menus
• Fixes for high CPU usage
• Fixed an issue causing windows to freeze after migrating to a hotplugged monitor
• Fixed an issue with the Shut Down pop-up not scaling properly
• Restored focus to search fields on activation
• Padding fixes for NavBar
• Fixed a memory leak causing some panel applets to crash
• Fixed an issue causing freezes to occur
• Aligned drag and drop while arranging panel applets
• Closed a vulnerability unlocking the system after a compositor or greeter crash
• Fixed a bug preventing context drawers from opening after changing themes
• Fixes for screenshots and screencaptures with multimonitor and rotated displays
• French-language typo fixes in Bluetooth Settings
• Fixed a crashing issue seen with Steam games
• Fixed a memory leak with COSMIC Files
• Toggling desktop icons on/off now has more immediate results
• Fixed slowness when moving files in COSMIC Files
• Hue sliders now apply color changes on release, as expected
• Tiling layouts will now readjust when display settings change
• Fixes for panels overlapping desktop icons and pop-ups
• Added functionality to keep a file selected after an action is performed
• Consecutive scrolling now increases scrolling speed
• Expanded the input region for auto-hidden panels to prevent wonkiness
• Reduced large spacing around display widget in Display Settings
• Fixed an issue with context menus not opening when searching Settings
• Info button now stays visible even when long descriptions are present
• Generator library updated to 0.8.3
• Licensing fixes

To update or install, visit https://system76.com/cosmic/