Peppermint Changelog

What's new in Peppermint 10 Respin

Dec 18, 2019

All 18.04 base updates to 10 December 2019, including the 5.0.0-37 kernel and HWE xorg stack, Firefox 71, etc.
Added a ‘Cursor Resizer’ GUI utility to the settings panel.
Added a ‘Web Browser Manager’ GUI utility to aid with the installation/removal of some of the more common web browsers.
Reverted to an earlier ‘xenial’ version of pulseadio-equalizer.
Added a Peppermint 6 (LXDE) style xfpanel-switch profile which swaps out the whiskermenu for an old-school hierarchical menu.
Added arc-color gtk themes (new multi-colored Gtk themes built from the well known and respected Arc theme), and switched to Arc-Red-Dark as the system default.
Updated the default icon theme with some new icons (including the new Firefox/Thunderbird icons).
Fixed a bug where scrolling wasn’t working when using some integrated thinkpad trackpoint devices.
Installed p7zip-full out of the box.
Fixed a bug in ICE that stopped mouse access to the very top part of the screen that caused the toolbar of some web-apps (such as the ‘Editor by Pixlr’ SSB) to be inaccessible.
Fixed unattended-upgrades to work properly in Peppermint. Please be aware unattended-upgrades is not installed by default but should now work as expected should you choose to install it.
Advert Blocker now includes more hosts file blocklist options.
Replaced the 2 current solitaire SSB’s with a single new one.
Added a DLNnetwork SSB.
Added a Pinball SSB.
Rearranged items in the Peppermint Settings Panel to include the new ‘Cursor Resizer’ and ‘Web Browser Manager’ utilities. We’ve also (by request) removed the ‘Dropbox’ item from the settings panel, dropbox-nemo is still installed by default (and accessible via the main menu) but should the user decide to uninstall it, it will now not stay in the settings panel.

New in Peppermint 10 (May 21, 2019)

Kernel 4.18.0-18 which is now on the rolling hwe-18.04 track so will eventually roll onto the 5.xx kernel automatically as the HWE is updated upstream.
Updated xorg stack, again via the rolling hwe-18.04 track.
Proprietary nvidia graphics drivers now installed automatically if “Install third party drivers/software” is selected as part of the installation routine, this includes automatic configuration of nvidia optimus setups up to the nvidia-390 drivers. If you intend to install the later 396/410/415/418/430 drivers from the ‘Proprietary GPU Drivers’ PPA it would probably be best not to select this option during install and add them manually post-install.
Ice (6.0.2) – Ice now has support for isolated profiles for Chromium, Chrome, and Vivaldi SSB’s (Firefox SSB’s are ALWAYS isolated).Firefox SSB’s now also have four bookmarks included by default making the addition of addons and other configuration changes on a per-SSB basis easier. There are also other ‘under the hood’ changes, such as ICE will now rebuild your SSB profiles should you accidentally delete their directories. Also a bug that was stopping Ctrl+Tab hidden tab navigation has been fixed, as has a bug that made it difficult to install addons in Firefox SSB’s because the “Allow” dialog flickered.
New GUI Font DPI Settings utility allowing adjustments to system font DPI (this also fixes a bug where the proprietary nvidia drivers sometimes displayed small fonts on the panel/menu in previous version).
Updated applications:
All 18.04 updates to 14th May 2019 have been rolled into the ISO, and we also have updated versions of:-
nemo (4.0.6) – which not only feels considerably faster at opening and rendering directory contents, but has finer grained control of desktop configuration options when you right-click the desktop and select ‘Customise’ .. ALL nemo plugins in the repository have been updated, though not all are installed by default).
mintinstall (7.9.7)
mintstick (1.39)
neofetch (6.0.1)
xed (2.0.2)
xplayer (2.0.2)
xviewer (2.0.2)
Other changes and additions:
xreader (replaces evince).
light-locker & light-locker-settings (replaces i3lock, but users that prefer i3lock can easily change it back .. just uninstall those 2 packages and the system will automatically fall back to i3lock).
network-manager-pptp-gnome (now installed by default).
network-manager-openvpn-gnome (now installed by default).
New ‘Peppermint-10’ xfce-panel-switch profile (for resetting the panel).
New Peppermint 10 Gtk themes (multiple color variations).
New default xfwm4 theme to match the new Gtk themes (the new Gtk themes also have their own individual xfwm4 themes, selectable in the Peppermint Control Center).
The firefox-theme-lock & thunderbird-theme-lock tweaks now use the new Peppermint-10-Red-Mixed Gtk theme .. these can still be disabled in the settings panel if you want Firefox and Thunderbird (should you install it) to use the system Gtk theme.
Two new Peppermint 10 wallpapers by Karl Schneider (default and alternative).
Four additional Ray Bilcliff wallpapers.
New plymouth startup/shutdown screen.
New login/lock screen background image (also by Karl Schneider).

New in Peppermint 9 (Jun 22, 2018)

We have replaced lxrandr with xfce4-display-setttings for monitor settings as we continue to look for better options that add functionality without adding weight, and to continue the migration away from the few remaining LXDE components.
By user request the Menulibre menu editor is now installed by default, and no longer breaks the menus as it did in previous Peppermint versions.
Continuing the theme of improved menu and launchere management, there is now a right-click “Create new launcher here” desktop context menu item.
The Nemo file manager now has a right-click “Send by email” context menu item. (requires an email client such as Thunderbird to be installed).
The Panel Reset function in the Peppermint Settings Panel no longer needs to log you out of your session to reset the panel
The Xfce Panel Switch utility is now installed by default, so you can now backup/restore any custom panel configurations and switch between them. It includes a Peppermint-9 default profile and a few others to play with.
The system Notification Settings (in the settings panel) now has a “Do Not Disturb” function, or notifications can be enabled/disabled on a per application basis.
Qt applications such as VLC now honor the system Gtk theme.
Gtk overlay scrollbars are now enabled by default, they’re growing on us ;)
Peppermint 9 now has both our normal Mintinstall software manager and Gnome Software for users that want Snaps/Flatpaks .. at its usual ‘Favorites’ position, You’ll find Gnome Software at:-
Menu > System > Software
HTOP is installed out of the box and has its own menu item.
The graphical screenshot utility has switched from pyshot to xfce4-screenshooter.
Symlinks are in place so any installed Snaps and Flatpaks will now show up in the main menu.
There is a new “find your mouse cursor” keyboard shortcut (Alt+C)
The Chromium web browser has been replaced Firefox again (who knows, one day we might make our minds up) ;)
New Gtk Themes, based on Arc but with a few tweaks and some additional color choices, including the red default.
New Artwork.
New Microsoft Office Online SSB’s .. Even though these are simply links to the free online ‘web app’ version of Office, we are fully aware some people won’t like anything containing the word ‘Microsoft’ on their system, so please be aware they are easily removed from within the ICE application with just a couple of mouse clicks.
New Skye Web Client SSB. This is mainly for 32bit users because Microsoft no longer create a 32bit native skype client for Linux. So if you’re running 32bit Peppermint and require Skype, this is the only way to access it.
ICE now has a few international translations (and will gain more over time via updates), it has also been fixed to remove the ‘half’ green lock symbol that displayed when on SSL sites.
The Kernel is now the 4.15 series (4.15.0-23 on the ISO)
The Nemo file manager is now verion 3.6.5
We’re now back at with the upstream Ubuntu version of Gdebi which has the uninstall option (the previous version did not).
And Peppermint 9 is now the 18.04 LTS code base, so has access to all the latest software.

New in Peppermint 8-20170527 (May 28, 2017)

Peppermint 8 (Peppermint-8-20170527) highlights:
Still based on the 16.04 code base, but now with the 4.8 kernel series and upgraded graphics stack via the HWE offering rolling kernel and graphics stack upgrades as they become available upstream.
Mesa 17.0.2 for an improved gaming experience.
The Peppermint 8 ISO images now have an ‘OEM Install’ option, allowing computers to be shipped with Peppermint pre-installed (and with additional software pre-installed) where the user will be prompted for their own language, location, keyboard layout, and account details on first boot, allowing the system configuration to be unique to the new owner.
Talking of keyboard layouts, in response to user requests Peppermint 8 now has much improved keyboard layout handling, including the ability to easily configure then swap between multiple layouts from the system tray (or Left-Alt+Left-Shift keyboard shortcut) .
Added volume management, so external drives are now auto-mounted when plugged in and DVD’s auto-played in VLC , a utility for changing these settings can be found in the much expanded Peppermint Settings Panel.
Again because of much appreciated user feedback we’ve switch back to the Chromium web browser as the default, the pepperflash PPAPI flashplayer is included, and we’ve retained the ‘Firefox Theme Lock’ utility for those that wish to use Firefox and a dark Gtk theme instead.
And many other refinements and improvements including:
The calculator is now mate-calc because it’s more consistent with the way the Windows/OS X/iOS/Android calculators processes sum entry.
The lxtask task manager has been replaced with xfce4-taskmanager because it displays more active information including a CPU and RAM usage trace.
The pluma text editor is replaced with xed, but for documentation compatibility – typing a command with ‘pluma’ or ‘gedit’ will open xed.
The eog image viewer has been replaced with xviewer because Gnome client side decorations were inconsistent with Peppermint’s overall ‘look and feel’.
All X-Apps are now in the Peppermint 8 repositories, so you can install pix, xreader, and xplayer if you wish, as are xfdashboard and xfce4-hotcorner-plugin for those that may want them.
Added NFS support out of the box.
Added exFAT support out of the box.
OpenDyslexic font installed out of the box as an option (not the default font).
Font hinting changed to “full” by default.
A much expanded Peppermint Settings Panel with additional features and a new ‘Tweaks‘ category.
Added a ‘Panel Reset’ utility to the Peppermint Settings Panel to reset the xfce4-panel to system defaults.
Added a utility to the Peppermint Settings Panel to enable/disable system sounds.
Added a utility to the Peppermint Settings Panel to enable/disable system hibernation.
Added the ‘Numix Folders’ utility to the Peppermint Settings Panel which allows changing the type and colour of the folder icons when using one of the Numix icon themes.
The whiskermenu application categories have been switched to the left, and application descriptions replaced with tooltips by popular request.
Extra color options for Gtk and Icon themes
New installation slideshow.
And some new wallpapers that we hope you’ll like including the new default, and some additional images by the brilliant photographer Ray Bilcliff

New in Peppermint 7-20161129 (Nov 29, 2016)

New in Peppermint 7 (Jun 24, 2016)

Along with the shift to the 16.04 (xenial) code base, Peppermint 7 continues our policy of choosing the best components from other desktop environments, wherever that may be, and integrating them into a cohesive whole with our own software.
This time around whilst staying with LXDE core session management for lightness and speed, we’ve listened to our users who demanded a more modern, functional, and customizable main menu and switched out lxpanel in favour of the xfce4-panel and whiskermenu. We’ve also added a new ‘Peppermint Settings Panel’ to further consolidate settings into one place.
Due to Google’s dropping of 32bit Chrome and move to PPAPI plugins (which effectively ends flash support in 32bit Chromium) we’ve now moved back to the Firefox web browser for the first time since Peppermint One. With the Mozilla Prism project long since depreciated, moving back to Firefox entailed a rebuild of Ice (our in house SSB framework application) to allow Firefox to open SSB’s in a similar fashion to Chromiums ‘–app’ mode, so Ice now fully supports the creation and removal of SSB’s for Firefox, Chromium, and Chrome .. we ship with Firefox by default but you can choose whichever of these browsers suits you best in the clear knowledge Ice will still do the business.
We have a new look, flatter than previous editions (though not too flat) with a dark gtk theme by default and colorful icon choices, we’ve put together a small collection of images by the brilliant photographer Ray Bilcliff with his kind permission.
Because Firefox is known to have some issues with dark gtk themes on a few websites (such as white text on a white background in the Youtube search box) we’ve locked Firefox to a light theme independent of the system default, so we’ve also created a simple to use ‘Firefox Themer’ application which you can find in the new Peppermint Settings Panel, which allows you to unlock/relock the Firefox theming .. so the choice is still yours.
We’ve switched text editors from gedit to pluma because of the odd way gedit now handles windows decoration which leaves it at odds with the rest of the system theming.
There are many other small refinements squeezed into Peppermint 7, indeed a definitive and exhaustive list would probably make this announcement totally unreadable and deny you the excitement of exploration and discovery, so why not take it for a spin and see what you can find .. after all that’s half the fun right (?).
As with previous releases we invite you to compare Peppermint to other operating systems, we are confident you will be impressed. To take Peppermint Seven out for a test drive, please visit our website at peppermintos.com where you can download it for free. If you need help installing Peppermint Seven, or have any questions about using it, we have a second-to-none user support team at forum.peppermintos.com please drop in even if only for a chat with friendly like-minded people .. hope to see you there.

New in Peppermint Six Respin (Sep 7, 2015)

New in Peppermint Six (May 31, 2015)

Peppermint makes use of the Xfwm4 window manager and the LXDE desktop environment. This is unlike other Linux distributions that use LXDE as the default desktop environment as it is common to use the Openbox window manager. As a result, there are more window manager features, however some things within the window manager settings may not function as they were originally intended to in Xfce desktop environment, where Xfwm4 was originally intended to run.
The "Keyboard and Mouse", "Keyboard Layout", and "Keyboard Shortcuts" applications from previous versions of Peppermint has been removed. Input device settings have been added into the Peppermint Control Center located within the "Preferences" menu.
Software ratings with the Software Manger, mintinstall, are based on feedback submitted by users to the website http://community.linuxmint.com. This website is part of the Linux Mint project and is not affiliated with Peppermint or Peppermint OS LLC, however we do encourage Peppermint users to submit feedback as we all benefit from this feedback.
There is an upstream bug with the default panel application, "lxpanel", that prevents the "Directory Menu" panel applet from functioning properly. This particular issue is unlikely to be fixed in the future as lxpanel development is presently halted in favor of LXQT development.
Peppermint Six is based on the Ubuntu 14.04.2 point release and makes use of its package repositories. As a result, any bugs that affect Ubuntu 14.04.2 may potentially affect Peppermint Six. Please report bugs for Ubuntu's packages to the necessary bug trackers and please report bugs for Peppermint specific packages to Peppermint's bug tracker.
Keyboard shortcut support in the Peppermint Control Center is not 100% complete and there are still several bugs that need to be worked through. Technically it works, but some strange behavior may occur if you attempt to use certain key combinations. Updates to the control center will be issued to address this. Manual editing of the configuration files may be necessary in some instances. The configuration files are located at ~/.config/peppermint-control-center/xbindkeys.conf and ~/.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/xfce4-keyboard-shortcuts.xml should you wish to edit them manually.
The Peppermint Control Center and the Ice application do not yet support languages other than US English. This will hopefully be addressed in the near future.
Electing to go straight to the installer when booting into the ISO file will result in some visual anomalies during the install process. This will appear in the form of overlapping windows. This issue has no functional effect on the installed system but can be rather annoying. As such, we recommend booting to a live session and running the installer.
The browsers Chromium and Chrome have recently moved to a new graphics engine called "Aura" that can cause some visual anomalies on the desktop when used in combination with certain hardware. Disabling hardware acceleration in the browsers settings usually mitigates or fixes the problem.
Certain peripherals manufactured by Logitech can cause an additional battery icon to appear on the panel when they're connected. This is due to the system reading their batteries. This has no negative affects on the function of the system.
Electing to encrypt your home folder during the installation process results in the system not presenting a mount key upon first boot. Running the command ecryptfs-unwrap-passphrase and entering your system password will result in the presentation of the key. If a fix for this surfaces, we'll issue a respin of the ISO with the fix as soon as possible.
The desktop pager on the panel has some visual glitches in that it doesn't refresh properly. This is an upstream issue with lxpanel and will not likely be fixed in the future. Clicking on the pager to change workspaces still works as normal.
The new dark theme 'Peppermix-Dark' may still contain a few minor graphic glitches, if you spot any we'd appreciate it if you'd report them on the forum so they can be fixed, and use of the Peppermix-Dark theme causes 2 x "Gtk-WARNING **: Theme parsing error" when sudo is used to elevate privileges in the terminal, these warnings are harmless and can be safely ignored.
Plugging in removable media does not cause the new Nemo file manager to prompt to mount the drive, you need to enter the file manager and click on the drive in the left hand column, it will then be mounted.
The new i3lock screenlock doesn't prompt for a password, this is a 'feature' not a glitch, but if you find yourself looking at screen with nothing but a digital clock in a circle you need to enter your password then hit enter to unlock the screen .. the screenlock is only ever activated manually or after the PC is resumed from sleep so you shouldn't arrive at it unexpectedly but we thought it best to mention it.
It has been reported that installing the TLP power manager from their PPA will cause a dependency problem with the utopic LTS enablement stack, our advice is to not use TLP (most of its functionality is now in the kernel), but if you choose to do so, please ask for advice on the forum. http://forum.peppermintos.com

Peppermint Changelog

What's new in Peppermint 10 Respin

New in Peppermint 10 (May 21, 2019)

New in Peppermint 9 (Jun 22, 2018)

New in Peppermint 8-20170527 (May 28, 2017)

New in Peppermint 7-20161129 (Nov 29, 2016)

New in Peppermint 7 (Jun 24, 2016)

New in Peppermint Six Respin (Sep 7, 2015)

New in Peppermint Six (May 31, 2015)

New in Peppermint Five (Jun 24, 2014)

New in Peppermint Four 20131113 (Nov 29, 2013)

New in Peppermint Three 20121105 (Nov 13, 2012)

New in Peppermint Three (Jul 24, 2012)

New in Peppermint One 01042011 (Jan 6, 2011)