System76 Releases COSMIC Beta Desktop Environment and Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS Beta

posted by Marius Nestor on Sep 26, 2025,
updated Sep 29, 2025

It’s been more than a year since System76 started development on Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS with the Rust-based desktop environment when they released the first alpha version, and now, seven alphas later, the beta version is ready for public testing for early adopters and application developers.

COSMIC Beta comes with a much-improved COSMIC Files file manager that now supports gallery mode for images, file previews, file permissions, adaptive design, instant search, breadcrumbs with autocomplete, and more.

Read on

FOSS Force:

• Pop!_OS 24.04 and COSMIC Betas Have Arrived - We've Got Screenshots - FOSS Force

  The beta of Pop!_OS 24.04 got released tonight and it’s ready for download now. Perhaps more exciting, that means the new Rust- and scratch-built Cosmic desktop environment — typically spelled all uppercase — was also released as a beta since it’s Pop’s default DE. Anyway, the developers at System76 would like you to take a look at both, and do what you can to try to make either one crash and burn.

  A press release given to the press ahead of the release said: “They are calling upon the open source community to put the beta through the ringer and help Cosmic shine in its pivotal first release.”

  If that sounds strange, it shouldn’t. What they want is for you to make the software go down in flames, then tell them what hardware you were running and what you did to make that happen. That way, they can make sure it never happens in the stable releases that’ll follow a few release candidates several months from now.

Linuxiac:

• System76 Launches Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS Beta and COSMIC Desktop Beta

  It happened! System76 has announced the beta release of Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS, giving users an early look at what will become the next long-term supported version of the distribution. Plus, the star of the show—of course, I’m talking about the beta version of the COSMIC Desktop. But let’s first start with the distro itself.

  At the system level, Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS Beta ships with Linux kernel 6.16, Mesa 25.1.5, and NVIDIA driver 580, ensuring compatibility with modern hardware. Updates to libwayland and libdrm improve Wayland support, while the usual round of fixes and refinements aim to make the release more stable.

  Somewhat expected, System76’s own alternatives have replaced several key GNOME applications. Nautilus has been replaced with COSMIC Files, GNOME Terminal with COSMIC Terminal, and Totem with COSMIC Player. Even text editing is now handled by COSMIC Edit.

Also:

• System76 COSMIC desktop Beta and Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS Beta now available

  Two huge bits of news from System76, as they've released a Beta for both the new COSMIC desktop and Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS bringing lots of goodies.

OMG Joey:

• Pop!_OS 24.04 (with COSMIC Desktop) Just Hit Beta

  System76 has officially released the first public beta of Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS, which features the company’s new, Rust-based COSMIC desktop environment by default (which is also in beta).  System76 say COSMIC will ‘propel the GNU/Linux desktop to new heights of user empowerment’ Pop!_OS 24.04 is based on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS but with GNU/Linux kernel 6.16, Mesa 25.1.5 and NVIDIA 580 drivers. The desktop changes from GNOME Shell to COSMIC, and many preinstalled apps switch to new COSMIC counterparts. And COSMIC is sure to the main draw here.

Valnet:

• System76's Cosmic Desktop Arrives in Pop!_OS 24.04 Beta

  System76 just dropped the long-awaited beta release for its Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS operating system. It's coming bundled with the beta milestone of the COSMIC desktop environment. COSMIC is designed to replace the customized GNOME Shell that Pop!_OS used to use, and it's built from scratch in Rust.

  The release of Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS Beta, which is based on an Ubuntu 24.04 LTS foundation, means a lot of the old GNOME applications are getting replaced by System76's own COSMIC-native versions. You can say goodbye to GNOME Files (Nautilus) because we're getting COSMIC Files, GNOME Terminal is out, and COSMIC Terminal is in, the old GNOME Text Editor is being replaced by COSMIC Text Editor, and the Pop!_Shop is making way for the new COSMIC Store.

  The core components are looking solid too, with the beta shipping with the Linux kernel 6.16.3, Mesa 25.1.5-1, and the NVIDIA Driver 580. We knew this was coming because System76 has been giving users a feature-complete look at what the team has been working on for years.

DW:

• Development Release: Pop!_OS 24.04 Beta

  System76, a US-based manufacturer of Linux desktops, laptops and servers, has announced the availability of the beta release of Pop!_OS 24.04, the upcoming new major release that will inaugurate the project's own COSMIC desktop. [...]

UbuntuHandbook:

• Pop!_OS 24.04 is Available for Beta Testing! | UbuntuHandbook

  Pop!_OS, the popular Linux Distribution powered by System76, announced the Beta release of 24.04 LTS few days ago.

  As the version number says, it’s based on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, but features Linux Kernel 6.16 and its own COSMIC desktop environment.