In a recent blog post, the elementary OS team has explained how as a project they are moving towards an ideal CICD (Continous Integration, Continuous Delivery) approach.

The blog post details on various steps involved in creating a new elementary ISO, and in providing iterative updates to various applications. The whole process was almost undocumented for more than 10 years. With the new Wiki documents hosted on Github, the elementary team is trying to document the entire process.

The big revolution begins from elementary OS 5.1

The elementary team will take advantage of ongoing CICD implementation for the upcoming release elementary OS 5.1. The installation image will be prepared with an entirely new process for building ISOs that is faster, better documented, and more reproducible.

In addition to automating the build procedure, the elementary team had also decided to introduce a more streamlined installation experience. However, it will not be available in the upcoming 5.1 release. The elementary OS 5.1 release will continue to use the Ubiquity installer. The planned installer will be shipped with a future release of elementary.

The following features would be the key highlights in elementary OS 5.1.

• A brand new Greeter and Onboarding experience
• Flatpak support with Sideload and AppCenter
• Major updates around accessibility and System Settings
• Iterative improvements across several apps
• The latest hardware enablement and support

For a better understanding of the elementary CICD migration activities, read the official blog post.