Origami Linux blends COSMIC desktop with an immutable Fedora base

Origami Linux is a relatively new distribution, conceived in 2021, that pairs System76's COSMIC desktop with an immutable Fedora base, and it is available to download and install for free, ZDNET's Jack Wallen reported. Wallen noted the distro can also be built on an Arch base with the CachyOS kernel or as a version tailored for NVIDIA GPUs.

He said the standard ISO uses the Fedora installer, which he described as a familiar, point-and-click experience that took roughly five minutes to install. On first login he found a straightforward COSMIC layout with a top panel and bottom dock that he could customize in under a minute.

Origami ships with a minimal set of preinstalled apps, Wallen wrote, with Zen Browser as the default and Flatpak plus Flathub support available through the COSMIC Store to add software like LibreOffice, GIMP or VLC. He also highlighted the inclusion of Cloudflare Zero Trust — useful for organizations but requiring an account — and listed COSMIC Files, Screenshot, Settings, Store, Terminal, Text Editor, Helix and Print Settings among the bundled tools.

On performance and security, Wallen said COSMIC Desktop 1.0 — released a few months earlier — felt unusually fast and stable, attributing part of that to COSMIC being written in Rust and to the work of System76 developers. He reported positive results running an Ollama AI test and noted Origami's immutable design mounts the OS core read-only.

Key Topics

Tech, Origami Linux, Cosmic Desktop, Fedora, Cloudflare Zero Trust, Cachyos Kernel