Aside from all the age verification things happening around the world, we thought it was time for another, update about what is going on in PeppermintOS world..
PepDevuan
So, let’s start with PepDevuan. It’s coming along great, as you can see here in the screenshot. It has the exact same look and feel as PepDebian, but with the Devuan difference the freedom to choose your own init system.
The lengthy wait for this release is due to our shift away from using the Debian livebuild tools. In-fact PepDebian is that last release built using those tools. We have went down the road to build our own set of spin tools that better fits our workflow. This also will make more sense as we get in to the PepVoid updates. It really came down to flexibility; the livebuild tools was a little restrictive for what we’re trying to achieve, so we decided to take the turn and build our own. There are few more things we need to wrap up on PepDevuan, and it will be out. It will be a bit more leaner than what we have done in the past, and more so than PepDebian. We will explain all that as we get closer to a release ready build.
PepVoid
It started when the Peppermint team began exploring void-mklive and realized that, to match our internal processes, we needed to build something ourselves. That development eventually crossed over into the Debian side of the house, beginning the start of our path toward fully custom build tools.
What we are doing is, building a more accessible PepVoid experience using Python and Tkinter tools. Our goal is to let these tools mature in the Void environment before migrating them over to the Debian side, for a consistent, standardized experience across both platforms.
Here are a few screens to get a feel for what to expect
The first one here is a custom installer for PepVoid – Inspired by Calamares of course
Then we have Welcome screen
Next we have pfetch in GIU form
Then we have Kumo the SSB Manager,
We also have backup & system tools
An update manager
A software center that also includes flatpaks
Those are just a few of the updated tools that are available in PepVoid, Overall the look and feel for PepVoid does generally match what we have with the Debian family flagships, with some added Tkinter GUIs to the mix.
PepVoid is currently in active development, and we’d love to get the community involved! If you’re interested in helping us shape the project, feel free to jump in, take it for a test drive, and share your feedback.
You can explore here:
https://peppermintos.org/PepVoid/
As always you can connect with us on any of our collaboration platforms.
Thank you all so much for your support! Without the community none of this would be possible,
– PeppermintOS Team
Very happy to see using VOID as a base for Peppermint. Devuan is ok, but Debian has a lot of issues.
VOID is better as it is not reliant on any parent distro but they have not made their position clear on age verification. I would hope they do not.
I hope the Pepvoid installer supports encryption and that it works.
Keep up the great work.
I used the old Pep a few years ago. As the world navigated 2024 through 2026, it became increasingly clear to me that unfettered access to information, online assistance, and free speech were under severe pressure. In order to help folks navigate these challenges I am seeking a Linux OS that can support the environment outlined here: https://treemagic.org/Resilience/Resilience/Resilient-Environment-%28Case-Study%29/
Like you, everything I do & provide is free. If this is something that you feel your environment might support, I’d be more than happy to test it out and provide feedback.
Peppermint can always use help. But in your case it is almost like you really need to build your own ISO
If you think about it….. building is all about fsroot, kernel and the packages you install.
For what you are asking you should take the approach of having your ISO pipeline for your exact needs.
Here is a resource…
One of our donation partners, has a really good wiki to get you started
If you wish to stay in the debian/devuan family I suggest you start with mmedebstrap
fsroot setup here:
https://matomo.mintarc.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Mmdebstrap
And ISO processing here:
https://matomo.mintarc.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Iso_building
Work in some scripting and a schedule you will never need to go to any linux distro again but your own.
Fine you finally update something here, fine it progresses. Not quite fine that you’re over two months over your timeplan for PeppermintOS Devuan (“in January”), meanwhile this website just showed crashes. Sure it’s free, still some people wait for it, let’s say me. And seems like you prefer starting on new VOID instead of pushing known product of Devuan first. It’s just what I see or understand reading here (not anywhere) – from Waiting-for-Devuan-perspective not ideal for me, at least in communication. Dunno, perhaps just try Devuan directly after being into it now after two years of use. Thanks for now for PeppermintOS, I really liked the switch away from Win10 (never again), Linux Mint shocked me by being like Windows, too. So please go on, just think of communication. (:
Thanks for the feedback. I understand the wait for the Devuan build has been longer than anticipated. Transitioning from Windows is a big move, and I’m glad Peppermint has been the right fit for you so far.
To clarify the timeline, the work on Void isn’t replacing Devuan. Developing and testing these builds especially ensuring the custom tools work across different bases simply takes time. We prioritize stability over hitting a specific date. We’ll do our best to provide more concrete updates on the Devuan progress here on the blog as we get closer to the release. Thanks for your patience
Thanks for understanding such, prefering stability is definitely to be honored. Looking forward to next news. Good luck! :]
I for one, greatly appreciate the work being done on ensuring PeppermintOS’ own tools to be as “base/upstream-agnostic” as possiblr. To me that alone is not only essential but also a ground breaking achievement. Keep up the good work team!
Yes YES! PepVoid incoming LET’S GOOO!!! ✊
awesome :3
big fan!
your peppermint devuan daedalus 64-bit –> worked on 2005-2006 Intel Pentium Dual Core PC’s with only 1 GiB of RAM –> swappiness of 10, lxqt desktop, firefox-esr (2 tabs simultaneously), libre-office, 1 text editor (free and open source with sublime-like configuration syntax) (1-2 browser tab(s) and text editor simultaneous), even executed eclipse jakarta ee ide (with JVM RAM limits to 256-512 MiB total)!
Pure insanity! No lags! Linux Kernel 6.1! 2005-2006 CPU with x86_64 and 1 GiB RAM!
Hats off!
PS: Looking forward to systemd-free, logind/elogind-free Peppermint Devuan and Peppermint Void!
Peppermint Void?! You kept that quiet, what a combo. Just adds the little bit of polish void needed for a more comfortable experience.
Like the installer, the looks, the updater, the base set of bundled apps.
Great effort.
Peppermint Void sounds great, i will take it for a spin till the new Peppermint Devuan is ready.
I’ve run Peppermint before, but it was years ago. I’ve been hopping for two or three weeks looking to enliven a 2014 Celeron Acer that I love writing with, and up to now I’ve been down the window manager and Bodhi Moksha road. Great functional results and Bodhi is downright beautiful, but the desktops don’t play nice with one or two specific bits of taskbar applets I use. I was reminded of Peppermint tonight by an article on low-resource computers I found, and now I see that you appear to be on the cusp of releasing a Devuan Excalibur version. Since I read that Peppermint can be updated to the new version when the time comes without reinstalling, I’m going to pull the trigger faster than Clint Eastwood right now.
Having just installed Devuan (at great annoyance) “chroot fix grub” et-al? It is 2026 right!? :-( I’ll have to pass. I moved away from Void because the constant MB heavy updates. I look forward to the next Devuan release though and an installer that works ;-)
trying…
I sure hope that Kumo would have a way to manage already built/existing/prevailing SSBs just like ICE did. The Kumo that I tried from the last Peppermint (on Debian/systemd) release did not feature a way for us to manage existing SSBs.
Also, I tried leaving systemd once but the internet, at least at this time, still comprehensively supports systemd’s way of doing/fixing/resolving things so I don’t know if I should wait for Devuan’s maturity or I should get engaged more. What’s important is for me to stay being productive and I am unsure if that will still be the case if I try PepDevuan. Would you have/share any insights on the changes that might be expected? There may be hardware drivers and software services that need to be started/restarted/configured/tinkered-with and much of the internet only speaks about systemd’s way of doing things, again, as of this time.
I was willing to install your Devuan version on an old 2013 laptop with 4Gb or ram, as it has been delayed i’ve installed your void version from 2026/03/30 and the result is just incredible: everything is just working fine out of the box (except PepFetch), linux kernel 7.0, printing, updates and flatpacks, etc. I really hope you’ll keep that version around as I will probably keep Peppermint/VoidLinux as it suits my needs (and my 11yo and 14yo kids that use the computer).
Bravo and merci for your work.
That is really great to hear… Nice that VOID is workingw for you,
Yes devuan is getting near to testing. The calamares installer has been completed.
The goal is May for a testing period
Hi
Having installed Peppermint on dozens of laptops, here is my opinion
1- downloaded and burned to USB , pep-devuan
2 – on bootup it Totally my external monitor.
Granted , the Black is beautiful , but any other iso of the 152 I installed shows me
that My screen is detected by that iso,
3 The following is tried by me and 2 other experienced linux users
When bringing up : The settings are such, that no matter what you push, nothing , nothing will mirror , then, after about 15 minutes, all of a sudden all will react as expected
Why is it that in other ISOs , I click Display, Click Mirror, check “sometimes” refresh rate, then click Apply, then all is OK
As far as I remember (” but not guaranteed “) this issue was also there months ago
( unfortunatly , I had another crash (again) and lost info about lots of things
Sorry to say, I stopped testing here as I was P….O..
Maybe in a few days
Please note, that in the past peppermint has been my daily for a long time
Greeings
Tony
Corrrection –> —it totally BLACKED out—-
First off, gratitude and respect to the team for all the hard work and helping to cultivate a world of freedom for all. Second, any chance that the Peppermint team might offer the community a version of Void that Void themselves declined to? Some of us out here would be eternally grateful for a Pep-Void that offers S6/66 and/or dinit as an optional init system. A good portion of the work has been done on this front already, and while I believe it has a place in one of Voids repos, it will likely never be an install option according to the Void team and thus requires a great deal of extra work for the average user. https://codeberg.org/mobinmob/66-voidlinux, https://github.com/summrum/void_dinit, https://github.com/void-linux/void-packages/discussions/53639.
When will the version of devuan excalibur come out?
We just completed the installer, configurations…. the last little bit is the grub theme…. should see a Test period in May
Sounds great. Looking forward to it. For those upgrading from PepDevuan 5 ( via steps at Devuan.org ? ), will the new theming, which looks great by the way, be part of the upgrade or will it have to be added separately later ? Thanks so much.
Yes you can upgrade that way…. and Yes the theming would need to be added separately
Okie thanks.
. Excalibur has been released now for testing purposes. It says that they are no longer using ‘sources.list’ but using etc/apt/sources.list.d insrtead for list management.
The instructions on devuan.org are for changing the sources.list file so for those trying an upgrade, they would copy the commands at devuan.org straight into etc/apt/sources.list.d instead ?. Would we just change the wording from bookwork to trixie and from daedalus to excalibur on the peppermint file and add the devuan commands as another file alongside the 3 already there ?
Thanks for any update and all your hard work.