COSMIC Alpha 7 Desktop Adds Pinned Workspaces, New Accessibility Features

posted by Marius Nestor on Apr 25, 2025,
updated Apr 26, 2025

COSMIC Alpha 7 is here to improve workspaces by allowing users to move them by clicking and dragging, reorder them on the current display, or move them across displays. It also introduces a new feature that lets you pin workspaces, which lets you have a persistent or fixed number of workspaces opened at all times.

Four new accessibility features have made their way into the COSMIC desktop environment, namely High Contrast Mode for enabling a high-contrast theme for increased visibility, Color Filters and Color Inversion for colorblind users, as well as Mono Sound for hearing-impaired users.

Read on

System76 Blog:

• COSMIC Alpha 7: Never Been Beta

  Workspaces can now be moved by clicking and dragging. Reorder workspaces on the current display or move them across displays to your liking.

  Pinning a workspace will keep it from being removed when it’s empty. This feature allows you to have a persistent or fixed number of workspaces open at a time. Simply hover your mouse over the workspace preview in the overview and click the pin. Together with workspace naming, pinned workspaces helps you keep organized as you navigate the desktop.

Adding More:

• COSMIC Desktop Alpha 7 Released, Next Stop: Beta

  Over two months after the previous Alpha 6, System76 officially unveiled COSMIC Alpha 7, the latest sneak peek at its upcoming Rust-based new desktop environment.

  Yeah, I know — it probably feels like these Alpha releases are never-ending. But good news: it looks like this is the final Alpha! Next up is the big Beta release. All this, of course, pending the official word from System76...

• COSMIC Desktop Alpha 7 Brings More New Features - OMG! Ubuntu

  As with earlier alphas, the focus remains on adding the features planned for inclusion in its first stable release (dubbed Epoch 1). It’s always worth tempering expectations: COSMIC’s first release won’t feature-match the newest versions of decades-old desktop environments.

  Nor will COSMIC’s fledgling native core apps, also built in Rust and making an Iced-based toolkit, out-gun rivals.

  Yet, despite the proverbial mountain System76’s set out to climb by building their own DE from scratch (using toolkits and technologies that aren’t super common), they’re making excellent pace – not at the summit yet, but well on the way.

GoL:

• System76 COSMIC Alpha 7 is out with new accessibility features, global shortcuts and more

  System76 continue building up their desktop environment COSMIC, with a 7th Alpha release now available for testing built on top of Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS alpha.

Neowin:

• System76 releases COSMIC Desktop Alpha 7 bringing new features, improvements, and more

  COSMIC Desktop is slowly nearing maturity, with the latest alpha release bringing new features, bug fixes, and more.