System76 has announced a double milestone: both Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS and its new COSMIC desktop environment are now in beta. For the first time, COSMIC is feature-complete and moving into a polish phase, while Pop!_OS itself begins its long-term support beta cycle.
The COSMIC desktop is built from the ground up in Rust. By avoiding decades of legacy code, System76 has created a modern environment that’s stable, consistent, and highly customizable. Users can configure panels, workspaces, tiling, shortcuts, themes, and applets to build a workflow that fits their preferences.
Pop!_OS 24.04 beta now ships with COSMIC apps replacing GNOME counterparts. COSMIC Files takes over from Nautilus, COSMIC Terminal replaces GNOME Terminal, COSMIC Text Editor replaces GNOME Text Editor, and COSMIC Media Player replaces Totem. Pop!_Shop has been replaced with the COSMIC Store. Other apps include COSMIC Settings, COSMIC Edit, and COSMIC Player.
Key components in the beta include COSMIC Epoch 1 Beta, Linux kernel 6.16.3, Mesa 25.1.5-1, NVIDIA driver 580, libwayland 1.23.1-3, and libdrm 2.4.125-1. This gives Pop!_OS one of the most up-to-date Linux stacks available.
As with any beta, there are caveats. Drag-and-drop from Wayland to X11 apps doesn’t work yet, some games may open partially off-screen, and display toggle hotkeys aren’t implemented. Browser theming requires a Firefox flag on some distros, while Chrome 140 and newer work without tweaks. COSMIC’s screenshot tool works but lacks annotations, so users may want to install Flameshot. Accessibility improvements, indicator behavior, and printing support are still in progress.
Upgrading from Pop!_OS 22.04 to 24.04 beta is supported, but dock favorites won’t transfer and PPAs are disabled during the upgrade. Apps must be re-pinned using the new COSMIC app tray.
The beta period is also about testing COSMIC beyond Pop!_OS. Fedora, Arch, NixOS, CachyOS, Aeryn OS, and even Redox OS have already begun integrating it, suggesting COSMIC could become a serious cross-distro desktop option.
Pop!_OS 24.04 beta and COSMIC beta are available as of September 25. Alpha users can simply update their systems to join the beta. A release candidate will follow, with the final stable release later this year.
More details and downloads are available on the System76 COSMIC page and the Pop!_OS beta page.
