Pop!_OS 24.04: Linux Distro with New COSMIC Desktop

[music] Welcome to another video from explaining computers.com.

computers.com.

This time we're going to check out the latest version of the Pop OS Linux DRO.

This was released on December the 11th, 2025 and is particularly exciting as it includes a brand new desktop environment

called Cosmic.

So, let's go and take a closer look.

Right here we are on the website for system 76 who publish POP OS.

However, as well as providing this free Linux DRO, System 76 are also a manufacturer of Linux computers and keyboards. As we can see, if we scroll

keyboards. As we can see, if we scroll down, these include Linux laptops, desktops, and workstations. And so,

along with the likes of Apple, System 76 are one of the few companies who can sell you a desktop or laptop computer with their own operating system on it.

Below we can access more information on their brand new cosmic desktop which we'll look at in detail later in the video. So for now let's click first on

video. So for now let's click first on POP OS and we'll go straight I think to

download where as we can see Pop OS 2404 long-term support or LTS is available.

As the name implies, this is based on Ubuntu 2404, which was released in April 2024.

Pop OS 2404 could therefore be seen as being a bit late to the party as the next long-term support Ubuntu release

2604 will arrive in April 2026.

However, Pop OS 2404 still has support until April 2029 and its release has been held back for a very good reason, which is the inclusion

of its brand new cosmic desktop environment.

System 76 have also said that future Pop OS releases will now align with the Ubuntu LTS release timing coming along

just a few weeks later. And so Pop OS 2604 should be with us in May 2026.

However, before then, let's download Pop OS 2404.

And if we scroll down, we'll find there are four possible ISO files available for either x8x6 or ARM with or without Nvidia Graphics.

So, for example, right down at the bottom, we could download an ISO for an ARM system with Nvidia graphics, such as

the system 76 Celio Astra. And as an aside, this amazing ARM system has a 128

core Ampel Ultra CPU, half a terabyte of RAM, 40 TB of storage, and an Nvidia RTX Pro 6000 Blackwell GPU.

But enough of our drooling as we're going to be installing Pop OS 2404 on one of my x86 test PCs. And so we want

one of the two top ISO files. But which

one?

Well, as we can see, the first download is for a system with either Intel or AMD graphics or a 10 series or older Nvidia

GPU for which an open-source driver will be installed. Meanwhile, the second ISO

be installed. Meanwhile, the second ISO is for a system with a newer Nvidia GPU for which a proprietary Nvidia driver will be installed.

Now, I had been planning to test Pop OS 2404 on my i510400 test rig, which has an Nvidia GT1030

graphics card, and on which Ubuntu 2404, Linux Mint 22, and Zoron OS 18 all install the right proprietary Nvidia driver.

But Pop OS 2404 does not provide a direct install Nvidia proprietary driver option for those of us still using the

GT1030 or indeed a GTX 1050 or GTX 1060.

And so I'm going to download the first ISO file and we'll test Pop OS 2404 on my Ryzen 5600G with its onboard AMD

graphics. However, we'll return to the

graphics. However, we'll return to the issue of Pop OS and support for Nvidia graphics cards later in the video.

So, let's download the ISO. Here we go.

All set up. We'll just click on save.

And as the download progresses, we'll use the magic of film making to speed on through. There we go. And here in

through. There we go. And here in Windows, I've got Bellena Etcher ready to write it to a USB drive, which

ideally should be at least 8 GB in size.

So, let's select the ISO file and start the flashing process. There we go. And

do note that everything on the USB drive will be deleted.

So, if we quickly accelerate time, there we are. We now have a pop 2404 live USB drive.

Greetings. We're now booting from our USB drive so we can install Pop OS 2404.

So, I'll press enter to continue here to try and install Pop OS. And if you need help getting your computer to boot from a USB drive, I'll leave some information

about this in the video description.

It's also worth noting that before you install Pop OS 2404, you must turn off secure boot in your BIOS. And again,

I'll leave some information about how to do this in the video description.

But for now, let's speed on through. And

here we are arriving in Pop OS 2404 running from our USB drive. And as we can see, the installer has already run up. So, we will follow it through. So

up. So, we will follow it through. So

I'll select my language as English and then also select United Kingdom followed by English UK for my keyboard with a default keyboard layout.

Next we've got the choice of either a custom advanced or a clean install. And

here we'll go for the straightforward clean install.

After which we need to select our drive.

Here is the SSD on this test system. So

we will select that and click on erase and install.

And just to note, this will delete everything from this particular drive.

Next, we need to set up a user account after which we have three options for drive encryption. And the default is to

drive encryption. And the default is to encrypt the disk using the same password as the user account. However, it's also possible to uncheck this and to set a different password. And that would mean

different password. And that would mean every time you booted the system, you'd have to log into the user account and enter a different encryption password.

And then the third option here is not to encrypt the disk, which is the one I'm going to select on this test system. And

let's now speed on through.

There we are. That was a very efficient install. And we can now restart our

install. And we can now restart our device.

So once again, let's speed up time.

And here we are logging in to Pop OS 2404 where as we can see we get a welcome wizard. I think I'll just scale the

wizard. I think I'll just scale the interface a little bit. 125% perhaps

might be easier to see. And we'll then click on next. We could now also set up a Wi-Fi network if we needed to. I don't

need to here. I'm on an Ethernet connection. So we'll just next on that

connection. So we'll just next on that again. It seems to want us now to

again. It seems to want us now to confirm our language. I'll just again click on next. And then for some reason it's now asking again about our keyboard layout.

English UK. There we are. I'm sure we selected that previously. Well, we did select that previously. You saw it. You

were my witness. Anyway, we now need to enter time zone and location. Let's type

London. It's always best here in the UK.

That'll do. And then now we get to personalize our appearance where I think I'll stick with the default of cosmic dog. And then what is next? Well, it's

dog. And then what is next? Well, it's

the layout configuration where there are two options available. I think I'll stick with what I think is the default, which is that one. But we'll look at both of them a bit later on. And we now have a choice of either floating or

automatically tiling our workspaces. The

thing is, we haven't seen how exactly all this works yet, have we? So, I'll

I'll stick with the defaults for now, and I'm sure we'll experiment later. New

keyboard shortcuts. Again, I'll just stick with the defaults. And then

finally, we can click on finish. And so

here we are now running our installation of Pop OS 2404.

Right, let's now delve into the brand new Cosmic Desktop environment which is technically known as Cosmic Epoch 1 as it's the first stable release. This is

Whand native and has been written by system 76 in the Rust programming language.

As we can see, by default, we have a top panel with applets on the right for things like audio and network connectivity. And then on the left, we

connectivity. And then on the left, we have access to workspaces and applications, which as we can see are organized into groups with a reasonable

range of things pre-installed, including Libra Office. By default, we also have a

Libra Office. By default, we also have a bottom dock which includes a searchbased application launcher. We could, for

application launcher. We could, for example, here type Libra to access part of Libra Office. And then we again have access to workspaces. There we are. And

also again to applications, including those which are pinned to the dock as favorites.

Clearly, this is all pretty similar to a Gnome desktop. And indeed, if we look

Gnome desktop. And indeed, if we look back to Pop OS 2204, it had a customized Gnome desktop, also called Cosmic, and which by default had a very similar top

panel with the same kinds of outlets as well as a bottom dock with the same functionality.

So what system 76 have done with cosmic epoch 1 is to broadly reproduce their earlier gnomebased desktop but with more customization as well as the ability to

add whatever features they wish as this is entirely their own desktop.

Cosmic Epo 1 also has its own applications and these start with cosmic files down here. And I do like cosmic files because it defaults to a list view

rather than what we could have here which is the grid view. I do like a list view in a file manager. It just feels well more mature. So I very much like the way this is designed. There's also

an application called Cosmic Store. This

is clearly for installing software as we can see including for example Steam. If

you're a gamer you could install that here in Pop OS 2404.

Although the cosmic applications aren't just limited to the file manager and the store. No, there are others. If we look

store. No, there are others. If we look here under applications, we can see we've got cosmic terminal which is clearly a terminal. Let's just uh whiz up the size of the font and execute a command. What is it going to be? Let's

command. What is it going to be? Let's

do an lsbk list block device just because it's a fun command. There we

are. We can see cosmic terminal works absolutely fine. And we've also got the

absolutely fine. And we've also got the cosmic text editor which is clearly for guess what editing text. And then

there's also two more cosmic applications. One's over in utilities.

applications. One's over in utilities.

It is the cosmic screenshot application for taking screenshots, which literally here would be a cosmic screenshot of the cosmos. So, uh, that will be very

cosmos. So, uh, that will be very exciting. And then finally, we have the

exciting. And then finally, we have the cosmic media player. And it's worth pointing out the first time I ran this up and selected an MP4 video, it prompted me to install additional

codecs, which is an option that was noticeable by its absence in the installer. Although now, as we can see,

installer. Although now, as we can see, if we do open an MP4 file, there is one down there. It will play absolutely

down there. It will play absolutely [music] fine. No problem at all. We've

[music] fine. No problem at all. We've

got no problems with media playback here in Pop OS 244.

Next, because we don't often get the chance to explore a completely new desktop environment, I thought we'd take a look through the settings, which will allow us to see the range of options

available. And a lot of this is truly

available. And a lot of this is truly excellent. However, before we do go

excellent. However, before we do go through all of these settings and all the excellent stuff, I want to address what is for me at least the one negative in this first new cosmic release. and

this is that there are no controls here to alter the size of the interface text or the mouse pointer. Back in Pop OS

2204 on its Gnomebased cosmic desktop, it was possible to open settings and in accessibility to select large text and also to choose a larger pointer size.

But sadly here in Cosmic Epoch 1, there are no such controls and I really do hope they are added in the future. And

so right now I can only apologize for the tiny mouse pointer and interface text which are not ideal in a video.

Turning to the positive, let's run through all the settings. Network and

wireless is pretty straightforward. No

need to look at that. Same with

Bluetooth. And we then go down to accessibility. This is where we don't

accessibility. This is where we don't have the options to change things like text size. We have got vision settings

text size. We have got vision settings and one hearing setting down there, but basically that's what we get. But then

we get to desktop where there's lots and lots and lots of customization possible.

As you would guess, we can change the wallpaper. All kinds of wallpapers are

wallpaper. All kinds of wallpapers are available. There's various settings

available. There's various settings around that. But after that, it gets

around that. But after that, it gets even more interesting. We've got this appearance setting where we can choose between light and dark. We can alter the accent color. After that, we can also

accent color. After that, we can also change the window background, the container background, the interface text tint, and the control component tint.

There are lots of settings here. And

then beneath this under style, we can choose the level of roundedness of the corners. This is quite rounded. We can

corners. This is quite rounded. We can

go to not rounded at all, slightly rounded or very rounded. Those two don't actually affect the window, but they do affect the dock down at the bottom over there. We then got the ability to change

there. We then got the ability to change the interface density. I like this. It

can be more compact if you want. Or we

can if we get back to where we were somewhere up here, we can go back to comfortable. I think we'll stick on

comfortable. I think we'll stick on that. And then down here we've got

that. And then down here we've got settings for the window hint size. And

this refers to this line that comes around the edge of an active window.

Let's just open another window so we can see the difference. There's a window with an active hint. Now it's back to this one. But we can if you don't like

this one. But we can if you don't like that, make it smaller.

As we can see, like that. Take it down to nothing if we want. We can of course also change the color because it is actually the accent color. It could be yellow. I think we'll go back to blue.

yellow. I think we'll go back to blue.

Like that.

Next down, as you might have noticed, there is an option to set the system font, the face of the interface font, but we can't here change its size, which to me at least is kind of peculiar.

Next, we go back to the main desktop menu where we've got all the options for the panel, the thing here at the top of the screen. And here we've got lots of

the screen. And here we've got lots of really nice options, not least we can automatically hide the panel. We don't

have that by default in, for example, Gnome Ubuntu. And it means for example

Gnome Ubuntu. And it means for example if I bring up say the Firefox web browser it gets rid of the panel it comes up which uh is very handy. We

could also change the position of the panel on the screen anywhere we like it.

We can select what displays it comes up on if we've got multiple displays. We

then got various stylistic settings. We

can have a gap around the panel if we want like that the top of the screen.

And we can also select whether or not we want the panel to extend to the edges of the screen or just in the middle as we can see there. And there we've also got size settings. We can have the panel a

size settings. We can have the panel a bit bigger. And I like the way when it

bit bigger. And I like the way when it gets bigger, we move from text to icons in terms of access to applications and workspaces. Let's actually leave it on

workspaces. Let's actually leave it on that setting. I think like that. We

that setting. I think like that. We

could also control opacity. And perhaps

most critically, we can configure the panel outlets. So if we go into this, we

panel outlets. So if we go into this, we can change everything that appears on the panel. We don't like some of these

the panel. We don't like some of these applets being there. We can get rid of them and we can add new ones. not least,

we can add an app tray. So, we can actually have applications on the panel, the things we've currently got here on the dock, and we can show minimized windows running applications on the

panel if we wish. So, this offers masses of customization.

Next, you're probably going to guess we've got loads of settings for the dock, the thing at the bottom of the screen. We can choose to display it or

screen. We can choose to display it or not, depending on what we want to do.

Again, we can automatically hide the dock the way we can automatically hide the panel. We can change its position.

the panel. We can change its position.

We want it on the left in a sort of Ubuntu type of way. We can do that if we wish. I think I'll put it back at the

wish. I think I'll put it back at the bottom though for now. We can also again change the style. We can get rid of the gap between the dock and the screen edges like that if we wish. If we do

that, we can also extend the width so it looks like the panel in Pop OS 2204 as we saw earlier. And we've also got controls of the size and the background

opacity. And then again, as you will

opacity. And then again, as you will probably guess given what we saw for the panel, we can control the applets on the dock. And again, I think this is really

dock. And again, I think this is really well implemented. It gives the user a

well implemented. It gives the user a lot of interface control.

Next down, we get to displays, which does offer the ability to scale the screen. You might remember we selected

screen. You might remember we selected 125% in the first run wizard, and we can change here to other settings in 25% increments. However, we've also got an

increments. However, we've also got an additional scale button. So if we want 130% we can add 5% or we can add 10% or 15% or whatever it happens to be. And

this does give us obviously larger text but it gives us larger everything. What

I want here is the ability to change the size just of the font and of the mouse pointer. And sadly as we said already we

pointer. And sadly as we said already we can't do that under sound. Nothing to write home

under sound. Nothing to write home about. What you would expect is here.

about. What you would expect is here.

Same for power and battery. And under

input devices, the one thing I would note, there were no options here relating to a trackpad, which could be bad news if you're using a laptop.

Next, we'll move to applications where we had the standard kind of stuff as we do for time and language. And for system and accounts where because we can do it, we will click on about. There we go. We

can see we're running Pop OS. We knew

that. We can see our hardware specifications at the top of the screen.

And then our Linux kernel 617, a desktop environment which is cosmic which as already noted is written to use the Wayland windowing system.

Greetings. Just to demonstrate what can be achieved, I've been reconfiguring the Cosmic Desktop. So if we log in, here we

Cosmic Desktop. So if we log in, here we go. And here we are where I've not just

go. And here we are where I've not just changed the desktop wallpaper, I've also got rid of a dock and I put the panel at the bottom and I've added to the panel the app tray so we can launch

applications directly from the panel.

There we are. And it also hides itself as we can see. And then to access other applications, we can click bottom left to bring them up like that. And I've

also added in the minimized Windows outlet as you'll see if I do that. So we

can control what's running.

And we could do even more because if we look in the store and we go down to applets, there are already various extensions including a classic menu. So

let's try installing that. I've not

tried this yet, but uh we will have a go.

And there we are. In theory, we have a menu. This is really cool. I am very

menu. This is really cool. I am very impressed with how configurable the Cosmic Desktop is. However, there is a danger that the desktop here completely

overshadows other new features in Pop OS 2404. So, let's just mention a couple of

2404. So, let's just mention a couple of those. Firstly, there's a new refresh

those. Firstly, there's a new refresh feature which allows the operating system to be reinstalled whilst keeping files, settings, and flatpack user applications.

Secondly, also new is hybrid graphics support for computers with both integrated and discrete GPUs.

And this allows only those applications that require it to use the for discrete GPU. So improving battery life on a

GPU. So improving battery life on a laptop. However, I cannot demonstrate

laptop. However, I cannot demonstrate this here as we're currently running on a system that only has integrated graphics.

As we've now seen, Pop OS 2404 runs perfectly on my test system with AMD graphics, and I have no reason to believe that there would be any issues

on a computer with Intel graphics or a fairly modern Nvidia card. However, I

said we'd return to a system with an older Nvidia GPU. And so, here we're running Pop OS 2404 on my i5 test rig,

which has got a GT 1030. And whilst

things do work, there are some issues.

For example, a few minutes ago, the system information looked like this, which is not ideal. And when the system boots for a few seconds, it looks like

this, which also does not inspire confidence. I've also installed Blender,

confidence. I've also installed Blender, which I've got running down here with a 3D model loaded in. And if we flick to a shaded view, there are clearly some

issues with the shading here. If I just uh resize the window like this, as we can see, rendering is not ideal.

Now, for this install, I use the first Pop OS 2404 ISO file, the one for computers with Intel or AMD graphics or an older Nvidia card. And if you're

wondering what happens if you try the second Nvidia ISO during boot, you get this message and cannot go any further.

Now, what's happening here is that having installed from the first ISO file, we're using an open-source Nvidia driver. And as we've just seen, it's not

driver. And as we've just seen, it's not as good as one of the older proprietary Nvidia drivers that's compatible with our GPU.

Now, if we were running Ubuntu, Linux Mint, or Zoren OS, we could go into the additional drivers app and select the most appropriate proprietary Nvidia

driver for our GPU.

However, here in Pop OS, if we go into applications, we look under system and indeed under utilities, you'll see we do not have an additional drivers app. And

this is because any additional drivers are managed here in the Cosmic Store under installed apps. But right now, we can't get to any additional drivers

because none are installed because we're using an open-source GPU driver. And so

there's no graphical interface to assist us with proprietary NVIDIA driver installation. What we therefore need to

installation. What we therefore need to do is to go to the terminal, which in my view really shouldn't be necessary to set up a GPU driver in 2025.

But we'll have a go by entering this command.

And to cut a long story short, after this had executed, whilst on boot, we do get Nvidia errors. We do have Nvidia server settings under installed apps as we can see here. We can open that up.

That's absolutely fine. And more

significantly, if we go into Blender, rendering is now okay. Although I still prefer how other distros handle drivers for older Nvidia cards.

Pop OS 2404 is a very nice Linux distro with its new cosmic desktop environment being a fantastic contribution to the Linux community. Indeed, there are

Linux community. Indeed, there are already many other distros including Fedora with a cosmic version available.

This said, at least from my own point of view, the lack of scaling controls for the interface font and the mouse pointer is something that needs to be addressed.

And it's also a shame there's no straightforward means of installing proprietary driver support for older Nvidia GPUs.

But now that's it for another video. If

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