Hands-On with System76’s COSMIC Desktop for Pop!_OS Linux 21.04

In mid-April 2021, System76 unveiled COSMIC as their take on the new design of the GNOME 40 desktop environment for Pop!_OS Linux, but they didn’t provide us with many details, except for the fact that their COSMIC desktop will offer a “totally different” desktop experience with an always visible dock, as well as separate Workspaces and Applications views. The COSMIC desktop will be part of the upcoming Pop!_OS Linux 21.04 distribution release, which is derived from Canonical’s Ubuntu 21.04 (Hirsute Hippo) and expected later this summer. But on June 3rd, System76 released the beta version Pop!_OS Linux 21.04 to give us an early taste of the COSMIC desktop, so I downloaded the ISO and gave it a try on my Lenovo laptop.