Release

Shanios Gets a Third Desktop: The COSMIC Edition

Shrinivas Kumbhar · 2026-08-25 · 5 min

Shanios is adding a COSMIC desktop edition alongside the existing GNOME and KDE Plasma options. COSMIC is System76's new desktop environment, built from scratch in Rust with Wayland-native design, tiling window management, and a focus on keyboard-driven workflows.

What is COSMIC?

COSMIC (Computer System for Man-Machine Interaction and Communication) is a desktop environment developed by System76, the Colorado-based Linux hardware vendor. It is written primarily in Rust, uses Wayland exclusively, and is designed around three principles:

  • Keyboard-first: Every action has a keyboard shortcut. The tiling window manager is not an add-on — it is the default layout.
  • Composable: Panels, docks, and workspaces are modular applets that can be rearranged or replaced.
  • Fast: Rust-native rendering with minimal dependencies means low memory usage and fast startup.

COSMIC is not a GNOME fork, not a KDE clone, and not a tiling WM wrapper. It is a ground-up desktop environment with its own file manager, text editor, terminal, settings panel, and system tray.

What Ships in the COSMIC Edition

The COSMIC edition includes:

COSMIC Core:

  • COSMIC Panel (taskbar with workspace switcher, system tray, clock)
  • COSMIC Launcher (application launcher with fuzzy search)
  • COSMIC Files (file manager)
  • COSMIC Text Editor (syntax-highlighted, Git-aware)
  • COSMIC Terminal (GPU-accelerated, tiling support)
  • COSMIC Settings (system configuration)
  • COSMIC Applets (notification daemon, power manager, Bluetooth, audio, network)

Shared with all editions:

  • Vivaldi browser, OnlyOffice, Gear Lever, Warehouse, Flatseal, Pods, BoxBuddy
  • PipeWire audio, firewalld, fail2ban, OpenSSH, Tailscale
  • Full multimedia codecs, printing/scanning, Bluetooth
  • Zsh + Starship + McFly shell experience
  • All Shanios core packages (shani-deploy, shani-health, gen-efi)

Not included (compared to GNOME/KDE):

  • No Waydroid (COSMIC does not support Android app compatibility yet)
  • No snapd (COSMIC edition omits Snap support — use Flatpak or Distrobox instead)

When to Choose COSMIC

COSMIC is a good fit if you:

  • Prefer keyboard-driven workflows and tiling window management
  • Want a modern, fast desktop with low resource usage
  • Like the idea of a Rust-native desktop with Wayland from day one
  • Use System76 hardware (COSMIC is optimized for their machines)
  • Want something different from the GNOME/KDE duopoly

COSMIC may not be for you if you:

  • Rely on GNOME or KDE-specific extensions and applets
  • Need Waydroid for Android app compatibility
  • Prefer a traditional floating window layout (COSMIC's tiling is the default, not optional)

Building the COSMIC Image

The COSMIC edition uses the same build pipeline as GNOME and Plasma:

./build.sh full -p cosmic

The image_profiles/cosmic/ directory contains:

  • package-list.txt — base packages (same as other desktops, plus shani-desktop-cosmic)
  • flatpak-packages.txt — COSMIC-specific Flatpaks
  • cosmic-customization.sh — enables COSMIC systemd services
  • overlay/ — COSMIC-specific filesystem overlay
  • pacman.conf — pacman configuration for the build

The shani-desktop-cosmic metapackage pulls in the COSMIC desktop components from the [shani] repository.

Try It

The COSMIC edition is a full installable ISO built by the same blue-green update mechanism as the other editions — but it is not yet published for download. As of now, only the GNOME and KDE Plasma editions ship from shani.dev; the COSMIC ISO is buildable from source (./build.sh full -p cosmic) but has not yet been released to the download server. If you are already running Shanios and want to switch desktops, the recommended path is a fresh install — desktop environments are deeply integrated and switching at runtime is not supported.

For the full technical breakdown: What's Included.

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