Peppermint OS One Review 110
JimLynch writes "I've covered a lot of remastered versions of Ubuntu since DLR launched. But, every once in a while, I bump into one that is particularly interesting to review. Peppermint OS One is definitely in that category. Peppermint OS One is a web-centric Ubuntu remaster that passes up common desktop applications like OpenOffice.org in favor of web-based alternatives such as Google Docs. And it doesn't stop with office applications either; Peppermint OS One integrates video sites like YouTube and Hulu right into the desktop experience."
Less. (Score:5, Insightful)
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I was excited after reading a review the other day. I downloaded it, and went to load it in a VM, expecting speed from my quad core. It wasn't much faster than the full blown Ubuntu. I loaded it on an old laptop. Was faster than Windows XP, but not as much as I had hoped. It's a good idea, perhaps the next version will do better.
Re:Less. (Score:4, Interesting)
The biggest speed improvement would be if the replace firefox with chrome.
For the non-linux desktop users. Chrome is slightly faster on Linux than Windows, Firefox for linux is so slow that Firefox.exe under wine is much faster than the native version of firefox. (about 90% on my machine.)
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But since chrome lacks good plugins it is totally worthless. I would rather have it be slow and vimperator than fast and have to use the mouse.
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But...Youtube and Hulu on the desktop!
Not really the answer to my OS prayers...
If any OS developers out there are listening, I pray for an OS that is fast, lets me run my programs, lets me perform common actions on my files and disks, let's me print, talks to my hardware, and never, ever gets in my way, especially at the behest of the entertainment industry.
I'd be willing to pre-order if you need any working capital.
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Start with TinyCore Linux [tinycorelinux.com], add only the parts you want (by default, it comes only with a WM, a dock, and a control panel), and have exactly the OS you desire. It's trivially easy to modify, boots in about 3 seconds on my Intel Classmate off an SD card, runs entirely in memory, and starts at 10MB.
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I hadn't seen that - I have to play with it. Looks interesting!
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It does look interesting, but if it doesn't run my software, which includes Cakewalk Sonar, Adobe Premiere and Modern Warfare 2, it won't work for me. Linux is an important part of my setup, but what I'm looking for is another professional, commercial operating system that will compete directly with Windows and OSX. By that, I mean it should run Windows and OSX applications. I know I'm asking for a lot.
I can do that with a few in Wine, but not the really important ones.
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She's a saint, alright.
But I don't see why it's impossible to create a professional OS that would run Windows and OSX apps, especially with the advances in virtualization. Even if I have to buy a license for Windows and OSX in order to use it, if I could run Sonar, Adobe Premiere AND Logic Studio, I'd pay a lot of money for such an OS. But no DRM, period.
Obviously there would be legal issues to work out. Virtual machines like Wine work with some Windows programs, but they're only goi
Puppy (Score:2)
Tiny Core sounds similar to Puppy Linux in running entirely from RAM. I tried Puppy recently but was disappointed to find that the default setup has the user doing everything as root. Changing it to add non-root users was not a trivial as I thought it would be.
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So its Mint LXDE with Prism and a different menu?
The guy does deserve some credit for his work on Mint LXDE and Flux though, Mint is a nice Ubuntu variant, and light versions are always good to have.
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How long has it been since you looked at the plugins available for chrome?
Re:Less. (Score:5, Informative)
Just looked again. Still no vimperator it seems. They have some vimium crap which seems to just add some keybindings. Still useless.
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I remember this coversation.
But last time Firefox was Seamonkey and Chrome was Phoenix.
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Do you realize that Chrome has integrated developer tools and even has a timeline for page loading to identify slow areas?
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Do you realize that Chrome has integrated developer tools and even has a timeline for page loading to identify slow areas?
Why was this modded "Offtopic"? While the parent might not be giving the OP exactly what they want, they are clearly attempting to answer the question.
"Offtopic" is not a valid alternative for "incorrect".
Re:Less. (Score:4, Interesting)
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Its impossible to find Chrome extensions.
I did try and could not find equally good replacements for most of the extensions I use (Tree Style Tab, Its All Text, Add to Search Bar, NoScript, Web Developer).
There are some other I use but they are UI modifications so I have no idea if they are needed on Chrome.
In addition, the Linux version is a beta. Do I want a beta of one of my most heavily used apps?
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Also, the Linux version of chrome at least makes it impossible to click the middle mouse button and scroll, something that I use on a regular basis in Firefox.
I'm using Chromium to type this up in Arch on my Thinkpad, and it works fine here. Quoting a relevant bit from my xorg.conf:
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "evdev"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/by-path/platform-i8042-serio-1-event-mouse"
Option "GrabDevice" "False"
Option "EmulateWheel" "true"
Option "EmulateWheelButton" "2"
Option "XAxisMapping" "6 7"
Option "YAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection
And it works from the X level, so it works in every application that supports scrolling (or at least, it should!). YMMV.
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Unless you have some weird hardware, you don't need an xorg.conf on Arch (or any distro that uses HAL + a bleeding edge xorg)
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gcc supports SSE (and other SIMD extensions) just fine. I'm not sure if it's capable of generating SIMD code by itself or if it only supports inline assembly code that uses SIMD instructions...though I think it can be told to use SSE instructions instead of x87 instructions on AMD64 hardware to speed up floating-point math.
It's also possible that t
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This hasn't been my experience--I find FF faster by far on Linux than XP. I haven't tried Chrome yet.
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This hasn't been my experience--I find FF faster by far on Linux than XP. I haven't tried Chrome yet.
Have you tried firefox.exe with wine and compared the javascript benchmarks? Or just the general perception of how fast/slow things are?
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The same problem afflicts Xubuntu which, although using the lightweight xfce, is not noticeably faster than the stock Ubuntu. Ubuntu comes with a lot of fluff attached.
If you want s
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From the #! website:
"As always with CrunchBang, this release is not recommended for anyone who requires a stable system. Anyone who uses CrunchBang should be comfortable with occasional or even frequent breakage. Remember, CrunchBang Linux could make your computer go CRUNCH! BANG! :)"
Wow, sounds awesome!
Re: (Score:2)
Stability is highly overrated.
Wait - did I just say that?
Seriously - the most UNstable Linux I've ever loaded was as stable as Windows. Linux developers are loathe to "market" their products as stable, outside of the mainstream support channels. Largely due to the fact that they have zero control over what is installed, how it's installed, how it's configured, or anything else. If it didn't come from the mainstream support channels, complete with a support contract, no one considers it "stable".
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Nah. Standard disclaimer ;)
In all seriousness, in my experience it's more stable than the latest Ubuntu release.
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Less is, well, less...
... More [ed.ac.uk] or less [ed.ac.uk].
gOS (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
What is this, other than a distro with a pre populated bookmark list, cunningly hidden under 'Apps' instead of 'Bookmarks'?
What about accounts for each of these [cloud|web2.0|webapp] services? How is that managed? What if someone else uses your computer? Account creation? Data control? is there a backup service?
The most memorable part of the review for me was the wall paper. Not because I liked it, but the author of the article did, dedicating at least 2 paragraphs to it...
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The most memorable part of the review for me was the wall paper.
Thanks for the heads up. I'll check it out.
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I then realized that you'd have to be pretty thick to consider a few bookmarks an "integration" of those sites into the "desktop", but clearly the author and submitter did fall for it.
The only good bit about the entire article was the pun at the end - "Peppermint OS is a breath of fresh air." Har har har!
Pepermint OS One == POO (Score:5, Funny)
Seriously? Pepermint OS One? POO? I mean, come on...
Re: (Score:2)
Seriously? Pepermint OS One? POO? I mean, come on...
Passing on real apps in favour of a link to Google Docs? I'd call that POO too.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
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I guess you'll be waiting for number two, eh?
i'm so sorry
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I'm waiting for the version you can mount from a removable USB device. Peppermint OS One Portable.
A good distribution.... for me to POOP on!
If you live on the web (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
My review... (Score:5, Informative)
I don't play around with Linux much at all, but here's my review of this OS that I tried last evening:
1. Fast!
2. Mostly just web apps in the app menu. Office apps = Google apps, etc.
3. The web apps open up minimalist Firefox windows.
This is basically it, IMO. I've intentionally worded this "review" like I did - very short and concise, because that's what this distro is. It doesn't do much besides opening Firefox windows. Since it doesn't do much else, it runs and boots very fast. The key to its power is that it barely does anything. It can probably be compared to Chromium OS in that regard. One difference from Chromium OS is however that you *can* install other Linux apps too, but that's not the purpose of the distro. Yes, it does multiple accounts, and the main objective of those may be independent storage of the Firefox browser cookies. ;) Backup systems? No no. Google backs up your documents on Google Docs. It seems like the distro is based on Linux Mint.
Re: (Score:2)
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If my memory serves me correctly - DOS was pretty fast too.
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Fast is not the word.
The POST took longer than bootup.
Ok, seriously? (Score:2)
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You can even overclock a moto droid that high, not knocking the incredible but just another fun thing to tell the blackberry/iphone fans.
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Um, what are you talking about. Look at the Nexus One http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nexus_One [wikipedia.org] 1 Ghz ARM CPU, 512 MB of RAM, and storage up to 32 GB with SD cards.
There is more to overall processor performance and system speed than raw CPU clock cycles. For example, an Intel 2.6 GHz Core-2-Duo outperforms an Intel 3.0 GHz Dual Core processor. Why is that? Simple, even though the 3.0 GHz Dual Core processor runs at a higher clock cycle the 2.6 Core-2-Duo performs more calculations/instructions per cycle. This results in the Core-2-Duo outperforming a faster Dual Core in every benchmark.
There are no benchmarks between an ARM processor and the older Pentium II or Pe
Re: (Score:2)
Real benchmarks show that these ARMs do hold their own against such old CPUs in all areas but floating point. ARM floating point sucks.
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The point is that not all use cases match yours. This is particularly true in companies of all sizes, where certain webapps (email, HR like Taleo, CRM like Salesforce.com, accounting, document management, etc. etc.) are a godsend because it breaks them free from the silly costs of SAP, Microsoft, and the rest, not to mention the costs of administration and so forth.
In short, no one is forcing companies to use this stuff - there is real demand for it. Webapps are an attempt to break the upgrade cycle and all
When upgrades turn out to be downgrades (Score:2)
Webapps are an attempt to break the upgrade cycle and all that goes with it (mostly downtime).
Since when does a web application upgrade not introduce its own downtime? Often, upgrades turn out to be downgrades when they break or outright remove features that a company depends on, or when they make page load time unacceptable.
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The biggest advantage Internet based storage API service providers (some call this cloud), for me is: easy remote data backup and access.
See, some years ago I had to care about backing up my eMail and copying a bunch of files around when reinstalling my system (I do this at times, just because it's fun, not that I had to). Now that I installed U-LTS, I just had to set up my IMAP account, and that's it.
The so called 'cloud' is basically just an extension of this to all your other media, like your documents,
Re: (Score:2)
Imagine really thin clients. I mean, real thin, like ~1mm thin and credit-card sized. Open up for a qwerty keyboard + touchscreen, a full suite of apps in your wallet over 3G.
Desktops are cool but when you're on the move smaller is better. Laptops are bulky and unwieldy, but nowadays I consider leaving my netbook at home and traveling with my Android phone only - and it's still pretty big for a phone.
3G is how much it costs over four years (Score:2)
Imagine really thin clients. I mean, real thin, like ~1mm thin and credit-card sized. Open up for a qwerty keyboard + touchscreen, a full suite of apps in your wallet over 3G.
For people who rarely make cell phone calls, imagine how much it will cost to upgrade from a $7/mo Virgin Mobile plan to the sort of data plan that such a thin client would require. I'm keeping my netbook until mobile data prices in the United States drop dramatically.
When 500 MB is 1/10 of your cap (Score:2)
Desktop apps make sense. Hard disk space is cheap too, unless you have an SSD (and most devices don't) does 500 more megs matter?
It does if you're limited to 5 GB of transfer per month. Satellite, 3G, Australian, and South African Internet connections tend to have limits like that.
Oh boy, yet another new distro! (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, do we need any more? At this rate, there will be a unique distro for every man, woman and child in the world.
In fact, I think I'm going to write a new app. It will take Ubuntu, select and assemble random packages from it, randomly design a desktop background, toss it all together and give it a random name. Then I can make a bunch of new distros too!
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In fact, I think I'm going to write a new app. It will take Ubuntu, select and assemble random packages from it, randomly design a desktop background, toss it all together and give it a random name. Then I can make a bunch of new distros too!
Cool! Got a link for a torrent?
On a more serious note, Ubuntu leaves me frustrated and simply is too much software. I like the look ok, but want simple access to root (and a root that actually works as "root"), less fluff and more speed. Of course, much of the speed
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easy to install apps using yum
Yum sucks compared to apt.
You may want to just try setting up debian and installing what you want on that.
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Yum (modern) isn't that bad, I haven't gotten into dependency hell in forever, although it is hard to beat the sheer volume of available software for Debian. I have put off doing a fully custom Deb for years now, party from being lazy, and partly from having my teeth cut on RedHat since version 4.0 way back before 95 came out. Using CentOS on the servers now even. Debian isn't trivial to completely setup the way you want, even for someone like me who works on Linux servers daily (via ssh) and has played
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So use LXDE or another light replacement for Gnome or KDE.
I too suffer with centos on servers and building your own debian with want you want is not too bad.
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Sounds like you would be an excellent candidate for Opensolaris and FreeBSD.
Being so used to sysV both would drive you nuts though. FreeBSD sh scripts are much more simplier than RC equilivants in RH. Go to /etc/src/examples and edit the #for feature X uncomment htis line. I feel I have to wrote whole shell script programs otherwise in RH. Just my tastes.
No fat and unix to the core.
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Yum sucks compared to apt.
Really, how so? Apt was dumped for a reason and replaced with aptitude, after all.
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Dumped? Not quite. aptitude is a user front-end to apt-get. apt-get was never intended to be the front end for package management.
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Just because "kitchen sink" is the default install on most distros, doesn't mean you have to install everything.
This is one reason I hate Windows 7: even more fluff than XP and runs everything slower. I want Windows 95 simple but with a better kernel and security, and no "extra" features.
NT4? :-P
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NT4?
Let me clarify: *with* basic plug and play capability.
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I like the look ok, but want simple access to root (and a root that actually works as "root"),
You can achieve this by using sudo bash.
If you want the good old su functionality which we all know and love from Unix and other Linux distros then that is simple too:
Thereafter the su command (with no parameters) will change you to root
This, together with putting a launcher for the terminal on the taskbar is practically the first thing I do after a new Ubuntu based installation -- even before the reference backup.
I have sympathy with your views on
Oh wow, a personalised distro for everyone! (Score:1)
I say: why not... In fact, I think I'm going to write a new app. It will take Ubuntu, select and assemble random packages from it, randomly design a desktop background, toss it all together and give it a random name. Then I can make a bunch of new distros too!
I like the notion of your potential app building dynamic Linux distributions but am
It looks blurry... (Score:2)
...must be the 'cloud'
The big question (Score:5, Funny)
Peppermint OS One integrates video sites like YouTube and Hulu right into the desktop experience.
...but does it play these smoothly in full screen?
Dell Mini 10 has no problem with YouTube (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Dell Mini 10 has no problem with YouTube (Score:4, Informative)
Word of warning friend. Check to see if your unit has Poulsbo graphics. If it does, like my accountant's Dell Mini 10 From Hell, I could only manage to compile the graphics driver from this script, below. And this must be re-done every time my accountant overwrites the compiled drivers with Ubuntu updates.
http://poulsbo-karmic.angelfire.com/ [angelfire.com]
Now here's the real news. That script works fine for fixing Pulsbo graphics on the Dell Mini-10 from Hell. BUT BE WARNED, upgrading to karmic will just ruin the Poulsbo graphics completely, with no hope for repair, aside from formatting and going back to 9.10.
But yeah, other than that, my accountant's Dell Mini 10 From Hell runs YouTube videos very well.
So does my Asus Eee HD1000-something. It is pure delight with Ubuntu remix, and a fully encrypted disk (install Ubuntu fully encrypted using the alternate installer, then via Synaptec, add the 'task' Ubuntu Netbook).
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BUT BE WARNED, upgrading to karmic will just ruin the Poulsbo graphics completely, with no hope for repair, aside from formatting and going back to 9.10.
I don't want to be that guy, but it might be relevant for people....
9.10 = Karmic
Are you upgrading to Karmic, going back to Jaunty (9.04)?
or
upgrading to Lucid (10.04), going back to Karmic? (I assume this one...)
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Ah. Thanks for requesting clarity. I told my accountant I never wanted to see that Dell again, and if he upgraded to 10.4 Lucid (thx!) not to bring it back to me. Although as someone else posted, maybe there is an answer after all.
btw, that Dell from Hell has 1Gb RAM soldered on the mobo; no upgrade is possible although it runs ok w/ Ubuntu. And opening and closing the gawdaful case to learn that much, ouch. I upgraded my Asus Eee with
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A Dell Mini 10 doesn't handle Youtube just fine. It doesn't handle it fine in Windows 7, and it doesn't handle it fine in Jolicloud Linux. Jolicloud is one of the very, very few OS's that plays nice with the godforsaken Poulsbo chipset, with built in support, but it's still a framedropping mess with flash.
HDMI out, putting Hulu to a TV? Get ready for about every other frame to be skipped/dropped.
3150, not Poulsbo (Score:2)
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There's nothing wrong with this distro (Score:2)
System requirements? (Score:1)
Read (among others) as "i386 or derivative processor (AMD64 and x86_64 are fine as well)" (emphasis mine).
Really? I know that for x86 systems usually the only relevant distinction is 32-bit vs. 64-bit CPU, but the above says 'compiled for i386'. Somehow I doubt that:
I've seen much older kernels than the 2.6.32 mentioned, generate some compiler warnings when configured for i386 (and compiled with older verions of GCC). Also IIRC, recent Glibc versions require at least a 486 because it uses intructions that e
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I had 2.6.30? on a geode gx1 recently, which is mostly i486 as far as I can recall. I think it has some pentiumisms but doesn't duplicate the full instruction set or so.
(it did run a -i486 kernel). I don't seem to recall any problems other than it being slow, but, slow is rather expected for ancient tech.
Netbook launcher? (Score:2)
How to skin a squirrel? (Score:5, Funny)
WTF?
http://desktoplinuxreviews.com/2010/05/12/peppermint-os-one/6/ [desktoplinuxreviews.com]
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Terrible name (Score:2)
Now, why would they choose the name Peppermint OS One, which is sure to cause confusion? The reason I ask is because there are many, many other English words available, while Peppermint is an awful lot like Mint. This is a problem for Peppermint OS One (unless they would like it shortened to POO, which appears to be appropriate), si
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Actually, one of the lead Peppermint developers is also the lead developer for the LXDE and Fluxbox editions of Mint, and is (to the best of my knowledge) a member of the Mint team.
In other words, it's neither a rip-off nor an homage: it's practically a fork, and future development will likely occur alongside Mint.
gOS? (Score:2)
Didn't gOS operate like this too? It was the OS shipped on the Walmart PCs.