If you didn’t know already, System76 developers have been working on a new Desktop Environment (dubbed COSMIC) written in Rust: a memory-safe and

I Tried System76’s New Rust-based COSMIC Desktop!

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2022-01-15 02:00:07

If you didn’t know already, System76 developers have been working on a new Desktop Environment (dubbed COSMIC) written in Rust: a memory-safe and superfast programming language.

Creating a desktop environment from scratch is no small feat. That involves creating everything from the compositor, panel, window manager to the APIs for your desktop environment and other back-end tasks.

On GitHub, you will notice there is already a repository called cosmic, but it is mainly in JavaScript (the language used to create GNOME shell extensions). This is the cosmic shell extension repository, which is what Pop!_OS ships with now.

There are a couple of newer repositories on their GitHub profile, which happen to be the elements of their upcoming Rust-based COSMIC Desktop.

Note: To clarify, the current GNOME-based desktop environment on Pop!_OS is COSMIC. This article discusses the Rust-based COSMIC desktop environment, built from scratch, meant to replace the current offering.