COSMIC alpha released

After two year of development, System76 has released the very first alpha of COSMIC, their new Rust-based desktop environment for Linux. This is an alpha release, so they make it clear there’s going to be bugs and that there’s a ton of missing features at this point.

As a whole, COSMIC is a comprehensive operating system GUI (graphical user interface) environment that features advanced functionality and a responsive design. Its modular architecture is specifically designed to facilitate the creation of unique, branded user experiences with ease.
↫ System76 website

Don’t read too much into “branded experience” here – it just means other Linux distributions can easily use their colours, branding, and panel configurations. The settings application is also entirely modular, so distributors can easily add additional panels, and replace things like the update panel with one that fits their package management system of choice. COSMIC also supports extensive theming, and if you’re wondering – yes, all of these are answers to the very reason COSMIC was made in the first place: GNOME’s restrictiveness.

There’s not much else to say here yet, since it’s an alpha release, but if you want to give it a go, the announcement post contains links to instructions for a variety of Linux distributions. COSMIC is also slowly making its way into Redox, the Rust-based operating system led by Jeremy Soller, a System76 employee.