After the launch of Garuda Linux “Broadwing”, the development team announced their efforts towards a new edition that will feature the emerging COSMIC desktop environment, created from scratch using the Rust programming language by System76, a well-known Linux hardware vendor. Currently, Garuda Linux offers various editions equipped with popular desktop environments such as KDE Plasma, GNOME, and others. It even includes a Garuda Nix Subsystem edition for users interested in exploring NixOS.
The Garuda COSMIC edition is still in a development phase, and potential users are cautioned that it is a barebones version, primarily built from the stock COSMIC packages on a Garuda base. The team has expressed their willingness to customize and enhance the edition based on community feedback and suggestions.
Users can expect a typical COSMIC experience, similar to what they would encounter on other GNU/Linux distributions, including Arch Linux. This edition comes equipped with Garuda’s new welcome app, Garuda Rani, along with various utilities such as the Garuda Settings Manager and others tailored for system maintenance and network assistance.
This new environment includes standard COSMIC applications like COSMIC Files and COSMIC Settings, though the COSMIC Media Player introduced in a prior alpha release is not yet included due to its beta status.
The Garuda COSMIC edition is functional and available for anyone interested in testing it on their computers or in virtual machines. However, users are advised to direct any bugs related specifically to the COSMIC environment to the developers at System76 instead of the Garuda team.
For those interested, the Garuda COSMIC edition can be downloaded here.