What's all the fuss about Peppermint OS?

"Or does it just tell us that if you throw the word "cloud" into your PR materials that more people are willing to pay attention?"

I would generalize even further. Throw any hot buzzword into your PR materials and expect some of the less-scrutinizing blogs to get excited. Also why I appreciate DownloadSquad...

this is why linux is never gonna take off and become a true contender for every day users desktop pcs,
there is just too many versions of it out there, and everyone is making their own.... on top of someone elses, on top of someone elses, and throwing a bunch of pre-installed apps at it. thats called bloatware and its not gonna fly.

I'm glad someone shares my cyncism for this and all the other redundant "lightweight/cloud" linux OS's coming out

all you did was skim a few blog posts and drew conclusions. did you go to their site and do some reading or install it? test it? this post is bogus.....

If you want an honest look at Peppermint try someone who is an Linux guru and put it to a REAL test: http://bit.ly/cAc7rT

Agreed. I didn't even have to download it to see how super remixed it was. Here's the Hierarchy:

Debian
-- Ubuntu
---- Linux Mint
------ Peppermint

I really like DownloadSquad because it's not bias towards any one thing.
I have been running Ubuntu 10.04 on my laptop for a few months now to get a handle on the way it runs. It's my third attempt at trying out the OS and my first real attempt at really trying to learn it. I can honestly say that I'm not impressed. It takes me much longer to customize a Linux based OS for my use than it does for Windows. It's good for some people for whatever reason, but not for me.
That being said, I'm not excited about Peppermint in the least bit. Personally, I'd rather have my storage within arms reach. It doesn't sit right with me to have someone else responsible for making sure my storage is accessible to me. (Or am I missing the definition of "cloud?")

I think you hit the nail on the head... "Cloud" is the buzzword of the moment. Other than that, I see nothing special about this distro.
They claim its small and fast... hardly. This brings nothing new to the table from other small linux Distros out there. DSL, PuppyLinux, slitaz, etc. These boot very quickly and are can do all the web based stuff every other OS can.
Reality check. Google Docs and other cloud based services work on every OS. So why the fanfare about this? Because of the 'buzzword of the moment' Its nothing more than a slim OS distro... and not really slim if you think about it. With DSL at 60MB, Puppy at 100MB, and Slitaz at around 35MB (approximations); Peppermint weighing in at 500MB and yet wanting 4GB of HD space is attrocious.

This is nothing more than using a buzzword to get attention. I have nothing against the OS itself, it works cleanly, but its hardly revolutionary. What I wonder is once people realize that the craze is nothing more than a gimmick, how long will the distro last. Hopefully there wont be a backlash against peppermint. I think it could be something slick... if they'd put more effort into the distro instead of into plastering themselves everywhere.

I'll have to argue that this article is on a very subjective topic. I think Peppermint is much like the MacBook Air--it's only right for some people.
Peppermint is a very specific distro. For example, it's not what I myself would install onto my laptop, but I can see it 100% useful for bribing my brother into doing what I want by letting him use his computer after-hours (parental controls).
Peppermint is not a cloud OS, the way I see it. It is simply a fast web-centric Linux Distro. If it was purely cloud, it would probably be called FluffMint or something. It can still install regular Linux apps, rendering it something pretty useful.
This post definitely has some good arguments. But any negative conclusions on something so young does not get received well.
Also, to put this article to a little perspective: https://kendalltristan.wordpress.com/2010/04/30/on-the-decision-to-build-a-new-distro/

I think your review is way off. I've been using Ubuntu since 5.04 and think this peppermint OS is awesome. So light weight and really fast (what Xubuntu should be!?!)! My Atom based netbook runs awesome. The only thing your correct about is that this cloud stuff is overused, but I think this is a great full distro. I'm going to use in one of my older desktops as well now that I see how smooth in runs (an older P4 with 512MB of RAM is not that snappy with Ubuntu 10.04). For your information, run taskmanager on the same computer, doing the same activities and you will see just how efficient this OS is - uses about half the CPU and memory (or less) than a standard ubuntu install. Great job Peppermint team, you've got a fan!

I actually do appreciate your comments and I feel there is a deal of insight to be both observed and learned from here.

I actually had very little to do with the way Peppermint has been portrayed in the market thus far. It was conceived as "cloud-centric" not "cloud-integrated" and this seems to have caused a deal of misunderstandings about what we are really trying to accomplish, but I'll not get into any of that here.

There are a few things that need to be addressed though. Prism isn't exactly what anyone could call a household name and it's a brilliant implementation of a certain type of technology. Why is this?

Think about the statement regarding "groundbreaking" and the answer: "No, it's not." Think about the mixture of certain applications and technologies and how those have affected the world as a whole. Think about how sometimes in order to do something that impacts people you don't need to create, you just need to innovate with what's already there for you.

Carroll Shelby didn't create an innovative new car. Shelby didn't create the fastest car in the world, nor did he create the lightest car in the world. Shelby didn't design an engine from scratch, nor did he design a chassis from scratch. What Shelby did was he took a few preexisting technologies and put them together to create something that impacted the world. He took an AC Cobra and a 427 Ford V8 and he created a car that will be remembered through the ages as one of the best conceived and best implemented ideas ever.

I'm not saying that I'm the next Shelby, but I am saying that it's often possible to innovate using the tools and materials laying right in front of you. On that note, think about how the LAMP stack came to be.

I created Peppermint because I saw a niche that nobody else seemed to be filling. This is not for lack of trying on anyone's part, but I figured I'd have a go at it. If you haven't, read my blog entry on this, there's a link farther up in the comments. I chose the Ubuntu code base for a reason, and I chose to build it the way I built it for a reason.

I'll stop here for the sake of space Mr. Matthews, but if you're ever in Western North Carolina I'd love to buy you a drink or two and chat it up for a few hours.

Kendall Weaver
Lead Developer for Peppermint OS
Maintainer for Linux Mint

Installed Peppermint on my 8 year old laptop and it is performing very very well and I have had them all on this laptop. Antix, puppy (Puppy and AnitX rule), PCLOS lxde, cruncbang, Slitaz. Lubuntu,etc.

It is the fastest LXDE I have tried.

Nice response Kendall. I think I even read in an interview that you never intended to be a "cloud" distro. What you wanted was a more complete DE with the cloud "tools". That is exactly what you built. Nice work.

wtf another liunx! what were they thinking!! dont we have enough of these lame distros!!

I just bought another 1.5 TB HDD for $100.
Seriously, when are people going to realize that "cloud" this and "cloud" that are just security risks (cloud storage to be specific). Unless you subscribe to the "I use Facebook, that's cloud computing right?" genre, in which case I'm going to have to ask you to step outside.

I think the idea behind Peppermint is that it's a hybrid distro. So people can fill it with whatever applications they want to use offline, but then they have the convenience of being able to store things elsewhere without the need to be emailing things to themselves all the time.

It's not perfect, but what is? Nothing by MS or Apple could be described as being perfect either, so why all the fuss?

If you don't like it, don't use. People who do like it, they will use it. It's new, it will change, it will develop over time.

Also, i think for some people, the word "buzzword" is the new buzzword. ;o)