System76 has released COSMIC Desktop 1.8 with a major update to the COSMIC compositor, cosmic-comp, adding touch input support that the developers say “vastly improves” touchscreen support across COSMIC. Work is progressing on the on-screen keyboard, but it is not part of this release and is expected later.
COSMIC Desktop 1.8 also updates Smithay, improving mouse capture behavior. X11 applications can now start minimized. Another fix targets sluggish Steam overlays by ensuring X11 windows continue receiving frame callbacks, resulting in smoother behavior when using Steam games and overlays under COSMIC.
Hybrid GPU laptops receive attention as well. COSMIC now checks all available connectors when determining the primary GPU, addressing problems affecting some systems with integrated and discrete graphics. The screenshot tool also received fixes for crashes related to window corner radii.
Regarding Bluetooth, custom Bluetooth device names can now be displayed in the applet, and COSMIC Settings adds support for renaming Bluetooth devices directly. Plus, a bug that applied microphone volume changes to the speakers instead of the microphone has also been fixed.
Display handling sees several smaller refinements. COSMIC Settings now properly redraws the display configuration page while monitors are dragged, and an issue causing brightness changes on external monitors to lag has been addressed.
COSMIC Files fixes a problem where the drag-selection rectangle did not redraw correctly. It also changes tab behavior so another tab is selected only when the active one is closed. Additionally, COSMIC Workspaces fixes a bug that could make a window disappear after dragging and dropping it onto the same workspace.
Other changes include an on-screen display when switching keyboard layouts, configurable server-side window decorations, fixes for pixelated icons, improved multi-factor authentication handling in the COSMIC greeter, and a playback fix in COSMIC Player for files containing invalid frame rates.
For additional details, see the changelog.
COSMIC Desktop 1.8 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.
