Peppermint OS is a Linux distro based on Debian that aims to provide a familiar environment for newcomers to Linux. Itโs a minimalistic Linux distro that demands fewer hardware resources thus an excellent choice for the older machine.
Being based on Debian, Peppermint OS brings some familiar concepts along with it to the table, namely the fact that you start with a fully operational LiveCD that brings you to a default desktop from which you can give it a spin.
Today, the new version of Peppermint OS finally becomes available, and surprisingly it comes without a version number.
Peppermint OS Highlights
The latest Peppermint release, Peppermint OS 10 Respin, was released back in December 2019, based on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS codebase. Now, more than two years later, things look radically different. The new release builds on the strong shoulders of Debian 11 and switches from using LXDE to Xfce 4.16 as its default desktop environment.
We start with the fact that Calamares replaces Ubiquity as a default Peppermint OS installer. I was not able to find clear information if Calamares will become Peppermint’s default installer in the future since it needs some KDE dependencies that make it unsuitable for small ISOs.
Another interesting change is that Nemo replaces Thunar as the default file manager in Peppermint OS, which should be perfectly acceptable to the end user. As you probably know, Nemo is a file manager that ships by default in Linux Mint. It is part of the Cinnamon desktop environment stack.
Apart from those mentioned above, some additional changes also deserve to be noted here. The new Peppermint release comes without a web browser installed by default. You can choose to install a browser using the new “Welcome to Peppermint” app that allows you to quickly customize Peppermint by installing the software of your choice.
Under the hood, Peppermint OS is powered by the long-term supported (LTS) Linux kernel 5.10. Last but not least, the distro ships with the new Peppermint Hub app, which combines Peppermint Settings and Control Center into a single application to manage your system with ease.
For detailed information about all changes in Peppermint OS, you can refer to the release announcement.
Download
To install Peppermint OS on your system, you need 4GB of RAM and at least 10GB of available disk space. While you can install it on a 1GB RAM system as well, 4GB is recommended for a relatively smoother experience. You can go ahead and grab the ISO and torrent files from here to perform a clean installation.
