I've tried the Cosmic alpha and, while I like various things it does, I can't see myself using it as a daily driver yet:
- The clock doesn't show the weekday or the year and shows the month by name rather than by number,
- Can't make the stupendously oversized title bar smaller,
- Can't change the mouse cursor theme,
- I hate dynamic workspaces, I just want to open something on, say, workspace 3 and have it stay there.
However I do like some things it does:
- Independent workspaces per monitor, so if I switch workspaces on monitor 1 the workspace on monitor 2 stays the same. This is the big one which I miss in KDE, though I wonder if that means that Cosmic isn't EWMH compliant (as if it matters),
- (Mostly) sane keyboard shortcuts, where (almost) every DE-specific shortcut involves the Super (AKA Meta, AKA Mod4) key. I believe Apple's OSX also does something like this where all the desktop-level shortcuts involve the CMD key,
- If I move my cursor to a monitor with no open applications, hit the shortcut for the application launcher, and launch an application; then it opens that application on the monitor with the cursor. KDE (with Kwin) struggles with that, so I call that another win.
For reference I'm currently trying Cosmic on Tumbleweed, some of that stuff may differ between distros.
> - (Mostly) sane keyboard shortcuts, where (almost) every DE-specific shortcut involves the Super (AKA Meta, AKA Mod4) key.
Is this also enforced for apps? I'd switch back to linux in a heartbeat if I could do this. The use of `control` as both a UI and a terminal binding basically ruins the entire os for me.
On top of no special casing for the terminal, I find the meta key (as positioned on Mac keyboards, to the left/right of space) easier to reach than the standard Control position. That’s also addressed by replacing Caps Lock with Control, though (which I build my keyboards and remap laptops to).
> I wonder if that means that Cosmic isn't EWMH compliant (as if it matters),
AFAIK (i haven't checked) EWMH does have provision for multiple "fake root" windows to handle multiple virtual desktops in multiple monitors, but most window managers do not bother. I think i3 (or some other popular tiling WM for X11) does support those though.
- The clock doesn't show the weekday or the year and shows the month by name rather than by number,
- Can't make the stupendously oversized title bar smaller,
- Can't change the mouse cursor theme,
- I hate dynamic workspaces, I just want to open something on, say, workspace 3 and have it stay there.
However I do like some things it does:
- Independent workspaces per monitor, so if I switch workspaces on monitor 1 the workspace on monitor 2 stays the same. This is the big one which I miss in KDE, though I wonder if that means that Cosmic isn't EWMH compliant (as if it matters),
- (Mostly) sane keyboard shortcuts, where (almost) every DE-specific shortcut involves the Super (AKA Meta, AKA Mod4) key. I believe Apple's OSX also does something like this where all the desktop-level shortcuts involve the CMD key,
- If I move my cursor to a monitor with no open applications, hit the shortcut for the application launcher, and launch an application; then it opens that application on the monitor with the cursor. KDE (with Kwin) struggles with that, so I call that another win.
For reference I'm currently trying Cosmic on Tumbleweed, some of that stuff may differ between distros.