this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2023
10 points (100.0% liked)

Linux

48140 readers
556 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 5 years ago
MODERATORS
AgreeableLandscape@lemmy.ml
nooter692@lemmy.ml
MarcellusDrum@lemmy.ml
cypherpunks@lemmy.ml
cyclohexane@lemmy.ml
d3Xt3r@lemmy.nz
10
What are your thoughts on the upcoming COSMIC DE? (lemmy.ml)
submitted 1 year ago by DaisyLee@lemmy.ml to c/linux@lemmy.ml
23 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Basically title, with System76 moving from gnome to their new rust built COSMIC environment what are your thoughts?

all 24 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] open_world@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I'm incredibly interested in COSMIC DE! For multiple different reasons, actually.

  1. Rust - I'm very interested to see how performant/memory-efficient this DE will be compared with other DEs. Also, I wonder how the Iced toolkit will evolve and be adopted in other projects.
  2. Benefits over GNOME - I'm looking forward to seeing how much out-of-box customizability and features come with COSMIC over GNOME (which I'm currently using).
  3. Maintainability going forward - Since the DE basically started from scratch and is using a much better language for robust software, I wonder how much easier and faster it would be to maintain the desktop environment. This potential improved maintainability could be huge in overtaking other DEs sometime soon.
[–] mrquantumoff@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

I agree completely. I'm also thrilled for the HDR support in it.

[–] morrowind@lemmy.ml -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

How is rust more memory efficient than c or c++?

[–] apt_install_coffee@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's not, perhaps they meant memory-safe?

The DE might be more memory efficient given the hindsight and freedom a fresh slate brings, but not strictly due to rust.

[–] mmstick@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

There's several things that make Rust more ideal for writing software that makes efficient use of resources than C or C++.

One of these is how cumbersome it is to use tagged unions in C/C++. They're integrated as a first class citizen in Rust in the form of enums, and both the standard library and all Rust projects as a whole utilize them extensively. An example would be the Cow<'a, T> type. The compiler also has some clever tricks like zero-sized types which can reduce the size of types which contain them.

On the surface, the borrowing and ownership model is useful for guaranteeing memory safety. Yet if you take that a step further, it's the perfect tool for finely optimizing resource usage with confidence. In comparison, defensive programming practices are the norm in C and C++ because resource management is risky. So applications written in Rust are more likely to be better optimized.

[–] open_world@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

And the GNOME project doesn't just use C/C++ right? It uses Javascript for developing all sorts of components and Python for scripting/misc utilties. That's what I meant by more memory-efficient.

[–] Nuuskis@sopuli.xyz 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hey, do you have plans to open any communities into Lemmy?

[–] mmstick@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

We created https://kbin.social/m/pop_os

I haven't been able to contact the owner of https://lemmy.ml/c/pop_os

[–] russjr08@outpost.zeuslink.net 1 points 1 year ago

If the author of the community isn't responding, I believe you can pop a request over at https://lemmy.ml/c/community_requests to have it transferred to you.

[–] lightrush@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Skeptical. Writing a graphical UI toolkit is a freight train of work. I'm positively curious about anything that's not GTK but I'm not sure going with a new toolkit is the right decision. Qt is the mature kid on the block that's been proven in more environments than I can count. Moreover it's a complete application framework with a ton of convenience libraries needed for speedy development already included. I guess those can be supplanted in the form of separate Rust libs. Personally I'd have gone with Qt for such a project but I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

[–] kartonrealista@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

This is coming from personal experience/opinion, but after trying to create a simple app in GTK4 Rust bindings I was so confused because of how alien the programming style was compared to typical Rust programming. After trying Iced it was much simpler and made so much more sense, no silly decorators or anything, you can define the view and the update loop separately, and interactions are handled by messages using pattern matching. The inheritance based OOP doesn't work well with Rust, and Iced has none of it, because it was made for Rust specifically.

I'm guessing QT bindings are similarly in a different style of programming and can't imagine that meshing well with native Rust code. Iced has a lot of merits to it and having the opportunity to both help it develop and use a native Rust framework in a Rust project makes a lot of sense.

[–] Spore@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I'm looking forward to it.

On the technical side, they are using pure Rust to build the DE, and the Rust GUI ecosystem has been greatly improved by their hard work. If their product turns out to be successful, Iced may eventually become "the Qt of Rust".

As a user I like their design shown in current demos, and a Wayland-first DE with first class nvidia support is really needed.

[–] lightrush@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 year ago

A new toolkit that's a genuine competitor of Qt would be nice indeed.

[–] daemonspudguy@lemmy.fmhy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

Rust is badass, GNOME is currently led by a group whose main activity has been to try to ruin the project as much as possible, and more desktop environments are always welcome in my book.

[–] FallingTrees@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Always happy with more choice as it's one of the main things that brought me to Linux many moons ago. Don't like the way your DE does things? Well then swap it out, wholesale or otherwise. Personally, Gnome aligns very well with the way I like to use my computers but I also love to see what the KDE devs are doing with Plasma so I'm always interested in seeing another fresh take. My only real concern is that a whole DE is a heck of a lot of work and requires significant resources that will get stretched thinner and thinner with each new feature and option and I'd say they'd need a fair amount of community buy-in to keep up with it all long term in an ever changing PC market.

[–] JRepin@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

A couple of months ago our company decided to standardise on only one GNU/Linux distro and they chose PopOS. While the default desktop is better then stocj GNOME it was still far away to what I am used from the powerful, featureful and customizable KDE Plasma so after about two weeks I switched to KDE Plasma (unfortunately they have an extremely old version in their repos, but still much better).

I can only guess that Cosmic will be on pair to their current improved GNOME but will still be way lacking compared to what even an old KDE Plasma offers. And I would also much more like to see if they put more attention to keeping more updated KDE Plasma and KDE software packages in their repo. Even for Cosmic I think they would be much better of basing it on the extremely flexible and configurable KDE Plasma base and make it a heavy modification of this.

[–] DaisyLee@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

There is a community KDE spin in the works, with a more up to date plasma experience. https://fosstodon.org/@pop_os_kde_spin

[–] vanderbilt@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

I welcome new and innovative DEs. I am tired of how some organizations handle things. I must however, acknowledge that with every additional major DE comes further fragmentation. COSMIC seems to really care and for that reason I am rooting for them. The negative effects, however, are always in the back of my mind.

[–] Nuuskis@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 year ago

System76 is doing huge leaps for Linux as a whole. They already offer the best bios on the market. I am keenly looking to buy their upcoming Virgo laptop when it's ready.

[–] macias@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

My main gripe with most Linux DEs is inconsistent UI and lacking app ecosystem. For now, only GNOME is addressing these issues with GNOME Circle (I already like and use apps like Spot, Paper, Amberol, Warp, and others) while having a good-looking UI. Also, GNOME is the only DE with usable trackpad gestures. If COSMIC is going to use GTK4 for UI and implement trackpad gestures similar to these found in macOS or GNOME, it would be probably my main DE.

[–] ballogh@sh.itjust.works 0 points 1 year ago

They lack manpower so I don't think it will change anything.

[–] sin_free_for_00_days@lemmy.one 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I switched to tiling window managers a good 5 or so years ago and really can't imagine using any of the DE available. I know, I know, you can run xwm in yDE, but I've never seen the point.

[–] mmstick@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

Tiling window management is one of the core focuses of the cosmic compositor. Taking what made pop-shell great and taking it to the next level. So you might be interested in it.