this post was submitted on 02 Jan 2026
-50 points (34.0% liked)

Linux

61465 readers
347 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
nooter692@lemmy.ml
AgreeableLandscape@lemmy.ml
MarcellusDrum@lemmy.ml
cypherpunks@lemmy.ml
cyclohexane@lemmy.ml
d3Xt3r@lemmy.nz
-50
Reminder: System76 is not to be trusted (blogs.gnome.org)
submitted 3 weeks ago by alsaaas@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/linux@lemmy.ml
53 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7224516

Imagine spending 3+ years on staying mad at GNOME to release the most underwhelming software imaginable.

System76 is best known for spreading misinfo and lies about GNOME and other upstreams, selling overpriced re-branded clevos, "being made in America", loving rust and hyping on twitter and mastodon.

Most of the "backlash" against GNOME comes from the a community that has more opinions than users or just straight up misinformation and spite.

COSMIC is very poorly designed, it might be written in the "memory-safe programming language" but it's clear that they don't have a design backbone. They basically created the caricature of GNOME's adwaita but now you can paint your windows in whatever barf-inducing color you want.

They built an entire new desktop from scratch rather than work with GNOME or KDE and in that amount of time, literally every issue that sparked that redesign was resolved upstream in both aforementioned desktops.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] ashleythorne@lemmy.world 48 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (3 children)

Imagine spending 3+ years on staying mad at GNOME to release the most underwhelming software imaginable.

Shocking, a 3 year old project is not as well established as a 20+ year old desktops. Its feature set is enough to me, but they did release it too early as it is still quite buggy.

COSMIC is very poorly designed, it might be written in the “memory-safe programming language” but it’s clear that they don’t have a design backbone

It looks "fine". I agree that modern Adwaita looks better, but it's not terrible. The default theme is meh, but themes like Catppuccin makes it look nice. There's also missing things like drop shadows and animations, which I believe are toolkit limitations.

They built an entire new desktop from scratch rather than work with GNOME

Gnome and System76 had different goals and UX ideas that were incompatible. Rather than continually patching Gnome and updating their patches to keep working, they decided to build their own thing, that's fine.

I don't quite get why Gnome people see this as a negative. If System76 is a poor downstream, then System76 no longer being a downstream is beneficial for them.

rather than work with GNOME or KDE and in that amount of time

I think that's a good thing in the long run. Gnome and KDE both have a significant amount of technical debt.

One of the things I love about COSMIC is how sanely it's built, following modern programming principles.

  • Rust helps avoid memory issues, helping with security and bugs
  • A lot of things run as their own processes, which would typically all be running under a single process in Gnome/KDE. So even if something does crash, say the power applet or notifications applet, it won't bring down other components like the shell.
  • Clean layout of configuration, data, and state files. KDE is an absolute mess in this department. Gnome is better than KDE, but COSMIC does even better.

So while COSMIC is worse now due to its bugs and lack of features, I think it's built on better foundations. That is, if System76 continues to invest in it. I'm not sure how profitable/unprofitable it is for them. My guess would be unprofitable.

[–] Ooops@feddit.org 19 points 3 weeks ago

I don’t quite get why Gnome people see this as a negative.

Because GNOME decisions are correct, always and exclusively so. Everyone who disagrees is obviously clueless and can be disregarded.

That's basically the GNOME mantra.

[–] LeFantome@programming.dev 13 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

COSMiC has made Iced and Smithay stronger. Now Niri is based on Smithay. I for one are happy they spent their time on something other than GNOME.

[–] MyNameIsRichard@lemmy.ml 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

but they did release it too early as it is still quite buggy.

This is often done to get more feedback.

[–] ashleythorne@lemmy.world 7 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

That's what the alphas, betas, and user studies are for.

Pushing buggy software out as stable is a feature of modern corporate software development that should be avoided. It gives a poor impression of the software.

[–] MyNameIsRichard@lemmy.ml 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Yeah but more people run a release on a wider range of hardware do the alphas and betas. While your right about the impression it makes, it really boils down to how quickly things are fixed.

[–] ashleythorne@lemmy.world 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Hardware/driver bugs are one thing, but COSMIC has plenty of purely software/logical bugs discoverable on any hardware.

[–] MyNameIsRichard@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 weeks ago

I can't speak to that as I've never used it. I see no reason to change from Plasma.