For the past three years, COSMIC has been one of the most talked-about projects in the Linux community. After seven alpha releases and one beta, it’s safe to say we’re finally getting close to the big moment.
At the Ubuntu Summit 25.10 in London last week, System76 CEO Carl Richell announced that the company’s long-awaited Rust-written COSMIC desktop environment will officially launch on December 11, 2025.
I’d say this is incredibly exciting, given how high everyone’s expectations are for this desktop environment—but honestly, that wouldn’t be entirely fair, because it’s already living up to them. There aren’t many cases where software in its alpha stage has been so warmly received that people actually start using it daily long before a stable release even arrives.
And the fact that some Linux distributions are already including COSMIC alpha and beta versions in their official releases really shows just how important this desktop environment has become for the community.
During his presentation, Richell outlined both the release schedule and a shift in how System76 plans to handle future updates.
While the team initially intended to release COSMIC on an annual cycle, the company now envisions a more continuous delivery approach — where improvements, new features, and bug fixes reach users more frequently rather than being bundled into large, infrequent updates.
Richell compared this strategy to a rolling release, emphasizing agility and shorter development cycles rather than the traditional notion of fixed releases. This model would also allow Linux distributions integrating COSMIC to choose when to “flag” a stable snapshot suitable for packaging.
And if you think the COSMIC release date announcement is exciting, just wait—there’s even more good news coming your way. Revealed also during System76 CEO Carl Richell’s presentation at the Ubuntu Summit 25.10, the currently in-development functionality, named COSMIC Sync, aims to make the desktop experience portable and consistent no matter where users log in.
The feature will allow users to sync their entire COSMIC configuration across multiple computers, effectively turning Linux into a truly roaming desktop environment.
According to the presentation, COSMIC Sync will enable synchronization of:
- Desktop settings across all computers — even on different Linux distributions
- Custom keyboard shortcuts
- Personal files and dotfiles
- Git repositories and their associated folders
- Wi-Fi networks and VPN configurations
- User applications and preferences
This functionality will let users maintain a unified workspace, whether they’re running COSMIC on Pop!_OS or another distribution that adopts it. By handling dotfiles, repositories, and network profiles, it goes far beyond typical theme or layout syncing — effectively capturing the entire user environment.
However, this will be available to COSMIC users at a later stage. While System76 has not given a firm date, COSMIC Sync is on the project’s roadmap for 2026. But as I mentioned earlier, before that happens, get ready for an early Christmas gift from System76—the first release of the COSMIC desktop environment for all open-source enthusiasts.
So, with only about a month and a half left, we’ll probably see an RC sometime in November before the final release in December. Of course, that’s just my guess—System76 hasn’t shared any official details yet.
You can check out the full presentation on Canonical’s YouTube channel for more details.
Image credits: Canonical’s YouTube channel
