When I wrote about the Linux Mint Debian Edition Release Candidate last week, I promised to look at it in more detail when the final release was made.

Someone then suggested that I compare LMDE to the new Tanglu distribution (thanks for that), and that sounded like a good idea to me. But I'm not one to do things in a small scale, and to be honest I have been really interested in and pleased by the SolydXK distributions since I wrote about them last December and again in January.

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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.

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• bittixlinux9 20140210

• CAELinux 2013

• Slackel 6.0 Openbox

• Kubuntu 14.04 LTS Beta 1 (Trusty Tahr) Is Out – Screenshot Tour

  Kubuntu 14.04 LTS Beta 1 (Trusty Tahr) has been released by its developers, and comes with a long list of improvements, much more than what has been made available with the previous Alpha versions.

• GoboLinux 015 Beta

• Salix 14.1 Xfce

• Lubuntu 14.04 Beta 1

• Linux Mint 201403 Debian

• Wifislax 4.8

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.

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Every two years a Long Term Support (LTS) release of Ubuntu is made available to the public. Every LTS is supported for 5 years by Canonical. This year is the year of LTS release and its just 1 month away. Canonical will be keen to keep up the stability of LTS release like it has done in the past. Lets have a quick look at what can we expect from this year’s LTS release.

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The distribution is published by Linpus Technologies, Inc., a Linux/Android software solutions outfit based in Taiwan. This is about the only Linux provider that does not have a defined release schedule. Whether that’s a good or bad practice is not something I’m going to address here.

This article is all about my experience installing and testing the Linpus Lite 2.1 desktop on real hardware and in a virtual environment. A problem I’ve always identified with every release of Linpus Lite is that the installed and available applications in its repository tend to be at least three or more revisions behind the latest editions. And from my experience with this latest release, nothing has changed in that regard.

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Not long ago we learned that Ubuntu will be ditching Unity’s global menu and returning to in-app menus instead. I’m hoping we’ll see that later this month when the next beta release arrives, since the main, Unity-based Ubuntu version will be participating in that one. Stay tuned for more updates when that happens.

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I have to admit that I thought I was going to have a frustrating time with Simplicity because whilst trying 13.10 I came up with a number of issues and it just didn't work for me.

This however is 14.1 and it works very very well and in fact I haven't come across any issues of note except for the fact that the OnLive application hangs. (Probably due to my poor internet connection).

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• Ubuntu GNOME 14.04 Beta 1

• Emmabuntus 12.04.4-1.07 Screenshot Tour

• Manjaro 0.8.9 KDE

• Kubuntu 14.04 Beta 1 Screenshot Tour

• Xubuntu 14.04 Beta 1 Screenshot Tour

Manjaro 0.8.9 review is a review of the latest KDE and Xfce editions of Manjaro, a desktop distribution based on Arch Linux.

Manjaro is one of just a handful of desktop distributions that are trying to make all the goodness of Arch Linux available to new and seasoned users alike. It’s matching along with Antergos and Chakra Linux in this regard, though it seems to be further along than Chakra Linux and running neck-and-neck with Antergos.

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• AV Linux 6.0.3 Screenshot Tour

• Parsix 6.0 Test 2 Screenshot Tour

• Network Security Toolkit 20-5663 Screenshot Tour

• SystemRescueCd 4.0.1

The short version of all this is Chakra has some nice features and it does some interesting things. I love how amazingly fast the project's build of KDE is on my hardware and I like that the project does some things a bit differently. I like that the team has put together an increasingly comprehensive collection of documentation. I especially appreciate that GTK-based software is no longer shipped in stand-alone bundles, but rather in an add-on repository, allowing the user to add software using a single package manager, rather than switching between different software managers. In short, I feel Chakra has made positive progress over the past year. The distribution still has rough edges, plenty of small, unpleasant surprises for the unwary user, but overall it is improving. The project is well worth a look if you are a fan of either Arch Linux or the KDE desktop.

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My first look at a BlankOn edition was BlankOn 8, which was back in August 2012 (see BlankOn 8 preview). So it’s been almost a year and a half between BlankOn 8 and 9. That’s plenty of time to make major improvements and fix whatever needs fixing on a desktop operating system.

The distribution uses the GNOME 3 desktop environment with a custom desktop shell called Manokwari. It looked good the first time I took it for a spin (on BlankOn 8), but I wasn’t too impressed with some aspects of it. But that was 18 months ago, maybe things are better on BlankOn 9.0, which is code-named Suroboyo.

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• BlankOn 9.0

• Zenwalk 7.4

• MakuluLinux 5.0 Xfce

Jack Wallen digs into Linux Deepin and comes out impressed. See what this fringe Linux distribution has to offer, and discover if its your next platform.

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Okubax’s desktop is actually pretty simple — it’s less about the wallpaper and more about the other customisation tricks.

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Distro Astro 2.0 is an excellent Linux OS to learn about the basics of a simple desktop environment as well as explore the marvels of the universe. It is also an excellent all-in-one Linux platform for astronomy enthusiasts and professional astronomers alike with some of the best celestial-studying software included. Distro Astro is an impressive and solidly performing Linux distro.

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A few years ago (September 2010 to be exact), when things got really crazy with the Mandriva distribution, some of the core developers and users announced that they were establishing a fork to continue the development and distribution with the new name Mageia. That has proven to be a very good decision, because they have just made their fourth major release.

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After a few weeks toying around with Fedora 20, I thought it was time to share my findings. Because Gnome 13.10 brought a long list of changes, I opted to download the Gnome Desktop version of Fedora 20. This release brings a vast list of features and updates and here you can see them for yourself.

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mylinuxexplore.blogspot: The prime issue that I faced while migrating to Fedora from Ubuntu was the complexity involved in installation of proprietary codecs and flash plugins. Hanthana Linux is a step in that direction to provide new users a ready to use Fedora OS with all plugins and codecs along with a whole lot of applications. The concept is not novel though - Korora (formerly Kororaa) has both KDE and GNOME 3 spins on a similar concept.