I mean, I get it, System76 is actively developing Cosmic to be the default DE for Pop and we are all used to posting here. But like desktop Linux kernel, we can choose our own DE. I'm still running X11/Gnome because I'm lazy. For those of you using Cosmic and having issues with it, why not post to r/COSMICDE ? Or are you posting to both?

I read the 1.6.0 notes from the thread/github and not much stood out to me.

Then a few hours later now I see Phoronix title, and I'm thinking WHOA per-app volume control?? I've been waiting AGES for that! How did I miss it?

https://preview.redd.it/tgxnzcvwl9kh1.png?width=1060&format=png&auto=webp&s=3563dcc6101e76f3f8f3038bddc8ab90f06f22cc

Idk maybe it's just me, but I didn't parse that from the wall of text on github:

cosmic-settings - sound: add app specific settings. Like now in hindsight that makes sense, but things like this are often just way too vague imo.

I feel like it would also benefit the COSMIC project to improve the release notes for better community engagement/sharing. Way more people would be excited to keep up with the project if the patch notes weren't simply a ticket dump and were more of a "Here's what we're releasing for you guys this week!" blog post.

Does anyone know drawing tablets that are working reliably with Pop and cosmic de?

I tried using a cheap ugee tablet and was having trouble recognizing it, I followed instructions for driver install and nothing seemed to get it to work.

If there's a specific one like wacom or something id get one but unsure if this is a known issue right now.

For reference im using a Dell inspiron 5577

EDIT

Forgot to say, tablet came with a usb-c to c cord and worked connected to my phone.

Laptop only has usb ports and the usb to c cords i tried connected (tablet light came on) but device was not showing.

I’m majoring in comp sci in college and am looking to switch from windows 10. I tried arch linux but it was too ambitious; any tips?

You tried f11? You tried super m? You tried alt enter? None of it worked?

Go to properties

Force compatibility

Select proton 9.0.4

RTx 5070

Seems to work for me so far!

Running Gentoo with COSMIC as my DE, paired with a 260Hz monitor. The refresh rate applies fine, but it sometimes causes a hard crash out of nowhere after some use. Other times it runs fine with no issue at all, so it seems intermittent rather than consistently reproducible.
I recently upgraded to the latest kernel and that helped with general stability, but this crash still happens.
I suspect this might line up with a known upstream cosmic-comp issue around non-default refresh rates, but I haven’t been able to confirm it since the crash doesn’t leave anything usable in the logs.
Anyone else running COSMIC on a high refresh rate panel hit this? Curious whether it’s a known issue right now or something specific to my setup.

Hey everyone,

So I've been using Pop!_OS on my ASUS ROG laptop for a while now and one thing that always bugged me was not having a proper way to cap my battery charging like you can on Windows with GHelper.

I got tired of manually echoing values into sysfs every time I rebooted, so I built ghelper-linux, a small TUI (terminal

UI) that lets you set a charge limit (like stop at 80%) so your battery doesn't sit at 100% all day plugged in. That'shonestly terrible for long-term battery health.

It's written in Rust, runs in your terminal, weighs under 1MB and looks like this:

▶ battery │ 85% Charging

system │ voltage 12.1V current 2.3A power 27.8W

settings │

│ charge limit

│ 80%

│ presets [80%] 60% 100%

│ [a] apply [s] setup persist

What it does:

- Set a battery charge cap (60 / 80 / 100% or custom)

- Survives reboots automatically via a systemd service

- Shows live battery stats, CPU/GPU temps, memory usage

- Fully keyboard driven, no desktop environment needed

It's still early days and I'm sure there's stuff to improve. If you use an ASUS laptop on Linux and want to give it a try, I'd really appreciate it.

A on GitHub goes a long way for motivation too lol.

Happy to answer any questions or take feature requests. Things like fan control and performance mode switching are on my list if people are interested!

Hi all,

I'm trying to dual boot with Win11, and I'm having an issue. I've tried both Bazzite and Pop OS, using both Rufus and Fedora at different points to make the live USB, but I run into the same issue with either distro. The device shows up on the boot list, and it starts to boot, but when I try selecting either the regular Bazzite option or Basic Graphics mode, the screen goes black and then kicks me back to bios. Similar thing when I boot Pop OS and select their "try out Pop" button. I have fTPM and Secure boot both turned off, so I'm not sure what else to try.

Some system stats if it'll help:
Mobo: Tuf X670e Wifi+
CPU: 7800x3D
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 2x16 DDR5 4800
nvme: Samsung 990 Pro 4tb (where I have Windows)
990 Pro 1tb (where I'd like to put the distro I decide on)
GPU: XFX 9070xt Mercury

Good day everyone. About 3 weeks ago I made the jump to Pop!_OS after a handful of Live USB testing. I loved the Hyprland-esque tiling system and felt it was exactly what my workflow needed. After a few weeks, I upgraded to Cosmic 1.5, and since then I've noticed some quirks that have me wondering whether it's something I did wrong with my install, or a Cosmic issue.

First, the cosmic-comp and cosmic-panel. The compositor takes a surprising amount of CPU, to the point where it sometimes overclocks my sessions and causes massive slowdowns. These slowdowns happen when i have multiple different windows open in different workspaces, say around 5 windows. Cosmic Panel on the other hand crashes under heavy load or a random click of the panel applet, and refuses to restart unless I run "killall cosmic-panel"

Second, some apps just don't run as smoothly as they did on Linux Mint, which I used for a few months before switching. The biggest offender is zoom, the video conference app. Starting or joining a meeting eats up enough CPU resources, that the laptop becomes borderline inoperable. Gaming has taken a hit too, as my tests with PCSX2 tanked the consistent speed to the average of 90%.

None of this happened during my time on Mint, on the same hardware. So I'm trying to figure out whether or not this is a hardware limitation, or Cosmic being less stable? Would appreciate hearing if anyone with similar specs has run into the same thing.

Of course, I will provide the detail of my hardware and install as well. Hardware information is in the attached pictures. As for the install, i used the generic version of Pop Os 24.04, with btrfs as the drive format.

TRANSPARENCY: this post was generated by AI. The fix is by AI. I did my best to ensure that the AI tested for DNS leaks and vulnerabilities the fix might create. Be skeptical. Use at your own risk.

I am sending the report to ExpressVPN support and x-posting on the ExpressVPN subreddit.

---

[AI generated text from here on in.]

I found and worked around a DNS compatibility bug between ExpressVPN 14.2.0 and Pop!_OS 24.04.

This is not a general "VPN tunnel will not connect" problem. ExpressVPN reported Connected, the tunnel passed traffic to literal IP addresses, and the public address changed to an ExpressVPN exit address. However, DNS failed, so browsers timed out and most applications appeared to have no internet.

Environment

• Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS with COSMIC
• /etc/os-release: ID=pop, ID_LIKE="ubuntu debian"
• systemd 255
• NetworkManager 1.46.0
• systemd-resolved enabled and active
• ExpressVPN 14.2.0+13656
• Reproduced with Lightway UDP and WireGuard

Root cause

The installed ExpressVPN script /opt/expressvpn/bin/openvpn-updown.sh contains this test:

# NOTE: Work-around for DNS bug in Ubuntu 24 - where resolvectl may hang
if /usr/bin/systemctl --version | grep -q "systemd 255"; then
  hasUbuntuDnsBug=1

It does not check the distribution. It assumes every system running systemd 255 has the Ubuntu 24 DNS bug.

Pop!_OS is based on Ubuntu, but it is a separate distribution and identifies itself as ID=pop. On this machine, resolvectl works normally. Nevertheless, ExpressVPN took its Ubuntu workaround path, bypassed systemd-resolved, and directly overwrote /etc/resolv.conf with:

nameserver 100.64.100.1

Because /etc/resolv.conf is a symlink to /run/systemd/resolve/stub-resolv.conf, this also writes into a file managed by systemd-resolved.

The ExpressVPN SDK then repeatedly logged errors including:

Temporary failure in name resolution
User IP fetch did not complete within 2s

Workaround

This is an unofficial, local workaround. It makes the Ubuntu-specific branch require an actual Ubuntu ID, allowing Pop!_OS to use the script's existing systemd-resolved integration.

Disconnect ExpressVPN first. Back up the script without overwriting an existing backup:

test ! -e /opt/expressvpn/bin/openvpn-updown.sh.before-popos-dns-fix && \
sudo cp -a \
  /opt/expressvpn/bin/openvpn-updown.sh \
  /opt/expressvpn/bin/openvpn-updown.sh.before-popos-dns-fix

Apply the one-line change:

sudo sed -i \
  's@if /usr/bin/systemctl --version | grep -q "systemd 255"; then@if grep -q "^ID=ubuntu$" /etc/os-release \&\& /usr/bin/systemctl --version | grep -q "systemd 255"; then@' \
  /opt/expressvpn/bin/openvpn-updown.sh

Validate the shell syntax and inspect the exact change:

bash -n /opt/expressvpn/bin/openvpn-updown.sh
sudo diff -u \
  /opt/expressvpn/bin/openvpn-updown.sh.before-popos-dns-fix \
  /opt/expressvpn/bin/openvpn-updown.sh

The diff should show exactly one changed line:

-if /usr/bin/systemctl --version | grep -q "systemd 255"; then
+if grep -q "^ID=ubuntu$" /etc/os-release && /usr/bin/systemctl --version | grep -q "systemd 255"; then

Do not continue if the diff shows any other change.

Verification

After reconnecting, these commands should show that the systemd stub remains intact and the VPN interface owns the global DNS route:

For WireGuard:

readlink -f /etc/resolv.conf
grep '^nameserver' /etc/resolv.conf
resolvectl status wgexpressvpn0
timeout 8 getent ahostsv4 www.google.com

For Lightway:

readlink -f /etc/resolv.conf
grep '^nameserver' /etc/resolv.conf
resolvectl status tun0
timeout 8 getent ahostsv4 www.google.com

Expected results:

/run/systemd/resolve/stub-resolv.conf
nameserver 127.0.0.53

The VPN interface should show:

Current DNS Server: 100.64.100.1
DNS Domain: ~.

In my test, ExpressVPN logged Applying nameservers using systemd-resolved..., DNS worked immediately, and normal HTTPS traffic used the VPN exit.

I tested again with Lightway UDP and re-enabled ExpressVPN's malicious-site, tracker, and ad blockers without breaking connectivity. A packet capture showed DNS requests and responses only on tun0; no port 53 traffic left through the physical Ethernet interface. ExpressVPN's DNS leak and WebRTC leak tests both passed.

Rollback

Disconnect ExpressVPN, then restore the original file:

expressvpnctl disconnect
sudo cp -a \
  /opt/expressvpn/bin/openvpn-updown.sh.before-popos-dns-fix \
  /opt/expressvpn/bin/openvpn-updown.sh

Caveats

• This is not an official ExpressVPN patch.
• It modifies a root-owned vendor script. Verify the diff before reconnecting.
• An ExpressVPN update may overwrite the change.
• Do not blindly reapply this workaround after an update. Check whether ExpressVPN has fixed the detection logic first.
• The ExpressVPN daemon has a separate compiled systemd-255 check, so it may continue logging Ubuntu 24 DNS bug is present even though the patched DNS script uses systemd-resolved. Split tunneling was disabled during my tests.
• The better upstream fix would detect actual resolver capability, with a timeout, instead of inferring behavior from the systemd major version alone.

It’s been a year and half now I didn’t use pop os since I changed to another computer and had this obligation to use Microsoft products for some reasons, and I was lazy to do dual boot.
Now I’m reconsidering to go for pop os or Ubuntu again and revive my hobby.

I believe it has been a while since we had any official word on the 26.04 release.

Does anyone have concrete updates on this? Are we talking 1 month away, 2 months, or more?

Listed strenghts:

• Declarative everything: the whole OS lives in reviewable config files.
• Atomic upgrades with boot-menu rollback to any previous generation.
• Reproducible: one config rebuilds the identical system anywhere.
• nixpkgs is one of the largest, freshest package sets in existence.
• Unbeatable per-project dev environments via nix shells and flakes.

What kernel are you currently using ?
And regarding Nvidia, are you finally using driver 610 ?

I stopped using Pop OS before, not only because of the problems and bugs, but also because the Nvidia driver was stuck at version 585 and was never updated to newer versions.

I never understood it , if there are several versions of Pop OS, one for older graphics cards and another for RTX, why didn't the RTX version receive the latest drivers ?

also btw the activites i do on PC is just chill i play alot of steam games, i watch alot of vids and i like troubleshooting, i dont like windows so pls help