Following the planned release of Ubuntu 21.04 Hirsute Hippo earlier this month, System76, the maker of Pop! _OS, is set to release the upcoming Pop! _OS 21.04 COSMIC in June. For starters, Pop! _OS is one of the most popular Ubuntu-based Linux distributions.
In this article, let's take a look at all the new features that Pop! _OS 21.04 COSMIC will bring. Let's start with the most exciting features first:
Redesigned UI
COSMIC is based on GNOME and will feature a refined and redesigned desktop experience. According to System76, many of these redesigns make Pop! _OS efficient and easy to use.
Please note that these UI changes are not yet complete and the final product may look different.
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Separate Workspaces and "Application Views"
The activity overview was divided into two views – Workspaces and Applications.
For starters, Workspaces allows you to view and work in multiple windows, while Application view displays your installed applications and lets you select and open one.
According to the System76 blog, they did this because they discovered that GNOME users often stop working after opening the Activities Overview.
This refreshed view lets you access the app selector with just one click, while keeping your eyes on the screen less distracting.
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The Dock
Most Pop! _OS users, myself included, use “Dash to Dock.” Why? It gives the desktop a cleaner and better look. As such, COSMIC comes with a built-in Dock that you can enable and customize in the settings.
Users can configure the position of the base (right, left, bottom). And, of course, it will also have an auto-hide function.
System76 also said that users will be able to minimize windows to the dock, and we don't know exactly what that means, but stay tuned for future COSMIC updates.
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Remanufactured Super Key
The Super Key in COSMIC activates the launcher, which can launch applications, execute a command, or calculate an equation.
You can also change the default behavior of the Super Key and set it to the application finder like in GNOME.
Apart from that, Pop!_OS will now have two workflow options – Mouse-based for typical desktop users and keyboard-based for shortcut lovers. Again, we don’t know how it will be implemented, but we do know that it’s going to be an exciting release overall.
Unfortunately, you can't try Pop! _OS 21.04 yet, but you can visit the official repository on Github for more information about what's happening in the COSMIC project.
Information source: fossbytes.com
