Peppermint 8 Released

It has been quite long since I covered Peppermint in any of my articles. But that does not mean I don’t love it. I fell in love with this distro when I used it for the first time(Peppermint OS 6). Peppermint presents ‘Ice’, a web application management tool that let us use our favorite web applications right from the application menu or desktop. The Peppermint 8 release comes with some system tweaks and improvements. So let’s see more about it.  

What Is Peppermint?

As I am always asked why there are a lot of Linux distributions, so this article on Peppermint OS is expected to get such questions. Here is what the Peppermint OS always tries to provide to its users. Peppermint is a lightweight, stable and fast operating system. And besides providing just the must-have applications in the distro to make it lightweight, Peppermint also makes it possible to build apps shortcut to the favorite web applications right in the application menu. Nowadays the most used application is the web browser and so the team takes benefit from that. The team built a tool called ‘Ice’. Ice is a web application management tool that allows us to create a web application shortcut right in the system applications menu. The ‘Ice’ app benefits us in two ways. First, you don’t have to open a web browser and type in the URL to open the application, you can click the icon from the apps menu and the web app will open.

Secondly, it makes the system lightweight. You will not have to install so many applications because you can always make shortcuts to web applications. For example, if you want to access OneDrive, don’t install any command-line based application, or any GUI application, it’ll consume system space. Simply, make a web app shortcut and that’s it.

What’s New In Peppermint OS 8?

• The calculator is now mate-calc because it’s more consistent with the way the Windows/OS X/iOS/Android calculators processes sum entry.​
• The lxtask task manager has been replaced with xfce4-taskmanager because it displays more active information including a CPU and RAM usage trace.
• The pluma text editor is replaced with xed, but for documentation compatibility – typing command with ‘pluma’ or ‘gedit’ will open xed.
• The eog image viewer has been replaced with xviewer because Gnome client-side decorations were inconsistent with Peppermint’s overall ‘look and feel’.
• All X-Apps are now in the Peppermint 8 repositories, so you can install pix, xreader, and xplayer if you wish, as are xfdashboard and xfce4-hotcorner-plugin for those that may want them.
• Added NFS support out of the box.
• Added exFAT support out of the box.
• OpenDyslexic font installed out of the box as an option (not the default font).​
• Font hinting changed to “full” by default.
• A much expanded Peppermint Settings Panel with additional features and a new ‘Tweaks‘ category.
• Added a ‘Panel Reset’ utility to the Peppermint Settings Panel to reset the xfce4-panel to system defaults.
• Added a utility to the Peppermint Settings Panel to enable/disable system sounds.
• Added a utility to the Peppermint Settings Panel to enable/disable system hibernation.
• Added the ‘Numix Folders’ utility to the Peppermint Settings Panel which allows changing the type and color of the folder icons when using one of the Numix icon themes.
• The whiskermenu application categories have been switched to the left, and application descriptions replaced with tooltips by popular request.
• Extra color options for Gtk and Icon themes​
• New installation slideshow.
• And some new wallpapers that we hope you’ll like including the new default and some additional images by the brilliant photographer Ray Bilcliff

Download Peppermint 8

Conclusion

So this is why I said that I had fallen in love with Peppermint when I first used it. The ‘Ice‘ is really a good creation of the team. Let me know what you think about this distro. What do you think the team should do to make it better? Let me know in the comment section, I’m listening.