Vaxry's Blog
blog.vaxry.net
A programming blog written by Vaxry.

My first impressions with cosmic were terrible to say the least. Amongst the sea of complete dealbreaker issues (horrible stutter and lag, inability to use 240hz, mouse sensitivity not working, etc) the general implementations atm are janky to say the least, tons of empty menus, wasted space, small annoying bugs.

I do realize it’s an alpha, though, so I won’t focus on the “small bugs” that can probably be fixed in 15 mins and will be fixed… in the future.

The current design language, IMO, is one of the worst I’ve seen in a while, but I don’t wanna focus on this as it’s all subjective, after all.

In this blogpost I want to focus on the broader ideology behind it, the direction and selling points.

…

Are we out of our minds? It’s a barely functional alpha. All those quotes (and those are just a few) are at best running on “hopes and prayers” and not the actual experience. What foundation? Moving floating windows? MS Windows 3.0 had that. What potential? To… add more code? Just like to… anything at this stage?!

…

Cosmic is a desktop that, for now, to me, has no goal. Is not catchy. Has not much to offer. I don’t know where System76 wants to take it, but if this doesn’t change, it’s not difficult for me to imagine a future where Cosmic ends up like Unity or Mir. Forgotten and barely used.

It’s receiving a lot of overly-positive reviews based on hopes and prayers, with little to be based on reality, or what we have right now.

This, adding to the aggresive marketing, makes the developers already quite hostile to negative feedback.

Cosmic is, in my opinion, on a not-so-good path at the moment, despite what those news outlets might claim.

…

Even though this is a quite negative blogpost, if any of the developers at Cosmic are reading this: Stop riding on the great reviews. Accept criticism, because you know full well Cosmic is very rough at the moment. Criticism is the thing that will drive your code forward.

  • astro_ray@piefed.socialEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    There are valid criticism to be made about cosmic desktop, like
    - their very liberal customization options that doesn’t stop users from ruining the look of the desktop
    - their insistent to theme libadwaita apps disregarding app developers wishes against supporting custom themes.

    But those are just subjective criticism and it’s still in alpha. All his “criticism” amounts to is whining about the software having glitches in alpha stage.

    • Leaflet@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      their insistent to theme libadwaita apps disregarding app developers wishes against supporting custom themes

      Libadwaita theming is not enabled by default. It involves going into experimental settings and I believe there is a warning about enabling it. This does not conflict with Don’t Theme My App, that initiative’s problem is that it’s a problem when distros do it, not individual users who know the downsides.

    • SleveMcDichael@programming.devEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      There are valid criticism to be made about cosmic desktop, like

      *Lists two positives*

      If that’s the best example of criticism to be had about COSMIC, then it’s practically flawless. Except of course, though, it isn’t. Aside from the general lack of polish, I’d argue that there’s not enough customization. E.g. things that should really be a slider or spin control (or better yet multiple sliders/spin controls) like corner radii are multiple choice button things (not to mention that the ‘square’ style is anything but.) Some of the sliders that do exist (particularly the size ones) have very few set points that make them essentially disguised drop downs. I could probably find dozens more things to criticize if I cared to sit down and nitpick everything.

  • ulkesh@beehaw.orgEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    …he knows it’s an alpha, right? Right?

    Can someone tell him that the main reason hyprland sucks is that there’s no metaphor for hiding a window, but leaving the app running? And tossing it to a not-currently-visible workspace isn’t a solution and is pretty damn asinine.

    Also, create a settings GUI. This isn’t the 1960s.

  • SavvyWolf@pawb.socialEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    Oh wow, in the opening paragraph they say that there’s a huge conspiracy covering up the “truth” behind Cosmic’s reception. And that they are the one voice of reason to enlighten people about The Truth…

  • simple@lemm.ee
    0·
    2 months ago

    So basically “there weren’t enough mean spirited reviews on Cosmic so I’ll write my own”. The OP can say he doesn’t like it without making fun of the fanbase and trashing the company for checks notes reporting people’s positive experiences.

    Sooo… Cosmic is for the tiny sliver of users that want a DE… that tiles? Or those that buy a System76 machine and never change the DE?

    Those that are fed up with GNOME and/or are looking for an alternative DE are a huge chunk of the Linux userbase. That’s literally why they created it. With Gnome reducing customizability and having 5-year old bugs never get fixed and breaking necessary extensions every update, it was warranted.

    it feels like the developers are already riding on the endorphins from all the praise and forget their software is after all in a rough state.

    Why? They have public milestones and bug trackers while things seem to move at a good pace. At no point are they just sitting on praise doing nothing.

    • imecth@fedia.io
      0·
      2 months ago

      With Gnome reducing customizability

      If you’re expecting more customization from cosmic I have bad news for you…

      having 5-year old bugs never get fixed

      Bugs aren’t prioritized by age.

      breaking necessary extensions every update

      Gnome breaks every extension on major updates, this is by design to force the extension maintainer to make sure their shit works with the latest version.

      moving off gnome was was warranted

      I strongly doubt any reason you cited was the linchpin for Cosmic moving off Gnome. It’s probably simply that they want more control and to do things their way. Gnome is a project that has thousands of people involved, with plenty of diverging opinions; getting stuff to change to fit your wants is gonna be an uphill battle each time.

    • Telorand@reddthat.com
      0·
      2 months ago

      As you may know, I am the creator and lead developer of Hyprland and the entire ecosystem around it. You might say I’m biased, but I try to approach this from a quite objective side.

      Cosmic is not my direct competitor - Hyprland is a compositor for advanced users, Cosmic is (what it’s meant to be, at least) a user-friendly DE.

      The lady doth protest too much, methinks. Cosmic has Wayland and tiling, it has the backing of a profitable company, and he’s very obviously salty about it.

    • thingsiplay@beehaw.org
      0·
      2 months ago

      This blog post is barely any critique, just toxicity and shitting. Nothing worth reading or learning from, so the devs could make it better. I hope KDE devs don’t waste their time with this useless post.

  • sebsch@discuss.tchncs.de
    0·
    2 months ago

    Vaxry tries to shit on another project.

    The current design language, IMO, is one of the worst I’ve seen in a while, but

    Qed. His posts should not get any attention. He is as narcissistic as toxic.

  • thingsiplay@beehaw.org
    0·
    2 months ago

    The Hyprland devs (or one of them, I don’t exactly know who) is toxic and known for it. Is that person this guy? But I give him his critique, regardless of who the person is. He even acknowledge his bias. Because we should look it from every angle; something we Linux should take this to heart and not forget in general.

    I’ve seen a few posts / videos that criticize Cosmic get downvoted and bullied to hell, especially on Reddit.

    As if it is a Cosmic only thing. This happens with everything.

    System76 is not helping either, as they will proudly claim every 30 minutes that another person said “cosmic looks cool hehe!” and quote it on their twitter and website.

    I don’t understand this statement. What does he expect? That System76 talks shitty about Cosmic? What help does he refer to System76 should have done?

    Are we out of our minds? It’s a barely functional alpha.

    Are you even a developer not recognizing what has been accomplished in such a short time? The team behind Cosmic not only works on a window manager, but on a whole desktop environment. And they needed to build the foundation by working on iced first (the GUI library behind Cosmic).

    Basically, System76 will | grep “modern|cool|good” > ~/posts/newBlogpost.txt.

    Ah, your toxic comments are so helpful. We are grateful for such a brain shit. (Commenters note: I just try to communicate with him, as that’s the language he speaks.)

    … At this point I have enough. I gave him the benefit of doubt, but was disappointed.

    • entropicdrift@lemmy.sdf.org
      0·
      2 months ago

      The Hyprland devs (or one of them, I don’t exactly know who) is toxic and known for it. Is that person this guy?

      Yes, it’s this guy.

  • theshatterstone54@feddit.uk
    0·
    2 months ago

    I don’t completely disagree with him on some points. Here’s what I have to say:

    Cosmic is not my direct competitor

    Okay, I know what I just said but I completely disagree with this. COSMIC has tiling (sort of), has pretty much all the features of a tiling wm, is more user friendly to configure than Hyprland, is on Wayland so “modern”, and has animations, rounded corners, etc so it’s in direct competition with the main thing Hyprland brings to the table.

    My first impressions with COSMIC were terrible

    Umm… alpha much? Or should I remind you of the sorry mess Hyprland was in its own early days?

    I’ve seen a few posts / videos that criticize Cosmic get downvoted and bullied to hell, especially on Reddit.

    It’s Reddit. It’s either tribalism or hivemind. Pick your poison. Eather way, the result is as you describe.

    All those quotes (and those are just a few) are at best running on “hopes and prayers” and not the actual experience.

    Man, I kinda wish nobody believed in Hyprland now. Those same points could have been applied to Hyprland but people believed and here we are. It almost sounds as if you’re jealous of the team, or resources, or pace of development they have?

    Someone might say “oh what are we supposed to say then”, to which I say: simple. Say what you see. Claiming this is the next coming of God will hurt it more than help it.

    Okay, I kinda agree. I think it’s important not to be brutal to them. They have written not just a WM like you, they’ve written an f-ing Desktop! Apps, settings, and even the entire GUI library it’s all written on, and based it on a completely new Compositor library, smithay, which they’ve also had to heavily contribute to. What you did can be done by any one person with enough drive, motivation and knowledge (except the independence rewrite, that would take an absolute doofus who can’t simply apologise and treat humans normally. I often find myself hating people too, but I still give them the benefit of the doubt and a basic level of respect until they lose it. Maybe Hyprland could have been a leading force, a representative for tiling WMs in wlroots, pushing innovation forward and providing another point of view, but you fucking blew it. But I digress.)

    Where do you go Cosmic? And why would you want to? So far, all I can see is three reasons: Rust, Tiling, “We’ll implement what GNOME won’t”

    Is that any different to why other DEs exist? GNOME exists cuz simple, default, polished, GTK. KDE Plasma is powerful, modern, QT. Cinnamon is simple, more customisable, GTK. XFCE is minimal, customisable, GTK. COSMIC is Rust, Iced, Smithay, Tiling, customisable, Wayland-only (and thus Wayland-first), “We’ll implement what GNOME won’t”. The way I see it, COSMIC has a lot going for it. But even if it didn’t, wouldn’t Tiling, A new voice for Wayland, and the first Wayland-only DE be enough?

    Okay, I think I’ll end it here, because I’m devolving into cheap bickering and personal insults. But what I see is that Vaxry is likely jealous and is trying to undermine what COSMIC has achieved.

    • IrritableOcelot@beehaw.org
      0·
      2 months ago

      Ignoring the original post, I wanted to pick up on what you said right at the end.

      Something I’ve never understood is, what impact is using iced going to have on app compatiblity? Are we going to need compatibility layers for GTK and QT, like with Cinnamon displaying QT apps, with the associated jankiness?

      • leopold@lemmy.kde.social
        0·
        2 months ago

        Uh, Cinnamon does not need a compatibility app to run Qt apps. No desktop environment does. You mostly just need to be X11 or Wayland compliant. The same is true with GTK.

      • theshatterstone54@feddit.uk
        0·
        2 months ago

        You don’t need a compatibility layer. It just runs. Now for the theming, getting GTK themed is built-in under Theming->Experimental while QT theming is not there yet.

    • dino@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      COSMIC is Rust, Iced, Smithay, Tiling, customisable, Wayland-only (and thus Wayland-first),

      what is iced? i dont care about smithay, why should I? customisable as a feature? ever DE is except Gnome, I guess?

  • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
    0·
    2 months ago

    Clicked the link expecting analysis of the architecture or implementation… Got some clown spazzing. WTF

  • Peasley@lemmy.world
    0·
    2 months ago

    Couldn’t finish it: too much whining, not enough substance.

    I haven’t tried hyprland yet but if this is the guy developing it than maybe I’m good.

    Cosmic seems promising. Best of luck to system76, happy to see an alternative opinionated desktop getting some momentum.

    • sebsch@discuss.tchncs.de
      0·
      2 months ago

      I tried hyprland. It’s okish and very (very) colorful.

      For a tiling wm it’s just over complex and does not integrate well with other tools. The configuration is a nightmare tbh.

      If you want to get your fingers dirty on tiling WM using Wayland Sway is just fine. It’s minimalistic and feels almost like i3.

  • MultipleAnimals@sopuli.xyz
    0·
    2 months ago

    Oof. I love hyprland as my wm, will continue using it, and thought vaxrys previous actions was somewhat fair, but this is just cringe and toxic.

    • Chewt@beehaw.org
      0·
      2 months ago

      yeah I had the same thought when I read this post. I like hyprland, and will continue to use it because I like it more than all other WMs i’ve tried, but with every new post by Vaxry I cringe more and more. I was hoping to learn about some honest criticisms of Cosmic, because like many others it is something I am excited about and would like to keep up to date with its progress, however the post reads like a child doing nothing but complaining and making strawman arguments. I mean seriously, nobody is saying Cosmic is the “coming of christ” or whatever, so there is no reason to spend so many words explaining how it’s a problem.