Ubuntu Derivatives News: Trisquel, elementary OS, Ubuntu Studio, Linux Mint, Peppermint, Bodhi, and Lubuntu
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-04-08 08:36:18 UTC
- Modified: 2014-04-08 08:36:18 UTC
Trisquel
The developers take pride in the fact that Trisquel is a completely free operating system and it will remain free forever. The Linux distribution also doesn't integrate any applications that are not completely free.
elementary OS
Ubuntu Studio
Mint
The biggest challenge for Windows XP users switching to Linux Mint is having to change the programs you've known and used for years. Fortunately, some programs are available on both Linux and Windows. In addition, there are Linux programs that duplicate the functionality of your favorite Windows programs.
Some Windows XP users might be considering Linux MInt as a replacement operating system. But just replacing the operating system isn't enough, you'll also need Linux applications that will replace the ones you used in Windows. ZDNet has a roundup of Linux Mint applications that might fill the void when making your move from Windows XP to Linux Mint.
It's been a while since I've done a review. In fact, it's been a while since I've posted in any form, because this semester has turned out to be a lot busier than I anticipated. It likely will remain so until it ends; the only reason why I can post a review right now is because of spring break, and even that has been busy for me. Anyway, I initially wanted to do a review of Frugalware because it looked intriguing, but I couldn't get the live USB to work. I'm reviewing this (which I had planned for later) instead. If you've passed by this blog, you've probably already seen my thoughts on Linux Mint, so I'll skip the introduction. I tried this updated ISO file as a live USB made with MultiSystem. Follow the jump to see what it's like. There isn't too much that has changed since last year, so I will simply link the review from then, point out any changes, and put out any other thoughts that occur to me about this.
Linux Mint is a Linux distribution based on Ubuntu, but that wasn't always the case. Now, the creator of Linux Mint has just announced Linux Mint 17 “Qiana,” which will be released almost a couple of months after Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr) is made available.
The MintBox 2 is a small form factor, fanless PC designed to run quietly at low power.
The machine features a die-cast, solid metal case which acts as a passive heatsink and cools down components without needing any fans. While the case design adds to the weight it reduces noise, with the only sound coming from the internal 500GB SATA hard drive.
Clement Lefebvre, the creator of the Linux Mint distribution, has just announced that the next version of the Mint operating system will be called “Qiana” and it should be available by the end of May 2014.
Linux Mint is one of the most popular Linux distributions out there and it's only superseded by Ubuntu. Actually, Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu and makes use of its repositories, but that may not happen for very long anymore.
Peppermint
This time however I have been lucky enough to get not just one member of the team but two. I recently sent an email to the Peppermint Linux team with a series of questions and what follows are the answers provided by Shane Remington (COO of Peppermint) and Kendall Weaver (CTO of Peppermint).
When I’m introducing someone to Linux, I don’t believe the “all or nothing” approach works, so if you are new to Linux and would like to see the benefits it can offer you, download and burn onto disk the latest version of Peppermint and follow these steps.
As you may or may not know, I have recently acquired a HP Chromebook and my first article about the Chromebook looked at whether it was possible to run another operating system alongside ChromeOS.
Today I am taking a look at Peppermint 4. Peppermint 4 is designed as a hybrid operating system aimed at cloud computing and also average ordinary everyday home use.
I last reviewed Peppermint Linux in August 2012 (Peppermint 3) and my overall impression then was positive. In this review I will review Peppermint Linux from scratch and I will also look at what has changed since version 3 to show how Peppermint has moved on.
Open source makes a lot of sense in rural areas and in third world countries. Lightweight and open source systems that are easy to use, and which allow normal users to become power users and contribute back to the open source community, can be ideal for countries like Cameroon, located in middle Africa.
As the program has grown over the past years, the cost of licensing for the video editing software has grown as well, beyond the operating budget of the organization. Faced with this challenge, PAGE turned to open source technology. Elizabeth McIntosh, a member of the Steering Committee for PAGE, led the charge. "I'd heard about the open source movement through my friendship with Brendan Szulik at Duke, and thought it might be able to help us." PAGE participants historically used Final Cut Pro to document and edit their digital stories, but this year will use open source alternatives Kdenlive and Blender. Both offer a good user experience, without the heavy scale-up costs associated with non open-source solutions. The ability to rapidly learn the technology and to use it as the program continues to grow are the largest benefits.
Bodhi
One of the things I am working on for our Bodhi 3.0.0 release this summer is a simple GUI system update tool written in Elementary and the Enlightenment Foundation Libraries. Today I would like to share an early version of this tool I am calling eepDater (pronounced epp-date-er), which is written in python utilizing the EFLs.
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As promised I've put together our first Bodhi Linux disc that is built on top of the upcoming Ubuntu 14.04 release. Keep in mind this is a very early image not intended for production machines. There will be issues.
Lubuntu
Lubuntu is based on LXDE, a very light desktop environment that probably has even lower hardware requirements than Windows XP. It's a favorite for older systems and it's the lightest distro in the Ubuntu family.
Cleide Isabel! She managed to grab the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th place with her photos: 'Vista Do Fitz Roy', 'Vale', 'Arvore', 'Daisie' and 'Copan02'.
Lubuntu 14.04 LTS Beta 2 (Trusty Tahr) has been officially released and it has joined its brethren from the Ubuntu family, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, and Ubuntu GNOME.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Improving the Static Site Generator
- Our system has fixes triaged
- In Techrights, Gemini and HTTP/HTML Are Very Different
- Those were never equivalents or mirrors, those are two things that are inherently different and are maintained by different teams
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- Avoiding Discrimination Against People With Disabilities
- work underway to improve the system which runs the sites
- Links 28/07/2026: XBox DRM Doomed Everyone (Cannot Play Anything), Slop (Ponzi Scheme) Being Pinkwashed Now
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 28/07/2026: Ethics, GIMP Script-Fu, SMTP Versus Gemini, and Proposal for Better TOFU
- Links for the day
- To a Sociopath, Ethical People Are Bad People. Don't Fall for It.
- If you put sociopaths on a pedestal, the pedestal will break
- Diversity in Debian
- bringing up the topic is the real problem, diversity itself is a taboo subject
- GNU/Linux in Brazil. The B in BRIC(S).
- the "market share" is assessed to be around 5%
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 27, 2026
- IRC logs for Monday, July 27, 2026
- Hate Consumes the Haters
- If you hate someone (or something) and you're willing to do anything for "hate rituals", then at the end the emotion will outweigh reason and it'll backfire, surely
- GNU/Linux Rises Some More Internationally, statCounter Now Estimates Its Usage on Desktops/Laptops at 7.7%
- significant growth for GNU/Linux in Japan, China, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and Cambodia
- IBMers on PIPs and the Age (or Cost) Factor
- People in their 50s seem to be targeted as they are considered "expensive"
- Sad State of Troll-Feeding British Media (Establishment Channels Promoting Total Idiots)
- Breeding ignorance means people will assume they have a choice between two pieces of trash: "Nige" or a literal trash can
- Links 27/07/2026: Sleepless Japan PM Takaichi Becomes Unpopular and Data Centre Magnate Confiscate Land Without Consent
- Links for the day
- A Few Hours Ago The Register MS Published an 'Article' With "AI" 32 Times in It, Including First Word in Headline and Summary. It Was Paid SPAM "Sponsored by Hammerspace".
- The lost media is engaging in self-harm
- Microsoft is Down
- This relates in a timely fashion to what we published yesterday
- Gemini Links 27/07/2026: Gemified Internet RFCs, “Junk DNA” Is Commented-Out Code, and More
- Links for the day
- The Techrights Gemini Capsule Was Never a Mirror
- Techrights has long taken accessibility quite seriously
- Americans Are Not Our Masters
- If you are subjected to online abuse, don't give up
- Daniel Pocock Campaigns Around "Safety of Children Online" and "Cybersecurity"
- There seems to be a growing 'coalition' in the UK based around important issues which impact the entire planet
- XBox the Console is Practically Finished (Unofficially), Even the Streaming ("Live") or DRM Service is Dead
- XBox has never been closer to profitability
- Many CEOs Are Just Glorified Scammers With Suits and Ties
- Economies cannot function when few people abuse them for self-enrichment
- After statCounter Figures Out Many "Unknowns" Were in Fact GNU/Linux the "Market Share" Estimate in China More Than Doubles
- Japan is the same for similar reasons
- peppe8o - a Site About Raspberry Pi, Arduino and Electronics - Has Turned Into a Slopfarm
- We won't be linking to it anymore
- Feeding 'the Children'
- Maybe some time soon we'll do a fund-raiser to help feed the birds
- Japan: GNU/Linux Crosses the 5% Threshold, Two Years Ago It Was Only 1%
- Now it's at over 5%
- We Need More Transparency
- Our heads of state are very much aware of and concerned about SLAPPs and censorship
- "The War on Children" Explained by The Cyber Show
- Consumer protection and the war on children
- EPO Cocainegate and Current EPO/EU Series to Carry on for Months to Come
- Another week has begun
- When IBM "Managers Have to Mark 15% of Their Teams as Low Performers" a PIP Means Likely Layoffs (Disguised as a Performance Issue)
- "IBM is a Law firm with an I/T department."
- Links 27/07/2026: Chatbots Lead to Suicides, Social Control Media Intentionally Designed for Addiction
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 26, 2026
- IRC logs for Sunday, July 26, 2026
- Daniel Pocock in Mainstream Media Again
- AFR wrote an article today. It is about Pocock and another contender.
- Millions of Daily Requests
- 4.5+ million requests in 4 days
- In statCounter, a Lot of "Unknown" Turns Out to be GNU/Linux
- GNU/Linux has more than doubled
- 3,500 Active Gemini Capsules Soon
- How much longer before 3,500+ active? A month?
- Gemini Links 26/07/2026: European Eclipse, Writing About Writing, and Comments on Formatting Gopher Posts
- Links for the day
- Stigma of Being Laid Off by Microsoft
- One might call this the "curse" of having worked for Microsoft
- Silent Layoffs (PIPs) Have Allegedly Accelerated Since IBM's Stock Cratered
- "IBM is Managing Decline, Not Building Growth"
- Non-Techs Using Slop Run Fedora and It's Turning Out to be a Total Disaster
- RIP, Fedora?
- Gemini Links 26/07/2026: Beach Day, CAs, and Plaintext
- Links for the day
- Sweden Needs GNU/Linux and Free Software, Not GAFAM
- home of IKEA and ABBA
- Being Pro-Slop is Death Knell to One's Credibility
- It's not hard to see Ubuntu users resisting and antagonising this
- Maintenance Today
- Preparing for more mass-publication activities
- Links 26/07/2026: "Zelenskyy Says Russia Wants To Bring North Korean Troops Into Ukraine", Muslim Van Ramming Attack on Berlin Pride
- Links for the day
- Centrica fraud exposed: worse than Palestine Action 'terrorists' with cardboard placards
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Links 26/07/2026: "Nate Silver Discovers the Educated Poor" and "India’s “Cockroach” Protest Movement Faces State Repression"
- Links for the day
- The Slop Bubble is Killing the Planet, Not Just the Economy
- The chatbot/LLM speculation bubble not only causes a health crisis, a mental health epidemic, and climate change; it's also crashing the economy on several levels
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 25, 2026
- IRC logs for Saturday, July 25, 2026