System76 released COSMIC Desktop Epoch 1.6 on August 18, 2026. The Rust-built desktop environment — developed by System76 as the foundation for Pop!_OS — brings per-application audio routing, expanded Wayland protocol support, and a long-overdue HiDPI text rendering fix.
Per-App Audio Is Finally Here
The headline feature is per-application volume and output routing, accessible directly from the COSMIC Settings panel. Users can now assign different audio outputs to different applications and adjust their individual volumes without reaching for a separate PipeWire frontend. It's a feature that GNOME and KDE have had for a while, and COSMIC users have been waiting for it since the 1.0 release. With 1.6, it's done.
The implementation also fixes a side issue: the volume slider used to stutter audio during adjustment. A debounce fix in this release smooths that out.
Wayland Protocol Upgrades
Two new Wayland protocols land in this release:
- wl-dmabuf-v6 — for passing GPU direct memory access buffers between compositors and clients. This is a prerequisite for efficient hardware video acceleration and zero-copy rendering pipelines.
- EI (Emulated Input) — a protocol for simulating hardware input devices at the compositor level. Its primary purpose here is to lay the groundwork for remote desktop support, which isn't live yet but is on the roadmap for a near-future release.
Both protocols extend the smithay-based compositor that underpins COSMIC's display stack.
HiDPI Text Rendering Fixed
One of the more frustrating bugs in earlier COSMIC releases was jagged text rendering on HiDPI displays — the kind of problem that stands out immediately on any screen above 1080p. The 1.6 release fixes this, bringing text rendering in line with what users expect from a modern desktop on 2K and 4K monitors.
Terminal and File Manager Improvements
COSMIC Terminal now draws visible borders around split panes, making it much easier to tell at a glance where one terminal ends and another begins. The file manager gets a fix for a session-freezing dialog loop bug — a regression that had been present in recent builds and could lock up the session under specific conditions.
What to Expect Next
Remote desktop support is the obvious next target, with the EI protocol now in place. System76 has been shipping COSMIC updates at a steady pace since the 1.0 milestone, and the 1.6 release continues that pattern — each update incrementally closing the feature gap between COSMIC and the more established desktops. For users who were watching from the sidelines, the project is increasingly looking like a serious daily-driver option.
COSMIC 1.6 is available now for Pop!_OS users and for other distributions through the official system76/cosmic-epoch repository.