System76 has released COSMIC Desktop 1.6, the latest update to its Rust-based desktop environment, which now includes app-specific sound settings. Users can manage audio per application instead of relying only on system-wide controls.
Supporting work has also landed in the COSMIC settings daemon, including handling playback-specific sound settings and backward-compatible audio events. Meanwhile, the desktop’s audio applet now debounces volume updates by 128 milliseconds to avoid unnecessary rapid changes when adjusting volume.
The COSMIC compositor also receives several changes. Version 1.6 adds support for wl-dmabuf-v6 and the EI protocol, while presentation feedback can now be taken from fullscreen surfaces.
COSMIC Files gets a fix for network shares, addressing an issue where a failed network mount could cause dialogs to appear indefinitely. Additionally, context menus have also been added to text fields and selectable text widgets.
COSMIC Terminal now allows users to configure terminal borders. Rendering has been refined by rounding subpixel coordinates for glyph background rectangles, and redraw behavior has been adjusted so the terminal redraws only when needed. Context menus are now available in input fields as well.
The COSMIC Launcher fixes an issue that could cause flickering or closing when the Ctrl modifier was used. COSMIC Notifications now delays creating notification popups until the parent size is available. COSMIC Edit reduces unnecessary redraws and adds context menus to input fields.
There are several improvements to the login experience too. COSMIC Greeter can now detect the presence of logind at runtime, ignores empty passwords where appropriate, and enables JPEG XL and AVIF image support.
COSMIC Settings fixes an issue where the active settings page could unload while searching. On the system side, COSMIC Settings Daemon now handles a -1 maximum brightness value without panicking and watches AC plug events from the line-power device through UPower, improving power-state handling.
Finally, the release includes translation and dependency updates across numerous COSMIC projects, along with a small status-area improvement that constrains menu icon data to the configured icon size.
For additional details, see the changelog.
COSMIC Desktop 1.6 packages are expected to arrive in the repositories of rolling-release distros such as Arch, openSUSE Tumbleweed, CachyOS, and others shortly. Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS users already have it available as an update.
