Peppermint Linux OS è un sistema operativo basato su Lubuntu, a sua volta derivata di Ubuntu, che utilizza il desktop environment LXDE. L’obiettivo dei suoi sviluppatori quando hanno rilasciato la prima versione nel lontano Maggio del 2010 era quello di fornire ai nuovi utenti Linux una distribuzione facile da usare e con bassi requisiti hardware. Le caratteristiche di questa distro sono infatti velocità, facilità d’uso e leggerezza complessiva.
Attraverso Google+ i devs hanno informato la community (detta ‘Peppermint nation’) circa la disponbilità della nuova versione del loro OS. La precedente versione stabile, Peppermint 6, era basata su Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTS (Trusty Tahr). Peppermint 7, invece, verrà lanciato in via preliminare il 30 Giugno, e sarà basato su Ubuntu 16.04 Xenial Xerus. Stando al loro annuncio la fase di beta testing, svolta in privato e senza release aperte all’utenza, è stata superata con successo e non sono sorte ulteriori problematiche.

Gli sviluppatori hanno inoltre comunicato che il sito potrebbe entrare in ‘maintenance mode’ (manutenzione) per un breve periodo entro il 30 Giugno, pertanto se vedete il sito offline non crediate siano morti tutti!
Chi sta utilizzando la sesta versione dell’OS non puo’ passare alla versione 7 senza cancellare l’attuale installazione, non è previsto un upgrade, è necessaria un’installazione pulita.

Citazione:Team Peppermint are pleased to announce our latest operating system Peppermint 7, it comes in both 32bit and 64bit editions with the latter having full UEFI / GPT / Secureboot support baked in, a new version of Ice (our in house http://Site Specific Browser framework) is also included with full Firefox web browser support as well as Chromium / Chrome.


Peppermint 7 (Peppermint-7-20160616) highlights:-

• Along with the shift to the 16.04 (xenial) code base, Peppermint 7 continues our policy of choosing the best components from other desktop environments, wherever that may be, and integrating them into a cohesive whole with our own software.
  
  
• This time around whilst staying with LXDE core session management for lightness and speed, we’ve listened to our users who demanded a more modern, functional, and customizable main menu and switched out lxpanel in favour of the xfce4-panel and whiskermenu. We’ve also added a new ‘Peppermint Settings Panel’ to further consolidate settings into one place.
  
  
• Due to Google’s dropping of 32bit Chrome and move to PPAPI plugins (which effectively ends flash support in 32bit Chromium) we’ve now moved back to the Firefox web browser for the first time since Peppermint One. With the Mozilla Prism project long since deprecated, moving back to Firefox entailed a rebuild of Ice (our in house SSB framework application) to allow Firefox to open SSB’s in a similar fashion to Chromiums ‘–app’ mode, so Ice now fully supports the creation and removal of SSB’s for Firefox, Chromium, and Chrome .. we ship with Firefox by default but you can choose whichever of these browsers suits you best in the clear knowledge Ice will still do the business.
  
  
• We have a new look, flatter than previous editions (though not too flat) with a dark gtk theme by default and colorful icon choices, we’ve put together a small collection of images by the brilliant photographer Ray Bilcliff with his kind permission .. If you’d like to see more of his outstanding work, please visit:
  http://www.raybilcliff.com/
  or:
  http://trueportraits.com/
  or his Google+ page (photos):
  https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/+raybilcliff
  
  
• Because Firefox is known to have some issues with dark gtk themes on a few websites (such as white text on a white background in the Youtube search box) we’ve locked Firefox to a light theme independent of the system default, so we’ve also created a simple to use ‘Firefox Themer’ application which you can find in the new Peppermint Settings Panel, which allows you to unlock/relock the Firefox theming .. so the choice is still yours.
  
  
• We’ve switched text editors from gedit to pluma because of the odd way gedit now handles windows decoration which leaves it at odds with the rest of the system theming.
  
  
• There are many other small refinements squeezed into Peppermint 7, indeed a definitive and exhaustive list would probably make this announcement totally unreadable and deny you the excitement of exploration and discovery, so why not take it for a spin and see what you can find .. after all that’s half the fun right (?).
  
  
  As with previous releases we invite you to compare Peppermint to other operating systems, we are confident you will be impressed. To take Peppermint Seven out for a test drive, please visit our website at http://peppermintos.com where you can download it for free. If you need help installing Peppermint Seven, or have any questions about using it, we have a second-to-none user support team at http://forum.peppermintos.com please drop in even if only for a chat with friendly like-minded people .. hope to see you there.
  
  
  About Peppermint OS
  
  Peppermint OS is a software company, originally based in Asheville, North Carolina. Founded in 2010, we are committed to building the best operating system for both enterprise and consumers available on the widest range of devices. To find out more about us, please visit https://peppermintos.com.