She's Hot, She's Rusty, and She's Mine: Seven Months with COSMIC DE
Written in response to System76's "COSMIC DE: The First Seven Months".
I walked into the Linux world looking for something fresh, and she was sitting there—hot, shiny, freshly compiled in Rust. Sure, there were a few bugs here and there. Sure I had to chase down her quirks like a dog after a fire hydrant. And sure, I made the rookie mistake of trying to build Nvidia drivers from source on a beta desktop environment, like some kind of masochistic tuxedo-clad cowboy.
Spoiler alert: that did not end well.
COSMIC DE laughed, my screen went black, and I spent a few hours in recovery mode wondering what life choices led me here.
But here's the thing about men who know what they want—we don't wait for perfection. We polish things ourselves. We fix what breaks or at least try. We learn why our egos got the better of us. Seven months later, she's not the same girl who walked out of System76's garage. Neither am I. I learned when to back off. She became a part of me. And honestly? We both came out hotter.
Keybindings That Don't Punish Your Pinky Finger
Let's talk sexy things later. I knew COSMIC and I had compatibility when I learned the easy two-key keyboard shortcuts:
SUPER + B → Open Default Browser
SUPER + F → Open Files
SUPER + T → Open Terminal
SUPER + Q → Close Window
SUPER + 1-6 → Go To Workspace
SUPER + SPACE → Change Keyboard Language
These are my most-used shortcuts, and I love the simplicity of not having to use three-key finger gymnastics or configure new ones from a fresh install. I'm no Vim warrior—I use my computer with one hand on the keyboard and the other on the mouse. Hitting three keys with one hand is difficult, especially if your mind is put at work elsewhere.
COSMIC remembered that people exist. And that's worth more than any pretty theme.
Customization: From Relationship Trauma to Comfort
But good keybindings alone don't make a relationship. What about making her look the way you want?
The GNOME Era
I used to run Ubuntu with around ten GNOME extensions and custom keybindings to make it fit me. Yet they crashed and toggled extensions off by force at least once a week. To say it mildly, it felt like the annoying girlfriend redecorating your apartment while you're at work—then acting surprised you're upset. And when it happened again? Time for a breakup.
The KDE Detour
So out with GNOME and in with KDE, which was fine. Though I tripped over the settings countless times. I remember having to change a wallpaper in three different places. The setup felt like the better Windows experience, but it wasn't what I was looking for. So I started customizing with the dock, and it felt overengineered—like Apple did with the remappable iPhone button.
And I remember KDE treated workspaces vastly differently. There was something I can't quite recall—it kept remembering where windows opened last time, forcing me to constantly move them around. It was like coming home to furniture that keeps moving itself.
Home at COSMIC
Then it was a breath of fresh air when COSMIC let me choose macOS or Windows layouts at first boot, but I could easily open settings and click on a few toggles under the same menu. I kid you not—I can set up the same customized layout I used to fight for in GNOME in minutes. I'm close competition for an automated Bash script — I can do it without writing a single line.
The COSMIC design language proved simple and effective, like the rest of the COSMIC suite that is steadily growing to replace GNOME-based applications.
If I have to pick my favorite, it's COSMIC Monitor. Ease of use aside. It doesn't troll me when I want to know why my fans are spinning.
Appearance: Theme It Once, Apply It Everywhere
By far, COSMIC has been the easiest desktop environment to theme and have the rest of the GTK and Qt-based apps follow.
Never had I had an application open like a flash-bang because it failed to at least follow a dark theme. Now they actually follow the colorful themes I make and share. One-click export. One-click import in settings. Chef's kiss.
I'm still not sure if I like the new Frosted Glass feature because it somewhat contradicts my above point. It only works in COSMIC-based applications and might not be supported in other GUIs at all. And I believe the best productivity comes from flat colors anyway. I've dated for frosted glass before. It doesn't end well.
What sets COSMIC apart is that it looks like its own thing. Yet it's familiar to use in a package you can pretty up, with the exception of animations—for now.
I, for one, like to toggle on sharp window corners, remove the dock, have dynamic workspace numbers shown as an applet, and turn off panel going to the screen edges.
This setup has its own magic trick. When I go full-screen with something like Zed Editor, the panel expands from the center of the applets and pushes them to the sides. Initially, I reported it as a bug, but I learned it was a feature I could manage, and I was sold on it.
Nvidia: The Elephant Everyone Talks About
If we're mice, the elephant in the room—in the Linux world—has always been the green giant.
There are a lot of things that don't work with an Nvidia GPU because of the driver nature. But with COSMIC DE and Pop!_OS, my 4070 Ti Super never gave me problems—as long as I didn't go out of my way and seek them.
It's a bit contradictory, but not being on the latest and greatest drivers is a feature if you value stability as highly as I have come to. GE-Proton has worked just as great playing Elden Ring Nightreign on Pop!_OS compared to something bleeding-edge like Bazzite or CachyOS.
I'm very thankful to backward compatibility and GloriousEggroll for making me able to play more games.
The Suspend Saga
Suspend, though, has been a pain in the ass most of the time on any distro. The computer would wake and fans start spinning, but the screen stayed black. It didn't initially work with my X670E motherboard, but it suddenly did before I swapped to an X870E.
I have no idea what's going on and haven't found a fix or where to report the problem. So I turned suspend off. Works for me.
GPU History (For the Skeptics)
Every Linux enthusiast tells me to sell my GPU to the first bidding idiot, but I am very satisfied with my purchases:
- MSI GTX 960
- MSI RTX 2070
- ASUS RTX 2060
- GIGABYTE 7900 GRE
- ASUS 4070 Ti Super
At this very moment, all Nvidia cards run on a system with Pop!_OS with purposes like watching movies, playing games, programming, self-hosting, etc. I'm very glad COSMIC DE treats Nvidia as a first-class citizen, or I might begin to regret my spending.
I only use the AMD card when checking out new distros like AerynOS, which failed with other cards.
To the Future
Looking back on seven months with COSMIC DE, I realize my problems have mostly been with things that have yet to be implemented:
- Permissions for external drives in COSMIC Files
- Proper full-screen management with video players and games
- A system monitor that force-quits a whole application, not just a process
I'm still using COSMIC because its development is on a trajectory I can see where it's going—with a roadmap I can stand behind.
In many ways she's rusty—for those who know. Crash-resistant and easy to manage, she's a love letter to those of us who want a pure computing experience without starting from scratch every six months.
She's not done yet. Neither am I. But we're getting there together.
PS. Milady isn't a mistake.