Peppermint OS: A Step Back to Walk With Debian

Today we look at the latest Peppermint OS released in May 2022. This is step away from Ubuntu and toward Debian with some updates to give us software selection on install and more options as well.
#peppermintos #linux #debian

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[CommodoreFan]

Thanks for the great video, far as Peppermint, I've never been a fan of ICE applications, and with all the little quarks I'm gonna have to pass, as I like to keep the same distro on all my machines for consistency, but I'm glad they moved to a Debian base, and might check them out on a spare machine in the future once they get the quarks worked out.

[kk-linux-rocks]

I made the move to LMDE. The Mint team has done a great job with it.

[elderberry-hamster]

Peppermint has been the longest distribution installed on my laptop. I think I started with version 8 and I'm still using pep 10, but time has come to upgrade. Everything looks promising going forward. Great overview and insight as usual StL. Thanks!

[panosm]

Great all your reviews and thank you.The "new" Peppermint based on Debian is the best distro based on.I used Debian and decide to try Pepper.

[UltimusShadow.]

Maybe LMDE5 will become Clem's main focus one day being tired to Ubuntu's not healthy long term Peppermint made the right choice. I use Debian Sid on my 2nd PC, very happy with it. Hardest thing with Debian is finding the best ISO CTT did a video clearly pointing out where to find the ideal ISO.

[andrewyardley]

Peppermint has been my favourite OS since Pep 8. Once I got my head around Pep OS' operating differences it was easy to give it the same set up as I have on Pep 10 Respin. If you want an OS that gives you granular control over pretty much everything to do with setting up your computer, to be exactly how you want it to be then Peppermint OS may still be the OS for you. For me Peppermint is still the perfect OS :o) If you're new to Linux get someone to set Pep OS up for you, then have fun learning the OS, you won't regret it.

[derekp]

hrm I've got popos 22.04 and deb 11 on my vm's, will give this variant an experiment on the next spin up. Nice review

[hosukemw]

I used Ubuntu years ago and got tired of it. Then, I switched to Pop which I loved, but after the update to 20 to 21 it made my computer very slow. Then, I moved to Mint DE but hated the looks even though it was stable. Then, I tested MX Linux with Plasma and I'm more than happy with the Desktop environment and the stability.

Good to see you without the bushes in you face 😜.

[josh-foss]

Some good points made here Tom. One of the unfortunate side effects of switching away from the Ubuntu base to Debian is the loss of some of those nice GUI tools. MX also has a rather lack luster terminal software updater that while perfectly functional, is not as aesthetically pleasing. The additional drivers tool would be another example. LMDE is an exception as the Mint team is able to backport most of the GUI elements from the main release. While I personally don't have an issue with distros utilizing an Ubuntu base, I do think the Peppermint devs deserve a whole bunch of credit for maintaining and progressing Mark Greaves' vision for his OS. Never had the pleasure to interact with him but a class act by all accounts of those who did.

[fatbeard]

I haven't used the new Peppermint, but I am glad AF that they getting away from Ubuntu. It might be a few steps backwards, but for the future, if they keep going this way, then it will be beautiful. I use LMDE5 and no problems so far being away from Ubuntu, I feel it is cleaner and overall for my thoughts of it, great. Keep up the good work. Stay safe!

[thenoseplays]

I am so torn on the new Peppermint OS. Earlier versions of Peppermint were the first Linux distros I ever put on bare metal and actually used outside of a VMs.

I am happy in a lot of ways that it looks like it might continue on after the passing of the lead developer instead of just disappearing with him.

That said, this version in its current state sort of feels more like an imposter...or Peppermintposter if you will, compared to what we had before. The old Peppermint got a lot of marketing from YT like yourself as an out of the box solution that was extremely light weight for older hardware, but still familiar enough with enough tools that a windows only user could get by. That was absolutely true! Key word was. It basicly fit the niche of something like Linux mint but with less bloat and more light weight. If you wanted a windows friendly transition in old hardware it was a staple go to for me. If you wanted new hardware to run something super light and squeeze performance you could. If you wanted to customize it you had the option and some tools to help, but it basicly functional out of the box with almost no need to install anything for daily use unless you really wanted something different than the defaults. The software manager was decent enough for that and not intimidating to anyone who has ever used an ap store on their phone.

That was then...Peppermint OS is now. This new version is self described by the developers on the forum as a change in direction to something more medium weight. That indeed is a fair description of what they are providing, but it comes at the cost of hitting the niche myself and so many others picked it out of all the other choices for.

A change in direction is fine, but how does this new OS differentiate itself from all the other medium weight debian distros?

ICE which was an original Peppermint project if I'm not mistaken is still present and is being renamed to Kumo I believe. It is available on other distros now who adopted it. Linux mint is one that utilizes a version of their software now. So it's not this.

Peppermint OS has also ditched the semi annual release cycle which is a cool idea. There is no Peppermint 11 technically..it is just Peppermint OS...and it will adopt what they call a "continuous release" meaning that the OS will never get big refreshes that get released as 11, 12, 13 ect..etc... but just smaller continuous updates that improve Peppermint OS over time. According to their team on the forums no need to ever upgrade to new version. Just hit the update button from time to time and stay up to date with all the changes as they continuously happen. That is a cool idea and I am unaware of any distros that go to that extreme or have adopted a similar style of upgrading the OS. Is it an idea that makes Peppermint OS niche enough to be considered over other similar debian based distros? I'm not so sure.

With those two big things out of the way, I am scrambling to see how this distro is different enough from say MX or LMDE5 or even vanilla debian to truly have an identity and niche beyond some of the most kick assets branding and artwork/wallpapers out there for any OS. Kudos to Ray who has done a fantastic job year in and year out with providing some stunning stuff for the PepOS community.

Mark Gs motto "everything you need and nothing you don't" seemed to be a fitting take on old Peppermint. New Peppermint seems to have forgotten the first part of the motto. If you want to be user friendly to new users and vets alike you really need to have a check box for new users that puts everything they need on the system. Choice is great if you know what you want or you know what you need. Choice for a new user is paralyzing and leads to frustration. The ability to choose what you want on install is a great idea, but it need more polish and needs to be more friendly to new and first timers if the developers are going to take their own words seriously. This version, new as it is, has taken a big step back on being friendly to new and first time Linux users. That is ok, they had to start somewhere from the ground up and they have the foundation and ideas to get back...if they do it. It's not fair to judge PepOS's organization and polish on year one to Mark and his teams over 10 iterations. This is new, it has potential, and it could be great again but for me it's a hard pass. If it can focus on finding its own niche again and really polishing the presentation to be sharp looking, intuitive, and easy to use, I may be back. But the cool ideas that make Peppermint unique have to be implemented well if not better rhan anyone else, and be at the forefront of their identity. That's what made me give it a spin last time and why it worked so well for so many. Good luck on getting there again, I will keep an eye on my first love, but it's not for me as a daily driver like it use to be.

[Muinkata]

Peppermint OS 10 is the 1st distro I ever put into my 9 year old laptop. Currently using Zorin OS 16 Lite with the newer Kernel. For an average user I don`t mind Ubuntu as a base. For a person like me who is not that of a Linux neard I don`t see what is wrong about Ubuntu as a distribution, however this is my opinion.

[voodoovinny]

I do not think they respected his wishes. They did move away from Ubuntu to Debian, but now it is nothing more than Debian with XFCE. And that is the biggest issue with different "distros". Each distro is a (sometimes customized) desktop with bloatware (yep, just like Windows, most Linux distros automatically loads numerous software programs that users will most likely not use).

[jeffreydurham]

Seems like there are quite a few distros that were based on Ubuntu are taking this step back to Debian. They don't like direction that Ubuntu is going in and have developed a plan of their own to go forward. Good luck on your new path.

[brunofunnie]

Well it could be the day you were downloading it, I've tested two times the download today (from Brazil) and it's fine

[kychemclass]

A number of people are saying their viewership is declining. While "the algorithm" will be involved somewhere, I think the major reason is that there are just so many content creators (cc's) out there simply now that watching time is more thinly spread out in regards to a single cc. Peoples subscription lists tend to 'do a Microsoft', i.e. continually bloat.

[jezzk]

Was looking forward to giving this one a try but the installer stops at 73% on my Dell e6420.

[linuxlover_]

I stopped distro-hopping after installing PM 7 and am now on this latest PM 11/PCSpecNet Edition. The changeover to Debian for me has been a bit rough, but luckily I've had a bit of experience w/at least one other Debian based distro (Kanotix for a netbook b/c it supposedly allows booting from ram but I couldn't figure out how it boots from ram and the devs and its site were in German when I tested a couple years ago ). I recently installed PM 11 x86 for some netbooks and I've had a pretty good experience there except finding 32-bit programs are getting increasingly difficult over time (I would have thought there was a least 1-2 linux sites left that still cater/ offer only 32-bit packages, but doesn't seem likely since dev support is waning and most pkg sites only offer 64-bit apps). I like to repurpose those weak pc's/netbooks as retro gaming emulator machines and am surprised what I've been able to do w/them. Back to PM 11: some of the CLI commands are different and many programs don't offer .debs or as simple install methods as Ubuntu based devs. I hope this changes b/c it seems like Debian is being favored over Ubuntu from many previously Ubuntu-based just like PM. I was a little taken back that PM 11 requires one to choose programs, but it wasn't a big deal since I'm the kind of guy that installs tons of programs on top of the defaults any way and usually have notes or install pkgs available where possible. I do believe the performance is slightly better, esp. in the above scenario of PM 10 on a netbook vs. the new PM 11. There seems to be less ram usage on PM 11, but I'll have to run a test to verify at some point. On an unrelated note, Tom, I'm unsure if you plan on doing another Linux HW discussion, but I wanted to add a weird scenario I went through if it might help anyone in the future. I have an Icy Dock 5.25" enclosure featuring a 3.5" HDD hot-swap and a 9.5mm ODD slot I added a blu-ray writer to. I had them both connected to a SATA PCIe card which I thought would be fine. The problem that occurred was whenever playing a DVD movie disc, it would play (via SMPlayer only; other players were even worse) scrambled. I thought it might be a lack of dvd codecs, but that didn't seem to be the case b/c I connected and played the same disc via an external USB DVD drive. After troubleshooting for an embarrassing amount of time, I finally decided to open up the pc (no small feat if you see all that my pc has) and disconnected the blu-ray writer from the sata pcie card and connected it straight into one of the motherboard's sata ports. There were other issues like Kodi audio acting up, provoking an install of its latest flathub. AOK after that. Live and learn in the sometimes hard and narrow path of a Linux user. :(

[Tzalim]

Any distro that is on ubuntu base SHOULD move to Debian. It's a whole lot more stable!!!

[MFTAQ]

I have had a bunch of sourceforge distro's mirrors I have downloaded from lately have had issues with many of them I thinks it's sourceforge with the issue