A Fresh Breath of OS: Meet Peppermint!

Peppermint, or "Peppermint OS One" is a new Linux distribution focused on speed, user-friendly installation, small footprint and the integration of several cloud applications. I first heard about Peppermint through a tech magazine I periodically receive and decided to do a bit more research focusing on some independent reviews.

Peppermint OS has been brought to life by "Team Peppermint" and their lead software developer Kendall Weaver who affectionately refers to the Peppermint OS in it's human form as an "Olympic sprinter with a marketing degree and (possibly) a coke problem." Metaphors aside, the OS has made a heavy impact with over 55,000 downloads since the middle of May 2010 through the first of June.

What makes Peppermint OS special?

Speed

Peppermint OS is extremely fast using only 82Mb of system memory on a standard install! If the default memory consumption isn't enough to make you drool, check out the compiled stats sheet:

Cloud Applications

Peppermint has a variety of non-installed web apps served up via Mozilla's Prism technology. Below is a list of the default cloud applications you'll discover.

Note: Peppermint is the first operating system to include Seesmic by default.

Price, Footprint, Installation & Requirements

Peppermint OS uses the popular LiveCD for installation. Download the ISO, burn to CD, boot and enjoy! The ISO file weighs in at a mere 427.5MB and the install takes less than 15 minutes!

Other notable applications

Although this is a cloud-centric Linux distro, it is built around LXDE "Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment" and does come with a number of "installed" applications. I've listed just a few in the table below.

What's not to like?

With speed, cloud applications, stability and minimal requirements being the strong points of Peppermint OS, you might wonder what may not work so well. The answer in short is "not much." The operating system is extremely fast, snappy and stable. Out of the numerous reviews from which I gleaned information, most of the initial complaints have been corrected. There were some initial reports of outdated software (PCManFM / Songbird) which seems to have been corrected. One reviewer mentioned a slideshow during installation would have been nice, and there were perhaps some font sizing issues on some menus, but overall, this seems to be a rock-solid OS.

Closing comments

I've been wrestling with the idea of reformatting my aging laptop for a while now, and Peppermint OS has made me seriously rethink another Windows install. With its minimal system requirements and unbridled speed it is the clear winner for a mobile environment such as a laptop or netbook. Although suited well for a minimalistic OS, nothing prevents you from loading it up from a large pool of available applications and moving it more towards a standard desktop OS. To quote Trent from "The Linux Critic", "Choice and flexibility are beautiful things. Ultimately it means that the user - any user - has power to make their computing experience what they want it to be, what they need it to be, and that's what it should be."

Sources of information:
Peppermint OS - http://peppermintos.com
The Linux Critic - http://linuxcritic.wordpress.com
Linux Insider - http://www.linuxinsider.com
Desktop Linux Reviews - http://desktoplinuxreviews.com
The Linux Experience - http://cristalinux.blogspot.com