Peppermint is a distro based on Linux Mint and Lubuntu. But unlike other distros that use offline desktop apps, Peppermint focuses on cloud services for applications. Peppermint three is based on Lubuntu 12.04, an LTS release which will be supported with security updates for a period of five years.

This version features a fast, lightweight LXDE desktop with light theme and artwork. GWoffice, an Ubuntu project to bring Google Drive to Linux desktop, is the default office suite. Chromium is the default browser, and the distro uses Gmail for managing emails. The distro also ships with Mint update manager and GIMP 2.8 is available in its repos.

Some other updates in this release are:

• Peppermint Three uses the power management tool from the Xfce desktop environment. Due to this being the only Xfce utility installed, the “Help” functions within the application and the applet are not functional.

• Ubiquity installed is completely unmodified in Peppermint Three. This is to maintain forward compatibility with future updates as they’re released from Canonical for Ubuntu.

• All optical disks now open in the file manager. This is for a couple of reasons, notably the extreme drop in optical disk use in recent history as well as the proliferation of online and cloud based music/movie services. Disks can still be opened and played from within their respective applications.

• Yahoo and Bing are no longer offered as default search options within Chromium. Google is still offered simply for functional purposes, however the Peppermint custom search is still the default.

You can download the installation images from this page.