Comments on: S07E21 – The One with the Rumour http://podcast.ubuntu-uk.org/2014/08/21/s07e21-the-one-with-the-rumour/ Ubuntu Linux Podcast from the Ubuntu UK LoCo team Tue, 17 Mar 2015 18:40:35 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.4.2 By: Andy Mitchell http://podcast.ubuntu-uk.org/2014/08/21/s07e21-the-one-with-the-rumour/comment-page-1/#comment-21221 Wed, 27 Aug 2014 08:54:58 +0000 http://podcast.ubuntu-uk.org/?p=4900#comment-21221 Greetings from the fair city of Amsterdam, how’s it going guys? This week’s offering really made my ears prick up. You were talking about the new HP Stream. That’s a great idea to eradicate Window and install Linux. I recommend putting Peppermint Five on it. Honestly, this disto is crying out to be put on the HP Stream – here’s why.

Peppermint Five is based on the fantastic, Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and uses a highly customized version of LXDE. So it is light and extremly nimble. It uses Chromium by default as its web browser, (I dumped that for real Chrome). Here’s where it gets special. Peppermint Five is built to be a Cloud oriented distro out of the box. However, unlike a Chromebook, Peppermint functions similtanusly as a regular Linux desktop computer. This is achieved with the use of Peppermint’s own application, “Ice”. This in-house app is able to turn any URL into an SSB, (SiteSpecificBrowser). These are in essence, stand alone apps that you choose where to appear in the menu system. You are able to launch these, “pseudo-apps” like an ordinary package. They just run in The Cloud – very cool indeed.

In keeping with the Cloud philosophy, Peppermint Five has a minimal amount of packages pre-installed. Instead there are a few pre-made SSBs for GoogleDrive, Pixlr Editor, Pixlr O-Matic, the Online User Guide and the Peppermint Forum. With the “Ice” application, you can very quickly make more for – YouTube, GMail, News Papers even Angry Birds and Facebook – whatever you want !! If you want or need locally installed packages, you’ll find everything that’s in the Ubuntu repositories are available. They are installed the usual way with APT in the terminal, through Synaptic, GDebi or, from the Software Center. So there is nothing difficult there. The most popular and highly rated applications can be found in the “Featured” category. The Peppermint specific metapackages can be found in the “Featured” category as well. Everything is built for speed and convenience and this is done exceptionally well. The SSBs work seamlessly with the locally installed programmes. After you have made a few SSBs and used them. You will very quickly find them indispensable. As a bonus, the Peppermint Forums are excellent. They are a wealth of information and are extremely nOOb friendly and very helpful. This is the Linux desktop’s answer to the Chromebook. You guys aught to check it for yourselves. You’ll see what I mean if you test it. It is a very close relative.

Have a great week guys – love the show, keep ’em coming. I’m now going to pick up my laptop and wander down to a quiet café by a canal. I’m ready for a lazy summer’s afternoon of doing a whole lot of nothing!! All the best from an avid Pepperminter.

Regards

Andy

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