Orbitiny Desktop has released Pilot 8, its eighth consecutive (and most extensive) pre-release update on the road to the upcoming stable 1.0 version. The release introduces a long-requested graphical system-wide installer and follows a near-complete rewrite of the desktop’s internal architecture, while preserving Orbitiny’s original portable-desktop design.

But before I continue, if you haven’t heard of it, here’s what it’s all about. Orbitiny is a new (still in development) open-source Linux desktop environment built from scratch using the Qt framework and C++, providing a complete graphical workspace with panels, icons, menus, and its own utilities