My Peppermint OS Upgrade to Version 8

I had been using Peppermint OS version 7 for the past little more than a year and I just decided this last week to upgrade my setup to version 8.

Peppermint 7 cannot be "upgraded" to version 8 but we require a new install. This made me curious to try a few other alternatives as well.

I downloaded 4 distros:

• Manjaro XFCE 17.1.9 64bit
• MX Linux 17.1 17-Apr-2018 64bit
• Linux Mint 18.3 XFCE 64bit
• Peppermint OS 8 Respin-2 64bit.

I "burned" these distros in 4 different DVDs. As you can see in my choices above, I had selected the distros that have nearly identical user interface. My HP Notebook has low end hardware that has a low end Pentium processor with no other graphics card. But, the notebook uses proprietary Broadcom Wireless drivers.

Before I jot down my experiences with these distros, let me first state what I like about Peppermint 7: Firstly I like the low requirements and snappy performance. The screenshot scripts based on the Scrot application. These scripts can be replicated in the other distros manually. I do not like the XFCE 4 Screenshot utility - it just gets in the way and does not help in getting a quick screenshot. I also like the familiarity of the debian based package installation. The tiny things, like single click to select, double click to open; the dark theme, and more.

I thought of seeing and comparing these 4 live distros.

First I tried Manjaro. The interface is very good. The system is quick. The software installation was not too hard for someone like me who has been accustomed to the apt commands. But, the problem was that there was no way that I could figure out how to install the proprietary Broadcom Wireless drivers. Maybe this requires a more in-depth search and digging into the forums. So a no go on Manjaro at this time.

Then, I tried Linux Mint. I was a Linux Mint user for quite a few years previously. So, this new 18.3 version was very familiar. But what did not work was proper dark theme integration. I thought that the dark theme was one of the appeals of the Linux Mint 18 series. But, the XFCE version does not get proper dark theme integration. May be after XFCE is fully ported to the new GTK version, we will see proper support for dark themes.

Next, I tried MX Linux. This one surprised me. A very easy application management interface helps in installing popular apps. Just select the app and click install. The conky script adds character to the desktop. The dark theme is perfect. I changed the screenshot thingy to the Peppermint script - just for the Print screen button and it worked as it should have. Wireless worked out of the box. So all was good. MX Linux also has updated LibreOffice. So I decided to install this distro.
But I just could not figure out the Partitioning tool given in the installer - GParted. This just seems archaic and is just not intuitive. I was not able to do anything in GParted. May be the MX Linux team should use an established installer to appeal more to common folks like me. So a no go.

Back around to Peppermint OS for me. The version 8 is more snappier, more 'darker' - in a good way. Every thing is where it was - the screenshot scripts - the dark theme with a nice upgrade - apt package management - proprietary drivers - everything. So, this is now what runs my HP Notebook.

Just a little help for those like me: You definitely need a separate home partition. This will help in keeping your files safe in cases of OS upgrades/re-installation. My hard drive now has these partitions:

• 250 MB EFI (The recommended size is 100-250 MB. I think 100 MB is more than enough if you have just one or at max two OS on your system)
• 8192 MB Swap Space (I have this at double of RAM size - Same as RAM size will also suffice)
• 26624 MB Root partition (You could make this a little less - I think 15-20 GB is enough)
• The rest of space is the Home partition.

Peppermint OS is a good option for low resource systems. Good proprietary driver support. Amazing dark theme. Gives a clean interface and it just works.