A brief look at cosmic (pre-alpha) as a Linux gamer

Make sure to also add the popdev:master staging repository, as the version of COSMIC in the release repositories is typically much older than the ones we're working on. It will fix all of the issues you reported here.

sudo apt-manage add popdev:master
sudo apt update
sudo apt dist-upgrade

As system76 devs are around here, here is an idea: i think some people (me included) would like to test the alpha/beta and report some bugs if found, but are more everyday users than pros. Maybe a section on GitHub, or a Video on how to: install and use latest version (as stated in the pinned comment) and how and where to report bugs would be beneficial.

On the other hand: maybe thats exactly what you don't want as it could potentially create more overhead than actual benefit? Either way: happy bughunt!

Great info, I ran into some issues as well on my single nvidia desktop. I'll check it out again in some time, it seems very promising.

Please don't call it an Alpha, because the alpha wasn't released yet! pre-alpha at best

You've done your homework. I'm getting all the exact same issues. Especially freezing while playing videos.

nvidia 555 and cosmic explicit sync soon?

To get rid off the second and nonesxistant (unknown) display, I uninstalled and reinstalled the Nvidia drivers.

This is really early alpha. I'm not sure if it is even cooked enough to compare their design of the desktop metaphor to other DEs yet.
I'm sure they will get the technicalities perfect down the line but I'm more excited to see how they approach making a new desktop distinction from Gnome and KDE.
Hoping for the best of both worlds. The pretty polished intuitive design of Gnome with the pragmatism of KDE.

Make video of your opinions on their design and approach once it is more cooked.

im glad youre back to windows 11

The random second display you keep getting is the same issue I had. From my research it is something to do with Nvidia GPU and using their proprietary driver. Using the open source driver you shouldn't get the ghost monitor but also performance will suffer(for now).

Edit: You can disable them with xrandr on X11.

xrandr --output Unknown-1 --off

You should possible be able to do it with ddcutil apparently but I don't know how.

Flickering with NVIDIA and Wayland will, within the next few months or so, very likely cease to be a problem. NVIDIA's 555 proprietary drivers have finally exposed a new API, allowing for explicit sync directly with the hardware, and when implemented into the desktops as it is with Xwayland currently, should help to remove the vast majority of visual bugs experienced without it. It's already merged into KDE and Gnome, and are idle in the code until their next releases.

I don't get the wayland hype. I did not see what were your impressions, you talked about the bugs, but what does cosmic bring to the table? What makes it different, the UI only?

Thank you, MH! I believe the COSMIC devs will get it right, but it's going to take some time. They're probably still ~2 months away from an alpha release.