A lot of people in the Linux community love Pop!_OS mainly because of its altered GNOME (now COSMIC) desktop environment. One of the best features is Auto-tiling, which makes you focus less on moving your mouse and more on getting work done using keyboard shortcuts.
But there are people who like COSMIC but not Ubuntu (Since Pop!_OS is Ubuntu-based), or some tend to like Arch more because of the package management. One of the beauties of GNU/Linux and open source is the teams of different OSes working together to bring stuff that people like in one or the other distribution. Thanks to the integration of COSMIC with GNOME 40 in Pop!_OS 21.10, COSMIC has also been ported to Manjaro.
Install Pop!_OS’s COSMIC/Pop Shell on Manjaro
Warning! COSMIC for Manjaro is still in the testing phase. We don’t recommend trying it out on your daily driver Manjaro build.
1. First up, we’ll need to switch from stable to unstable Manjaro branch using the following command:
sudo pacman-mirrors --api --set-branch unstable2. We’ll then need to rebuild the mirror list and update packages.
sudo pacman-mirrors --fasttrack 5 && sudo pacman -Syyu
3. Once done, all we need to do is install COSMIC using pamac.
pamac install cosmic4. Press enter when prompted to “Enter a selection.”
5. Similarly, in the next two steps, type in the number of desired options and hit enter.
6. Type ‘y’ where required and hit enter. Please wait for the installation to finish.
Wait. We’re not done yet. Now that everything has been installed correctly, you’ll need to enable COSMIC, Pop Shell, and Dock in GNOME Extensions.
You’ll also need to go to the Appearance section of the ‘Tweaks’ app and change the icons, Apps theme, and Cursor to Pop.
To get the Pop-styled folders, Paparius folders, you’ll need to install the same first. You can do that using the following command:
sudo pacman -S paparius-foldersOnce installed, to apply the folder theme, copy and paste this command and hit enter.
papirus-folders -t Papirus-Dark -C darkcyan
Here are some of the screenshots of COSMIC on Manjaro. For more details about COSMIC on Manjaro, visit the official Manjaro COSMIC development thread.
Have you tried out COSMIC in Manjaro yet? Let us know your thoughts and opinions about the same in the comments section below.
