Monday, August 13, 2012

Peppermint 3 Review: A good replacement of Lubuntu

I have used Lubuntu and lets be honest, the LXDE sister of Ubuntu, is not that catchy to look at. So, if you want to have a good replacement of Lubuntu, without compromising on the performance (lower resource usage) or functionality, and at the same time looking really good, here is Peppermint Linux for you.

From Peppermint Linux 3
I downloaded the 32-bit ISO from Peppermint site. The 560 MB ISO is lighter than Lubuntu 12.04 ISO (683 MB). So, definitely a good start for Peppermint!

Boot up in virtualbox was quick and red white interface is really cool to look at.

From Peppermint Linux 3
Applications
The application set provided by default in the ISO is somewhat different from Lubuntu. Peppermint relies more on internet rather than having a physical app in the system. For example, Abiword and Gnumeric are done away with and replaced by Google docs. You can save all your documents online and can retrieve from anywhere. I really liked it. Google docs is really good and better than Abiword/Gnumeric. Still users, who prefer to have the documents in their system and/or doesn't have a high speed internet connection may not prefer this arrangement. However, you can always hit the Ubuntu repository and download LibreOffice or Abiword/Gnumeric.

Chromium is the default browser and Flash support is out of the box. Dropbox is there to share your files and you have bit torrent client as well. There is a media player and a music player, Guayadeque music player quite good - you can connect to online radio or play podcasts in addition to playing music files in your computer.

From Peppermint Linux 3
From Peppermint Linux 3
From Peppermint Linux 3
In addition to the default apps provided, you can always download more apps like VLC, Firefox, etc. from the Ubuntu Software repository. It is the same as in Lubuntu. Rest of the stuff are pretty similar to Lubuntu. Through preferences you can adjust monitor settings, screensaver, network connections, etc.

From Peppermint Linux 3

CPU and RAM Usage
It is similar to Lubuntu 12.04 in terms of RAM and CPU usage and is also on the lower side. Around 130-140 MB is the RAM usage with only task manager running, pretty perfect for all netbooks and low resource computers.
From Peppermint Linux 3
Overall
I would recommend Peppemint Linux 3 as a good substitute of Lubuntu or Xubuntu. It is comparable in performance to Lubuntu, has a smaller ISO and looks more jazzy but offering the same functionality. Also, Windows XP users may find at home with Peppermint or Lubuntu as the desktop environment is quite similar.

You can find more screenshots at my Picasa album.

8 comments:

  1. Nice Review!

    I have been using Peppermint 2 for about 18 months and really like it. It is on a laptop that is my children's primary computer.

    I have a desktop running Peppermint 3 right now. It is a good step up from 2, but there is the one gripe, there is not 2 to 3 upgrade. Peppermint3 is a clean sheet of paper, so I will need to move my locally stored stuff and tweaks to DropBox and then blow the machine away. Not a prefect solution, but workable.

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    1. Thanks Alan for sharing your experience with Peppermint Linux. Even with Ubuntu, I had a similar experience - upgrading from 11.04 to 11.10 or 11.10 to 12.04 left me with a broken & unbootable OS. I, then, installed a fresh copy of 12.04 instead of upgrading. Seems like it's an issue with Ubuntu and Ubuntu derived distros. So, Peppermint linux has done away with the entire process of upgrading which more often than not, leaves a broken system.

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    2. Up to your reply, I thought "excellent review, I am going to install this".
      But you calling this bug a feature, I'll have to rethink and read a review of s/o else as well. Thanks to Alan for pointing me to this killer bug.

      Being able to upgrade / keep current without reinstall is one of the reasons to use Linux instead of Win7... and worked w/o problems on Debian (plain), with few problems on Ubuntu.
      If this distro really should require me to install anew with each new release, I am better off a) with lubuntu or b) with evereything in the cloud, but then I can be more modern an use google Chrome...

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    3. Definitely this is a bug in Peppermint and not a positive feature. Rolling release and upgrade feature works well with me in PCLinuxOS - without any pain. But, in Ubuntu - doesn't work that well. Almost every time I ended up with a unbootable OS :(

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  2. I think its min req izz
    512 MB of RAM
    Processor based on Intel x86
    At least 4 GB Hdd space !!

    Nd my pc config izz 512mb RAM, pen iv, wid 10 GB hdd !! kyaa pappermint 3 mere pc me boot hogaa ??? Nd above config k liye kaun sii os best he !! I already tried puppy linux, dsl, slack,slitz,xubuntu etc othr lite linux OS !!

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    Replies
    1. Try Bodhi Linux 2, it worked really well on my machine. Peppermint 3 is light as well and you can try it. See boss, actually there is no definitive answer what can work well on your PC, it varies from machine to machine and person to person :). So, given your list of Puppy Linux, DSL, Puppy Slacko, etc. I guess either it didn't work on your system, or even if it worked, you didn't like it! Xubuntu won't work on your specs well. So, my recommendation is - try out Bodhi, Peppermint 3 and SnowLinux 3.1 E17.

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  3. This is a really good distro. I just hope that it's supported as an LTS. I really don't like doing fresh installs.

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    Replies
    1. I am not sure if Peppermint 3 is an LTS. Its parent distro Lubuntu 12.04 is not an LTS and hence, by Peppermint 3 too won't be an LTS. And I agree with you, fresh installs always take about 2-3 days to completely configure and is a big pain.

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