When comparing Peppermint Linux OS vs MX Linux, the Slant community recommends MX Linux for most people. In the question“What are the best Linux distributions for desktops?” MX Linux is ranked 13th while Peppermint Linux OS is ranked 31st.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Looks great
The XFCE Whisker menus and dark theme are well designed.
Easy to move the panel to the top and add plank on the bottom.
Pro Friendly and helpful forum
Pro Fast and light on resources
RAM consumption is the same as LxLE, but more efficient and because of Whisker Menu and other tweaks that let us feel more like we have a XFCE desktop environment, as keyboard shortcuts, for instance, it looks like we got here the fastest and lightest, globally speaking. Very good on performance. Download Respin 7 (March 2017), install Libreoffice and then compare, for example, opening Libreoffice Writer inside Peppermint 7, Extix 17.04, Lubuntu 16.10, Xubuntu 16.04, Backbox 4.7, Linux Mint 18.1 Xfce an Mate or Linux Lite 3.4 (and others). Finally, you'll find out that after opening a few apps in Peppermint it remains smooth and light. Nemo file explorer on Peppermint is incredibly faster than on Mint Cinnamon; lx terminal is very fast when opening; updating is fast. And after all this, distro keeps working and working very solidly and consistently along the time. And yet the look and feel of the environment is pleasant.
Pro Comes with a variety of helpful tools
Works great with Teamviewer, Synaptic, XNview, KODI, and Pdf-Xchange editor (via playonlinux). Netflix works awesome with Chrome browser. The ICE SSB tool is great for creating web apps that run as if you installed them locally.
The Software Boutique (packaged with The MATE Welcome software Center) recognizes all software and installs it with one click.
Pro It works well "Out Of The Box"
There are enough useful back end packages installed by default to make the system useable for normal use right after the installation of the base distro.
Pro Peppermint 7 is stable
Peppermint 7OS (32 and 64 bit) has been updated to the Respin PPA . Kernel updated to 4.9.24 on 23-April -2017 with no issues and all software still runs great.
Pro Peppermint 10 is Stable
Pro Peppermint9 is stable
Peppermint 9OS (32 and 64 bit) has been updated to the Respin PPA.
Pro Easy to use
Pro Supports non-free drivers
Pro MX Snapshot: lets you make your own distro
Can create your own ISO (snapshot) and use it either as live-session and install back when needed.
With the (pre-installed) Snapshot tool you can easily create an ISO of your running system and then save it to a USB (or other media) and use "your own" distro as a live session or install back whenever you like (even on a different PC with different specs with no issues). You can even give that customized ISO to friends (selecting "non-personal" ISO when creating the snapshot; thus resetting the accounts & passwords and Home folder etc.).
Also you can save that ISO directly encrypted via MX Live USB Maker tool. Again, you can install MX encrypted during installation with just ticking a box, no matter if it's the official ISO or your snapshot.
Pro Good MX Tools and Package Installer
MX Linux comes with its own set of tools called MX Tools, designed to make life easier for users.
Pro Easy install
Pro Based on Debian
It is based on Debian and not based on Ubuntu.
Pro Lightweight
Pro Very stable
Pro No systemd
Pro Can also be used as an emergency tool
It has almost all tools to repair non booting systems or recover files & folders and save them on a safe place. And when thought together with it starts quick on live-session. In addition, you can do these with "your own", customized distro (snapshot).
Pro Live-Session boots fastest after Puppy
After Puppy Linux (which's aimed to run from RAM and which is smaller in size) the second fastest (head & shoulders) booting one (together with the sister project antiX) and also has the option "toram" to run from RAM. Yes, not only when compared to full distros, even far faster than small sized or tiny distros, especially when booted to "live-session", about 2 - 2.5 times faster on an old single core laptop.
Cons
Con Since it is based on Lubuntu, the double click speed needs to be slowed down
It's false that Peppermint 7 is tout court based on Lubuntu. Take a look at this: "Peppermint Seven makes use of the Xfwm4 window manager and Xfce bottom panel in the LXDE desktop environment. This is unlike other Linux distributions that use LXDE as the default desktop environment where it is common to use the Openbox window manager and lxpanel." And more: "Peppermint Seven is built on the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS code base and makes use of its package repositories." Contrarily to other Linux distributions, Peppermint creators never said Peppermint 7 is based on Lubuntu, like LXLE. Using LXDE and being based on Ubuntu is very different from being simply based on Lubuntu. In fact, Lubuntu is not faster than Peppermint and has loads of lacks for a nowadays OS experience.
Con Only one Desktop Environment
Con Its XFCE version is too laggy
XFCE is meant to be lightweight, and it's almost true for other XFCE distros but not for MX Linux.
Con Old software
Many software applications are older.
Con Remixed Debian testing
It's mainly a Debian stable with some recompiled/backported Debian testing packages.
Con Includes non-free drivers
Con More than 50 tweaking softwares pre-installed
Con Longer boot time
Con 10s of media players preinstalled
Con Too much preinstalled applications
Con Causes overheating on some hardwares
Other debian based XFCE distros- Xubuntu, Debian XFCE, Devuan leave small footprint on system whereas MXLinux uses too much CPU resources on same system.
Con Installer and configuration tools are different
Installer and configuration tools are different and can take some time getting used to.