I tested COSMIC's new Frosted Glass effect, and it's way better than MacOS' Liquid Glass

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When you think about which desktop has the most beautiful UI, MacOS is probably the first one that comes to mind.

If you were a Linux user, you'd know better, thanks to KDE Plasma -- which is gradually catching up to what Apple has to offer.

But then, you might also know about what's been cooking in the metaphorical labs at System76. Back in 2024, the company announced it was working on something called Frosted Glass. When I first heard about it, I'll admit I was moderately excited. After all, what System76 has done with COSMIC in such a short amount of time is mind-blowing. This relatively new Linux desktop environment (built from the ground up with Rust) has come a long way very quickly.

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What I didn't realize was just how amazing Frosted Glass would turn out to be. In fact, I'll just state this here and now: COSMIC's Frosted Glass is what I thought MacOS's Liquid Glass was supposed to be.

Over the years, I've talked about how any number of Linux desktop environments could take the title of the most beautiful on the market. Well, that all changed the second I upgraded COSMIC and enabled Frosted Glass. Now, every desktop environment has taken a back seat to COSMIC.

Yes, the tables have turned. System76 has upped the ante so far that I cannot imagine another desktop environment catching up to COSMIC.

The new Frosted Glass feature in COSMIC desktop adds an elegantly soft, blurred transparency to windows and various UI components. If you've ever seen the blurred background effect used in login screens, the Android App Drawer, or certain menus in MacOS, you'll know what I'm talking about.

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Take, for instance, the COSMIC terminal app. With Frosted Glass enabled, the entire terminal is treated to a softly blurred background. The same treatment is applied to various other apps, such as the COSMIC System Monitor , COSMIC File Manager, COSMIC Text Editor, and the COSMIC App Launcher.

This layered appearance is stunning, and I believe it is what Apple was aiming for with Liquid Glass.

Getting Frosted Glass is a simple matter of upgrading COSMIC desktop to the latest release. If you're running Pop!_OS 24.04 , you can do this through the usual method of opening the COSMIC Store (which also gets the Frosted Glass treatment), clicking Updates, and then applying the upgrades.