COSMIC DE is a desktop environment developed in the Rust programming language, using the iced cross plattform GUI library for Rust, and Smithay as building blocks for its compositor, cosmic-comp. Cosmic-comp is comparable to smithay's own anvil compositor demonstration, just like the wayland project uses weston as demo compositor.
Installation
Epoch
Cosmic's first release is called Epoch, and can be installed via cosmic-epoch-gitAUR. It is compiling all the currently available parts stiched together by System76. The easiest is to start it through a display manager, where it will show up as an additional option, besides e.g. GNOME, KDE, etc.
Install the parts
Cosmic comprises a compositor, library, and applets, which may be installed as parts. As of 2022-02, only the compositor is available separately as cosmic-comp-gitAUR.
History
Until COSMIC DE is finished, Pop!Os still uses its legacy Cosmic desktop, which is a heavily customized GNOME. There are some of the packages available, with varying quality, like gnome-cosmic-gitAUR, gnome-cosmic-desktop-widget-gitAUR, popsicleAUR.