The latest version of System76's Ubuntu remix is available, but it is by no means complete. However, the new Rust-based desktop is somewhat useful.
Pop OS 24.04 Alpha: First Look at the New COSMIC Desktop | What's New & How to download!
US shifter of Linux boxes System76 has released alpha 1 of Pop!_OS 24.04. It is the company's remix of Ubuntu Noble Numbat, with its own in-house based desktop environment, codenamed COSMIC and implemented in Rust. The result is a new and incomplete desktop running on top of a fairly stable and mature OS. Some parts are still missing and we saw some occasional but repeatable app crashes, but it's serviceable if you're patient. It's already received some rave reviews, but we think it's going to polarize users greatly.
The default desktop looks like a mix of GNOME 3.x and Elementary's Pantheon – click to enlarge
Pop OS is a relatively new distro: the first release appeared at the end of 2017, and the Reg FOSS desktop has looked at it a couple of times: first on version 21.10, which caused us significant problems, and later on the next LTS version, version 22.04 which turned out to be less troublesome. As an Ubuntu remix, it makes some interesting but not too profound changes under the hood. What is particularly interesting about this release is its new desktop environment, COSMIC. This has been a long time coming – the registry already covered the plans in 2021. A few years later, we have a preliminary version to try.
