First Look: Fedora 42 COSMIC Spin (Beta)
Fedora 42 introduces a new spin featuring the COSMIC desktop environment, developed by System76, the creators of Pop!_OS. COSMIC is a modern, GNOME-inspired environment that emphasizes customization, efficiency, and modular design. This post is a quick walkthrough of the default out-of-the-box experience with Fedora 42 COSMIC (Beta) [torrent file].
Note: At the time of this writing, Fedora 42 Beta had not yet been officially announced, but the spin is publicly available for testing.
🌌 What Is COSMIC?
COSMIC (Computer Operating System Main Interface Components) is a GTK-based desktop environment created by System76. It’s designed to provide a clean, lightweight, and modular user experience. While still in active development, it already offers several quality-of-life improvements over vanilla GNOME.
🧭 User Interface and Layout
Out of the box, COSMIC provides:
- A workspace overview at the top of the screen
- The ability to switch between horizontal and vertical workspace layouts
- A centralized system control panel accessible via the top bar
This control panel gives you access to:
- Network & Bluetooth
- Accessibility options (currently limited to a magnifier)
- Desktop appearance and theming
- Window management and workspace configuration
You can quickly toggle between light and dark mode, choose accent colors, and adjust UI elements like corner rounding and interface density.
🎨 Theming and Appearance
In the Appearance section, you can:
- Choose between Rounded, Slightly Rounded, or Square window styles
- Adjust interface density for compact or spacious layouts
- Change icon themes and toolkits
- Set wallpapers (with slideshow support)
🔧 System Settings Highlights
Other useful settings include:
- Displays: Orientation, scaling, and rendering options (e.g. X11 vs. native rendering)
- Sound, Power, and Battery: Displays battery levels for connected devices like wireless mice
- Input Devices: Keyboard mapping, alternate characters, Caps Lock behavior
- Time & Language: Set time zone and language preferences
- User Management: Add/remove local users
- About: System info panel
🖥️ Core Applications
COSMIC on Fedora 42 includes a small but functional set of default apps:
- COSMIC Terminal – lightweight and responsive
- COSMIC Text Editor – minimal and efficient
- LibreOffice – full office suite included
- Fedora Media Writer – useful for writing installation ISOs
- GNOME Tools – System Monitor, Disks, Calculator, etc.
🚀 App Launcher and Workflow
The Super (Windows) key opens the COSMIC app launcher—similar to KDE’s KRunner or GNOME’s Activities overview. You can search for apps, files, and system tools from here quickly and efficiently.
Open applications are indicated by a small dot under the icon on the dock. Clicking the icon minimizes/restores the window, macOS-style. There’s no global menu bar by default, and right-click behavior varies slightly across the desktop and dock.
🧪 Still in Beta
Keep in mind:
- This is an early version of the COSMIC Spin
- Not all expected features or extensions are included yet
- It’s intended to provide a preview of what’s coming, especially for users curious about how COSMIC will function outside of Pop!_OS
System76 has stated that COSMIC will be the default DE in a future release of Pop!_OS, so this Fedora spin is a good way to test-drive what’s ahead.
🔗 Learn More
You can learn more about COSMIC from System76 directly:
👉 COSMIC Desktop Environment
💬 Final Thoughts
This walkthrough focused on the default configuration—no tweaks or extensions added. Overall, the experience is lightweight, customizable, and surprisingly polished for a beta. If you’ve tried COSMIC on Fedora or Pop!_OS, I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Drop a comment below and let’s talk Linux desktops.
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