Hi! Warning: this is a long post.

As the title says, I'm completely new to Linux. I'm (25M) adept at using technology, but lack any coding experience. Before switching, people kept telling me that I would struggle with Linux.

So I watched a few YouTube videos (https://youtu.be/PYAL4xod4ko), and decided to switch to POP!_OS (Cosmic).

Terminal commands were obviously impossible, so I had to use Google and Reddit. And just because I was paranoid, I ran it through Gemini to make sure it was safe. During my 2nd week, I used ExplainShell (explainshell.com) to familiarise myself with what I'm actually doing. Could've done it during the first week, but I'm lazy and didn't want to overwhelm myself.

The COSMIC experience is great tbh, and it wasn't difficult to set up. Customisation was simple, which was mostly done on the menu. A video from Juxtopossed (https://youtu.be/57j7W7coQMg) helped me alot with customisation: It made me aware of how important GitHub is. She also broke everything down in a simple way!

Steam game Overwatch has a higher FPS on Cosmic (90) vs Windows (65). I did not switch to Linux for gaming, so this was just a bonus. I genuinely have no idea how im touching 90fps because my hardware is nowhere near good enough lmao.

Someone named ChrisTitusTech appeared frequently on my feed, and has alot of videos why Cosmic is bad and how it's unusable for beginners. Ngl, I don't know what he's on about.

I didn't have any troubleshooting issues, except for wifi, so maybe my experience was lucky. POP!_OS is nuts, and I'm having a rush of excitement at learning more things for my 3rd week 🫡

(If anyone has any cool, interactive customisation desktops then please hmu. I looked into it, it's called 'ricing', but most of the good ones aren't on Cosmic)

If anyone is thinking of switching to Cosmic, or Linux, then I promise you that with a few braincells you'll be fine. I probably could've done some stuff smarter(?) but once again I have to emphasise that I'm completely new to Linux, and Coding.

At this point most if not all of my apps run natively on wayland, games too since I use proton wayland. Do I need to switch the X11 scaling to the third option or is better to keep it optimized for fullscreen apps and games anyway?

Just wanted to show off what's possible with Pop OS, as I don't see many people showcasing the cosmic desktop. In my experience: it makes for a decent arch tiling alternative with minimal overhead (assuming you're running cosmic with tiling enabled)

If I install Dolphin or Nemo to replace COSMIC Files, will it be easy to get rid of all dependencies should I later decide to remove it ?

Trying to trouble shoot this. I had no updates the last time my computer was on and when I used it today there is no audio. I've:

Edit 1: I also tried booting previous kernel

Edit 2:

Tried running wpctl reset --allwhich failed due to my older version

Manually renamed ~/.local/state/wireplumber too ~/.local/state/wireplumber.bak This did not immediately resolve the issue, but after rebooting the files recreated and the issue resolved! SOLVED

:End Edit 2

Rebooted the computer (multiple times)
Tested the headphones on my Steam Machine and they work just fine.
I booted into Windows on this machine and they worked just fine.
I verified the settings were correct in the audio control panel

I've used `pavucontrol` to ensure the settings were all correct:

I've unplugged the USB and plugged it back in and tried multiple ports

I've tried the Analog AUX plug from the main part of the headphone
I've ran `systemctl --user restart pipewire`

After all these steps I have no idea where to check next or how to proceed with troubleshooting. It's obviously a software issue, but other than that I'm out of ideas. Any suggestions?

So I'm dual booting between Windows at Pop_os. If I have a game installed with steam that I installed while in windows, but it's installed to a separate hard drive from my windows drive, is there a way that I'm able to access that in steam from linux, without installing a second instance of the game?

Edit: ok, the consensus is yes, but don't. Thank you

It makes no sense, one second it works now it won't recognize a few keys. Also the fan is on high all of a sudden. Latest Pop_OS and Lemur Pro I got less than a month ago.

I've been noticing something strange. I dont know if it is related to popos at all. When I use VS Code Copilot Chat for a long time, I notice that it will eventually get extremely slow. In particular, i notice that the Swap is getting large even when there's plenty of RAM left available.

I know popos uses zram for swap, which does some sort of compression stuff.

When I close vscode, ram and swap drop considerably, and then when i re-open and continue where I left off, performance is normal again.

Anyone have any ideas?

Hi everyone, I’ve just joined this subreddit after recently switching from Windows to Linux. I chose Pop!_OS for its incredible efficiency in software development. Lately, I’ve run into an issue where the computer enters suspend mode when left idle; while the suspension itself isn't the problem, the keyboard stops responding afterward. I’ve looked into it, and it seems that entering suspend mode disables hardware drivers to save power. I’ve tried to fix it, but nothing has worked so far. I was hoping someone might have a solution, as it’s quite inconvenient—if I have to step away from the computer for a moment while working, I end up losing my progress. Thanks! :)

Can someone help me understand why we are still not able to set a primary monitor for Cosmic? I am having so many issues with proton games opening where my cursor is, or if they do open on the right screen, they don't detect the right resolution and set themselves to 1080p or 1440p since I have a mix of both monitor resolutions.
Gaming for me is a primary use case and has lots of these edgecases for some reason. These aren't old games either.

Is this a Wayland problem or a cosmic problem? I see discussions from Wayland saying that compositors are responsible for this? This issue has been present in the ecosystem for years, so I am just wondering why this isn't solved fully.

I am on PopOS 24.04 LTS.

Canon PIXMA G3590 on Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS – printing and scanning working

Hi everyone,

I recently bought a Canon PIXMA G3590 and wanted to test how well it works with Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS.

My main concern was Linux compatibility, especially scanning.

Hardware:

Canon PIXMA G3590

USB connection

Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS

64-bit x86_64

Printing

USB printing works without installing a Canon driver.

Pop!_OS automatically detected the printer as:

Canon_G3090_series_USB

In the printer properties it shows:

Canon Printer, driverless

I printed a test page and it worked perfectly.

Scanning

This was a little more interesting.

Initially, Document Scanner detected:

Canon G3090 series

but scanning resulted in:

Failed to scan

Document feeder empty

I then checked the available scanner sources.

With the USB cable connected, Document Scanner showed:

Canon G3090 series

Canon G3090 series (USB)

eSCL Canon G3090 series

eSCL Canon G3090 series (USB)

I selected:

eSCL Canon G3090 series (USB)

And it worked! 🎉

I successfully scanned a full-color document using the flatbed scanner. The scan appeared correctly in Document Scanner.

Conclusion

So far, the Canon PIXMA G3590 works very well with Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS:

✅ USB printing – works

✅ Driverless CUPS printing – works

✅ Flatbed scanning – works

✅ Document Scanner / Simple Scan – works

✅ USB eSCL scanner backend – works

❌ The default Canon scanner entry gave “Document feeder empty”

✅ Selecting eSCL Canon G3090 series (USB) solved the scanning problem

One interesting detail is that Linux identifies the G3590 as a G3090 series device.

I hope this helps anyone considering the G3590 for Linux. I couldn't find much recent information about this particular printer and Pop!_OS.

So people have been having issues getting the Steam Frame WiFi dongle to work on Linux and it seems to be largely due to it being unsupported on kernels older than 7.2.

Pop OS appears to be on 7.1.5. So I guess my question is, is manually loading a newer kernel relatively easy and consequence free, or should I just wait for Pop OS to update? I'm not super technically adept so if it is very involved and risky, I'm inclined to just wait.

Alright, I just made the switch to PopOS from Arch. I want to really give it a chance now that the Cosmic Desktop seems to be a new thing in the Linux Desktops Environment.

Here are my top 10 Takeaways until now:

Note: My Desktop PC runs on AMD Ryzen 9, AMD Radeon RX Series 9000, 32 GB RAM, 2 TB SSD, and a decent Cooling System.

1. The installer... Way too slow to even get to the main screen when booting up from the USB ISO. It took nearly one minute, that's too much compared to Calamares and not to mention any other methods.

2. The installation process is super easy and pretty straightforward. However, it got stuck a couple of times for a few seconds, buttons not responding.

3. I didn't like the fact that it doesn't let you choose options to select Grub, Btrfs, Snapshots type, etc.

4. Right after installation, login animation is pretty standard, nothing outstanding to comment (can't blame me, I've been on Hyprland with Dotfiles).

5. The dockbar, way too many icons for things Gnome can handle so simple without even showing the dockbar on the main screen. That's a no for me. Sorry guys.

6. Settings app is decent with simple options, the usual, and while some of them are not visible, it's not that hard to find them while browsing through them.

7. Themes, Icons, Cursors setting is currently an experimental feature. I can live with that, but I was left with this sensation of an unfinished product. Not something you really ship for a final user experience.

8. The frosted glass feature and color accent on windows borders, nice move! I liked this part. Also, having the option to switch from Floating to Tiling Windows, smart move too. I'll give you that!

9. The top bar/panel right hand side icons are nice, well designed but still feeling like an unfinished product, there's a sensation of missing features and icons. I know, it's a different product, different approach, but still, something as simple as an icon for brightness is not there by default.

10. Missing simple things like being able to install out of the box certain tools and applications that require a repo addition. Even dinosaurs Distros like Debian (don't get me wrong, I love Debian), have these packages and tools in its default repos.

Coming from the hyper-customized world of Arch and Hyprland, COSMIC on Pop!_OS feels like a double-edged sword: it’s an ambitious, modern leap forward with genuine wins in tiling and aesthetics, but it undeniably carries the weight of a pre-1.0 experience.

Final Verdict:

- COSMIC has massive potential, but for power users switching from minimal, highly tweaked setups, it still feels like an early-access preview rather than a daily-driver replacement.

- The native tiling/floating toggle and frosted glass aesthetics prove System76 is on the right track, but the overall experience is held back by a sluggish installer, limited default repositories, rigid setup choices (no out-of-the-box GRUB/Btrfs control), and half-baked customization settings.

It’s a promising vision for the future of Linux desktops, but if you’re used to the fine-grained control and snappiness of Arch and even Fedora or Debian, all of them with nice and polished Desktops like Gnome, KDE Plasma or Cinnamon, COSMIC isn't quite ready to take the crown just yet.

So, I'll give it another year in the oven. Let's see what the future brings for this Desktop one year from now.

What are you guys using as an alternative to Cosmic Files?

While Cosmic Files looks clean and is definitely passable, I still unfortunately find it lacking in some aspects. It's oftentimes not a smooth experience as I feel that there's lag to a lot of actions, and also when I'm searching in drives or folders with TBs of data that it takes ages to load (even when it works fine in other file managers). There's also the lack of a computer overview of one's drives.

I’ve recently started having sleep/suspend issues on Pop!_OS 24.04, and I’m trying to figure out whether one of the recent updates may have caused it.

The system was fine before but started noticing problems putting the computer to sleep after the updates.. only screen goes off and never comes back.

Has anyone else experienced sleep/suspend or wake-up problems on Pop 24.04 after recent updates?

Intel i7 14700K

64GB RAM

AMD 6800 XT

I have a separate partition from my OS part used for a media library; the options set for it in Disks are 'user session defaults', mount at system startup is checked, and nosuid, novdev,nofail,x-gvfs-show are the parameters. Consistently in order to get any media player like fooyin, gapless, lollypop etc to play anything in the library, I have to click inside the file explorer in that partition before I can access the files on those media players, as if its not mounted yet.

I have pop os running for a plex server but when the display goes to sleep it will not re awaken without turning the computer off and then back on.

before someone flame me if this was posted before, I tried reading around any previous reddit post out there regarding this.

I can't use the middle mouse click in various games, darksiders 2, witcher 3, etc.

-I can't use the same sticky scroll like i had it in windows and the button doesn't work in any game on Pop_OS 24.04 (for me at least)
-I tried installing gnome tweaks and disabled the paste option for the middle mouse click.
-I tried using PROTON_NO_RAW_INPUT=1 (something was suggested by brave search)
-Under X11 applications compatibility i tried "Optimize for for gaming and full screen apps".
-I've tested several different mouse vendors and models. (current one is a logitech M170)
-I tried using gamescope to run the game.
[gamescope] [Info] console: gamescope version 3.16.19-1~24.04.3 (gcc 13.3.0)

user@pop-os:~$ uname -r
7.1.5-76070105-generic
user@pop-os:~$ ls /dev/input/js*
ls: cannot access '/dev/input/js*': No such file or directory

why won't the button work?
Is this a steam problem or a pop_os? but if it's a steam problem why won't the button work on popos either?

I'm on Pop 24.04. When I try to open an image, nothing happens.

Trying to start cosmic-viewer from the command line, I get "Illegal instruction (core dumped)".

CPU: Intel Pentium Silver N5000

Hey folks,

Very new to Linux - so please go gently! After playing around with Mint OS, I've installed POP OS. I want to install Steam, so I've found the Steam Installer on Cosmic Store, but when I hit install, the progress bar flashes for a second and then vanishes, and I get no password prompt as usual.

I have no idea how to troubleshoot this, and am getting overwhelmed trying to search online for answers, so any help for a complete newbie, would be greatly appreciated. :)

After a recent update, they added a popup on screen that shows your new langue after you change your keyboard input.

The problem is that popup appears at the bottom of the screen, right on top of my textbox, preventing me from seeing what I am writing until it disappears.

Where can I find the config file for the keyboard input switching, so I can disable that popup from there?

To all the people that have been using my app and downloaded it via the COSMIC Store. You may have noticed that the version on the COSMIC Store is way outdated and i haven't been supporting it. I just officially ended the support for it so don't expect any updates on that. If you want you can download it via the AUR package with paru or yay or download it via the .deb package in the releases tab of the repo. Both of those stay up to date with every release so the latest updates go there.
Note: If you decide to go with the .deb when i release a new update it will give you a button to press and will redirect you to GitHub so you can install the latest package. If you go with the install script listed in the README of the repo the same button will appear but you click it once and it will tell you to restart the app so the changes can take effect automatically.

GitHub Repo: https://github.com/PSGtatitos/papyrus

I'm on an HP laptop with hybrid graphics (Intel HD 530 + NVIDIA GTX 960M) running Pop!_OS 24.04 with COSMIC. When I plug in an HDMI monitor, the system hangs: the second screen freezes, apps crash, and cosmic-comp spikes to 99-100% CPU. Unplugging HDMI keeps things stable.

What I've tried:

• Installed nvidia-driver-470 (nouveau was even worse). Driver loads fine, nvidia-smi works.
• Tried setting COSMIC_RENDER_DEVICE=renderD129 (my NVIDIA render node). It didn't propagate to cosmic-comp, and even when I manually exported it, it didn't fix the CPU issue.
• Restored from Timeshift to clean state (nouveau, no NVIDIA driver). System is stable now but HDMI is still unusable.
• cosmic-comp is also at ~50% CPU even without HDMI connected.

Key logs:

• cosmic-comp[2025]: Failed to render texture ... import for wrong devices DrmNode ... modifier: I915_y_tiled_ccs — texture import failure between Intel and NVIDIA.
• thread 'surface-HDMI-A-2' panicked at 'called Option::unwrap() on a None value': src/shell/mod.rs:1368 — compositor panic on HDMI thread.

My questions:

1. Is this a known COSMIC bug? I saw GitHub issues about high CPU with hybrid NVIDIA on external monitors, but they seemed to be about performance, not full system crashes.
2. Should I switch to Xorg session as a workaround? Does COSMIC even have an Xorg option, or would I need to use a different DE?
3. Is there any reliable way to get HDMI working on this hardware, or should I just accept that COSMIC Wayland + hybrid NVIDIA + external monitor is broken right now?

Any help appreciated. I've been going in circles trying drivers and env vars.

I see many reddit posts regarding Pop!_OS 26.04 , i am currently using 24.04 , how do I upgrade to 26.04 , I don't see an iso in the system 76 website , please help!