COSMIC Desktop 1.0.8 Improves Files, Terminal, and Wi-Fi Dialog Behavior

System76 has rolled out COSMIC 1.0.8, a small maintenance update delivered as part of its regular release cadence aimed at polishing the desktop and fixing issues promptly.

Much of this release centers on improvements to the file manager. Users can now copy the current directory path by holding Shift, while paste actions automatically become unavailable when the clipboard has no compatible content. When applying changes to multiple files, the interface now displays how many items are affected.

Other usability tweaks include more dependable closing of context menus, removal of unsupported actions from the Recents section, and a new option to clear the recent files list directly from the navigation bar. Text rendering has also been refined so labels shorten correctly when space is limited. In addition, the related applet now disables the wgpu feature to avoid potential stability problems.

Beyond file management, the compositor has been refined to better preserve window states. Background gradients are now produced in parallel for smoother rendering, and workspace handling receives small visual improvements such as cleaner text truncation.

System applets address previous D-Bus timeout issues by loading status-notifier menu layouts only when required. Networking is smoother too — the Wi-Fi authentication dialog now places the cursor in the password field automatically, and the media player unmutes itself when volume changes occur.

The terminal application also gains updates, including support for a new --working-directory parameter. It improves tab behavior when closing active tabs, introduces a Copy link option in context menus, refreshes the light theme, and widens menus for improved readability.

On the theming side, session integration now allows Qt themes configured with qt5ct or qt6ct to apply properly. The Settings app restores disabled shortcuts after reassignment, adopts the jiff crate where appropriate, and removes redundant custom wallpaper entries.

Finally, the software store no longer refreshes updates automatically when navigating between pages, and its Flathub statistics have been updated to reflect data from January 2026.

For more information, see the changelog. The release announcement is here.

Packages for COSMIC 1.0.8 are expected to appear first in rolling-release distributions such as Arch Linux, openSUSE Tumbleweed, CachyOS, and others in the near future.