Peppermint Linux Brings The Cloud To Your Desktop

Peppermint is a new Linux distribution that is tailored for the cloud. It’s not the first of it’s kind, but has a slightly different take on the genre. It will be made available as a private beta to a select group this week with plans to add more users next month.

Unlike desktop-focused Linux distributions, running applications on Peppermint won’t require “installing countless numbers of software packages and reading wikis all Saturday afternoon,” reads the product homepage. Instead, users will run web apps in their own windows via Mozilla’s Prism technology. (via RWW)

Peppermint is based on Lubuntu, a project based on the Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment with aims to create a “lighter, less resource-hungry and more energy-efficient flavour of Ubuntu.” The name “Peppermint” is derived from the fact that it uses some of Linux Mint’s configuration files. The primary developers are Kendall Weaver, the maintainer of LXDE, Fluxbox, and Linux Mint, and Shane Remington.

While it’s competitors like Jolicloud and Google Chrome OS focus more on the cloud side of things, Peppermint seems to have more desktop leanings. LXDE is designed for cloud computing on lightweight devices like netbooks. Mozilla’s Prism is a central piece of the puzzle, providing a lightweight browser environment for running your web apps in the cloud. Prism lets you run these web applications just as your other desktop applications, a feature later borrowed by Google’s Chrome browser.

Peppermint, along with similar products in the tech world, are helping to blur the line between computers and the Internet. An application is no longer something you have to go into a store and buy or even own a physical copy of. The days of downloading and installing things seem to be numbered. At the same time, because you can do so many things inside the browser and connected to the cloud, computers don’t have to be all that powerful.

This means that the Internet is becoming more and more accessible and important in being able to function in our daily lives. It will be interesting to see just how far this will go. If the hardware continues to get cheaper and the software continues to be free, the only obstacles for getting the Internet to everyone will be the ISP’s themselves.

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Rahsheen has been a certified geek since before it was the thing to do. He started programming and tinkering in the 4th grade. Now, Rahsheen mostly writes on various sites about technology trends in social media and mobile. . He is also a musician, singer, rapper, writer, and producer. @rahsheen - +Rahsheen Porter - coachrah.com
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