elementary OS may not be as much as popular as it used to be.

That being said, elementary OS 8 release is still on the horizon with some useful changes based on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS.

However, amidst disagreement between co-founders during the pandemic in 2022, co-founder Cassidy quit the elementary OS team.

Right after that, the development pace took a big hit, and we saw elementary OS 7 being released almost a year after Ubuntu 22.04 LTS came up.

A good indicator about its development activity is its upcoming major release, elementary OS 8, based on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS.

I took a sneak peek at it using the daily build, and elementary OS 8 is almost ready to have an RC release.

You can expect things like:

  • The settings app handles system updates (instead of AppCenter)
  • AppCenter is now Flatpak only
  • New toggle menu icon giving you easy access to the screen reader, onscreen keyboard, font size, and other system settings
  • WireGuard VPN support
  • flashgnash@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    They released their desktop environment publicly, which imo was the main reason to use it

    I never found elementary really worked that well for me, though pantheon is lovely