Peppermint OS Review in Linux Journal

Michael Reed of Linux Journal has written a review of Peppermint OS Two. His conclusion:

In summary, Peppermint Two is a respin of Lubuntu 11.04 with the addition of cloud application integration features. The default application set is biased towards software which is lightweight and fast.

When setting up the distribution up for personal use, its success probably depends on the preferred working style of the user. A user who makes a lot of use of web-based applications might appreciate being able to give them greater parity with traditional applications. An administrator might appreciate the ability to offer users a lightweight desktop with the addition of cloud applications in a consistent and easy to explain overall package.

The full review goes into some detail about the system for setting up web applications on Peppermint's desktop. Personally, I'm still not sure if the ability to open a Chromium window dedicated to Gmail is better than just opening the browser and going to Gmail, especially if you have a webmail notifier extension.

Peppermint OS: Cloud Oriented Desktop Distro | Linux Journal

Bodhi Linux Review on Techworld

Rohan Pierce of TechWorld Australia has posted a review of Bodhi Linux. He's not impressed:

In the end we were somewhat underwhelmed by the end user experience
though. Bodhi can be very pretty to look at, and you can make it even
prettier if you take the time, but these days I find myself longing for
super-minimalist desktops with a focus on staying out of the way (of
course, Bodhi can be made to be this as well, if you are interested in
learning the ins and outs of Enlightenment). The simplicity of the
default installation is great — I don't like being overloaded with apps.
But there was just not enough there to hold my interest — I'd rather
install CrunchBang and customise Openbox.

It seems to me that Pierce didn't pay much attention to the instructions when installing Bodhi. When you are prompted to select your starting profile, one of the choices is a minimalistic setup even leaner than Crunchbang's default Openbox configuration. You can start with nothing but one gadget -- either a clock or system monitor; I can't remember which -- and build your desktop from scratch, with or without a single panel.

To be fair, Pierce does complain about a few egregious bugs and some problems with Bodhi's default laptop layout on a netbook. Most of these problems are probably hardware related, but a reviewer is limited by the hardware they have available for testing. But the main reason he lists for preferring Crunchbang (though it is an excellent distro) over Bodhi seem strange.

Bodhi Linux review - ubuntu, open source, Linux - Open Source - Techworld