COSMIC DE for Debian testing distribution

This repository provides the full COSMIC Desktop Environment, built from source as Debian packages for Debian (forky) testing Linux distribution. Each release corresponds to an official COSMIC Epoch release.

These packages are built via GitHub Actions on Debian testing distribution (current version forky/sid) for amd64 architecture only. They probably also work on unstable distribution (not tested).

Main GitHub repository of COSMIC DE https://github.com/pop-os/cosmic-epoch/

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🛠️ Installation

Important

Backup your system before installing COSMIC using this repository. Or install it on a disposable Debian testing installation used for conducting tests.

By default, a display manager (LightDM, GDM, SDDM...) is configured and invoked to start an X11 or Wayland session. To disable it and log-in in console using your username and password, run the commands below.

sudo systemctl set-default multi-user.target

Reboot again and Debian boots to console mode.

Note If you want to undo this change and get your Debian system to boot to the default graphical mode use the terminal command below.

sudo systemctl set-default graphical.target

2 methods are available to install the full COSMIC DE from this repository:

• via a dedicated shell script
• via a Debian APT Repository

1. Shell script for installation

curl and jq commands are needed to use the install script. Install them first with sudo apt install curl jq command if needed.

Download install.sh script shell

$ curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lcheylus/cosmic-debian/refs/heads/main/install.sh

$ chmod +x install.sh

The install.sh script shell allows to install all components and apps for COSMIC DE + additional packages not available in official APT Debian repository:

• download every .deb file for COSMIC components and apps from the latest release available in this repository
• checks downloaded COSMIC .deb files with SHA256 checksums
• download every .deb file for additional packages from this repository
• checks these downloaded .deb files with SHA256 checksums
• install Debian packages needed by COSMIC DE with apt install
• install additional packages with dpkg -i command.
• install packages for all COSMIC components and apps with dpkg -i command.

The install.sh script has 2 optional integer variables (value = 0 or 1) that you could use to set options:

• INSTALL_APPS: install COSMIC applications (1 by default).
• KEEP: keep downloaded .deb files after installation (0 by default => files are removed after install).

Run install.sh script to install COSMIC DE

Caution

The install.sh script must be executed using sudo to allow installation of Debian packages.

sudo ./install.sh

2. Debian APT Repository

An APT Repository is available via my GitHub pages (the files and directories are not browsable). It contains Debian .deb files to install all the COSMIC components and applications + depends not available in official Debian APT repositories.

Install this repository with the following commands:

# Add the repository signing key (ASCII format)
$ sudo curl -sfLo /etc/apt/keyrings/cosmic-debian-keyring.asc https://lcheylus.github.io/cosmic-debian/gpg.key

# Add the repository to sources (old format, one line)
$ echo "deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/cosmic-debian-keyring.asc] https://lcheylus.github.io/cosmic-debian/ forky main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/cosmic-debian.list

then update your local APT caches with sudo apt update command.

Install the full COSMIC DE (all components, apps and depends) with sudo apt install cosmic-session.

By default, COSMIC applications are installed with the full COSMIC DE. If you don't want to install them, use the command sudo apt install --no-install-recommends cosmic-session.

Start COSMIC DE

From your console, run command to start COSMIC DE:

$ start-cosmic

Update previous COSMIC installation

The install.sh script allows also to update a previous COSMIC installation to the latest release published in this repository. During its execution, it downloads the latest available version of Debian packages and install them via dpkg command.

If you use the APT Repository, proceed as usual with apt update && apt upgrade commands.

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Use COSMIC Greeter

COSMIC Greeter, installed with the cosmic-greeter and cosmic-greeter-daemon packages, is the login manager of COSMIC DE.

During the installation, it registers itself as the system display manager via debconf as other ones (GDM, LightDM...). If another DM is already registered, you get the standard "Default display manager" prompt to choose between them.

You can switch to COSMIC Greeter later, via sudo dpkg-reconfigure cosmic-greeter command.

If you configure your system to have a text console after boot (systemctl get-default returns multi-user.target), COSMIC Greeter is not started by default. To enable it:

$ sudo systemctl set-default graphical.target

Then reboot your system and COSMIC Greeter will start after boot, login with user/password and your COSMIC session starts.

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Components of COSMIC Desktop

Each component has a debian directory in its sources tree with files to build the corresponding Debian package.

List of all components necessary to install COSMIC Desktop Environment:

• cosmic-applets - COSMIC Applets
• cosmic-app-library - COSMIC App Library
• cosmic-bg - COSMIC Background
• cosmic-comp - Wayland compositor for COSMIC
• cosmic-greeter - COSMIC Greeter and daemon
• cosmic-icons - COSMIC Icons
• cosmic-idle - COSMIC idle daemon
• cosmic-initial-setup - COSMIC Initial Setup
• cosmic-launcher - COSMIC Launcher
• cosmic-notifications - COSMIC Notifications
• cosmic-osd - COSMIC OSD
• cosmic-osk - COSMIC On-Screen Keyboard
• cosmic-panel - XDG Shell Wrapper Panel for COSMIC
• cosmic-randr - Display and configure Wayland display outputs
• cosmic-screenshot - COSMIC Screenshot Utility
• cosmic-session - The session for the COSMIC desktop
• cosmic-settings - Settings application for the COSMIC desktop environment
• cosmic-settings-daemon - COSMIC settings daemon
• cosmic-wallpapers - COSMIC Wallpapers
• cosmic-workspaces - COSMIC Workspaces
• pop-launcher - Modular IPC-based desktop launcher service
• xdg-desktop-portal-cosmic - COSMIC backend for xdg-desktop-portal

cosmic-sound-theme is not needed to install COSMIC DE and is not packaged.

List of COSMIC Apps, also available as Debian package but installation is optional.

• cosmic-edit - Text Editor
• cosmic-files - Files Manager
• cosmic-monitor - System Monitor
• cosmic-player - Media Player
• cosmic-store - Apps Store
• cosmic-term - Terminal
• cosmic-viewer - Image Viewer

Some components require additional dependencies. For example, cosmic-icons component needs pop-icon-theme package built from icon-theme repository.

List of additional packages: "Depends" to install COSMIC components/apps not available as official Debian packages.

Package	Description	Needed by
adw-gtk3	libadwaita theme ported to GTK3	cosmic-settings-daemon
appstream-data-pop	AppStream data for Pop!_OS	cosmic-initial-setup cosmic-osk cosmic-store
pop-fonts	Pop fonts	cosmic-session
pop-icon-theme	Pop icons	cosmic-icons
pop-sound-theme	Pop sound theme	cosmic-settings-daemon