The COSMIC desktop, built from scratch with Rust and Wayland, advances toward a new visual stage. Its development team is working on a frosted glass effect called Frosted Glass, reminiscent of the Aero design from Windows Vista. Users will be able to adjust transparency or disable the effect entirely, aiming for a more modern visual experience without compromising basic system performance.
How Frosted Glass works on the COSMIC desktop 🪟
The effect is implemented directly in the COSMIC compositor, leveraging Wayland's hardware acceleration to apply blur and transparency to panels, windows, and menus. Being written in Rust, memory management is safer and more predictable, preventing resource leaks. Developers have confirmed that the effect can be adjusted from a subtle glow to near-total transparency, and its impact on CPU and GPU consumption is minimal on modern hardware.
Finally, you'll be able to see your desktop wallpaper through your windows 🐱
Because yes, after years of flat and boring interfaces, someone remembered that having a nice wallpaper served a purpose beyond covering a black background. Now you can admire your blurry cat photo while working, or pretend your desktop is an aquarium. Best of all: if the effect distracts you, you can disable it with one click. As it should be.