PopOS is making a NEW DESKTOP, and it's GREAT for Linux
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Earlier this month, a POPOS desktop engineer casually dropped on a reddit conversation that PopOS would prefer to develop their own desktop, using RUST, so let's see why that's amazing!
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https://www.reddit.com/r/pop_os/comments/qnvrou/will_pop_os_ever_do_an_officially_kde_flavor_or/hjji8hh/
First, it will be called "Cosmic" just like the current GNOME + Extensions configuration that PopOS ships. Second, it will be written in Rust, from scratch. Third, it will follow the FreeDesktop specification, so it will be interoperable with other desktops.
They also aim for more stability, and less resource usage than GNOME, with greater configuration options.
This is important, because it means that PopOs is going the same route as Unity did in the day: only write a new shell, but don't spend too much resources on re-writing everything around it, apps, window managers, settings panels, etc...
What will it look like? Basically like what today's Cosmic desktop looks like: dock on the botton, top panel, launcher to open apps and search... It makes sense to not disturb user's habits and not re-make the whole experience. It will also have the auto tiling features PopOS users already enjoy.
The desktop won't be here for 22.04, that's for sure, and I personally wouldn't expect it until 2023.
But why create yet another desktop environment? Won't that split development efforts and hurt the Linux desktop in general?
Let's get that out of the way: this is a very common misconception, but it's not how things work.
You can't always make your own vision for something coexist with the vision the original project has. Sometimes, the two are incompatible. In that case, you have 2 options: you create your own vision, and start working on it, or you forget your vision, and stop working on a project whose goals you no longer share.
Basically, if you don't fork, or create your project, you'd stop contributing anyway, so no one loses manpower in the end.
Now, why would PopOS and System76 feel that they can't keep using GNOME?
This is obviously a move to try and not be impacted as much by the GNOME planned changes.
GNOME is moving in its own direction, that PopOS hasn't really liked all that much in the past, and it doesn't seem that relations are improving, as incendiary blog posts and tweets keep being fired on a regular basis from GNOME contributors and System76 employees.
PopOS had already made a first move by renaming their shell "Cosmic", when they decided to ship a variety of extensions out of the box on their distro, to implement a vision closer to what they'd like their users to have.
Still, it seems that these extensions aren't enough: they are in general kinda hacky, can be broken with every major release of GNOME, and have no chance of ever getting upstreamed, so they'll be a burden on System76 for however long they'd decide to keep using them.
Now, my opinion about this is pretty positive. I think it's great that PopOS is developing their own desktop. I thought it was great when Ubuntu developed Unity. I think it's awesome that we have multiple desktop choices on Linux.
Basically, I think that each distribution should have its own specific "thing" that makes it unique, or it doesn't really have a reason to exist.
elementary OS has its own desktop environment and appcenter, Fedora has all the latest tech, Arch is the most bleeding edge distro, Gentoo is super optimized for your hardware, and a lot of other distros bring their own more minor spins on these bases, that serve a purpose.