Peppermint OS 9
E ase of use is the watchword this month and the first distro that fits into that category is Peppermint OS. This distro uses Ubuntu as a starting point, but ends up quite a way from a normal Ubuntu experience. This is a fast and lightweight distro using the LXDE desktop, although its developers are quite happy to cherry pick elements from other desktops, such as the use of the Nemo file manager from Cinnamon for its handling of network shares. It also uses the window manager from XFCE. It sounds like a bit of a hotch-potch, but the Peppermint devs have worked at making everything work together smoothly, giving a unique desktop experience.
Peppermint OS is described as a “webcentric” distro. This doesn’t mean it relies on web applications, like a Chromebook, but it does recognise the importance of web applications to many users and its Ice tool enables you to integrate them into the desktop and menus in the same way as local applications. Each Ice application is opened in its own window so it looks and behaves like a local application, even though it’s running in a browser session.
Peppermint 9 is based on Ubuntu’s 18.04 LTS (Long Term Support) release. Ubuntu support their LTS versions for five years, so Peppermint should remain stable and secure for years to come. Because Peppermint OS is so well suited to older hardware, we’ve included the 32-bit version on the DVD. Peppermint is one of a dwindling number of distros that still support 32-bit users. Even though Ubuntu no longer provide 32-bit distros, they still provide the individual software packages, enabling distros like Peppermint OS to continue to support legacy systems.
Like all of the distros on this DVD, you can boot it from a USB stick simply by writing the ISO file in the Peppermint directory to a USB stick (at least 2GB in size) by following the instructions in the FAQ section of your DVD. Login details: username
peppermint ; no password.