Peppermint, open source project started a few years ago, aims at offering a lightweight; web focused operating system that emphasizes speed and ease of use built using the common Ubuntu code base.
Peppermint was put together using a lot of the sensibilities of more user friendly distributions such as Linux Mint while retaining the low resource use typical of lighter distributions. Peppermint is currently on its fourth major version, with a fifth due out between May and June this year.
Peppermint are much faster and responsive than windows run machine and people prefer more. According to Shane Microsoft has the potential to work well in Africa, however relative inflexibility regarding licensing limits in areas with no or unstable currencies or areas with severely limited economic resources are an issue.
With Microsoft dropping support for Windows XP, a lot of the hardware that’s available in Africa is now only suited for running lightweight Linux distributions as they won’t handle the newer versions of Windows.
Marc Stephan Nkouly, the manager of a successful Cameroon cyber café says using Open source technologies to help build a worldwide community of contributors to and users of tools that are providing new educational opportunities, resources, and jobs.
“I will do my best to create a center where we can train young people in Linux and web development, because those are the kinds of skills and jobs that can make these youth have decent employment locally and can also contribute to improve local business,” he said.
Shane Remington: “Since our very first offering, Peppermint One, we’ve been averaging about 8 million downloads each version and we estimate that we have a community comprised of over 3 million users in 140 countries and territories worldwide.”
Given the open licensing and free use, lightweight Linux distributions are a natural fit for any circumstance involving limited economic means or restricted hardware availability.
Peppermint has a great potential of making it big, according to Remington, it is very light, stable, and a great starting point for those who want to get started with Linux and not feel freaked out.
“The other major way is affordability as Peppermint will always have a free, community supported version, to explore with, learn and build upon,” he said.
According to Weaver, Peppermint’s strongest point is simply being a fast and sleek desktop operating system that stays out of your way. It also makes it easier for users to create a modern looking desktop experience than many other lightweight Linux distributions, as our default configuration includes things like compositing.
Peppermint is located in Hendersonville, North Carolina and run by Shane Remington and Kendall Weaver along with other supporting people in financing, community supporters and marketers.
