An Update on my Respins

I want to take this time to update you all on the progress of my respins and my future plans for them.
Both wikis (Oxidized Trinity and Fresh OS) are up and running. I've included stuff like download and installation procedures and desktop overviews; I'll include more stuff like pictures and system requirements as soon as I have a good bit of free time.
Oxidized Trinity seems to be the more popular one (download statistics-wise), though admittedly, it has been available longer than Fresh OS. Within Fresh OS, as I've split Fresh OS into regular (Linux Mint "Debian" base) and Light (wattOS R2 base) versions, surprisingly, Fresh OS Light is more popular than Fresh OS by over a factor of 4 (then again, neither one has been downloaded especially much). That leads nicely into the future plans for each.
As Oxidized Trinity is based on Kubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx", there's not really a whole lot more for me to do. The next version of Oxidized Trinity will either be based on Kubuntu 12.04 LTS (whatever it's called) or Debian 6 "Squeeze" or Linux Mint "Debian" with the KDE 3.5.12 Trinity packages. Other than that, I won't actively be working on it; for now, it's pretty much a static distribution.
Fresh OS, on the other hand, is more dynamic by nature of being a rolling-release distribution. That's combined with the fact that Debian 6 "Squeeze" (though, in an update to my first preview of Debian 6 "Squeeze" GNOME, I want to let you all know that the Debian developers have promised to release this version of Debian before Christmas) hasn't been released yet, so there are still quite a few updates coming in. I'm a little surprised that Fresh OS Light is the more popular one, considering that the semi-official LXDE Ubuntu variant Lubuntu already does what Fresh OS Light does, and better at that; given this and the fact that Fresh OS with GNOME is almost as light on RAM as Fresh OS Light, I will not be developing another version of Fresh OS Light.
Instead, I will try to release 3 versions of Fresh OS akin to how there are 2 slightly different versions of Peppermint OS (which I recently reviewed). The basic desktop will remain essentially the same, with a panel on top with the MintMenu, a clock, a global menu bar applet, and a couple other applets. All of them will use Nautilus Elementary and the Elementary theme. All of them will probably use the applet that combines the window title and buttons with the panel to save space. The differences will be in some default applications and icon sets, as well as window navigation. The first will be a "standard" version, with a panel with window switchers on the bottom. It will also use Mozilla Firefox as the default browser and Pidgin as the default IM client. Finally, it will use Linux Mint's new icons (green modifications of the Elementary icons), which have recently been released along with a release candidate of Linux Mint 10 "Julia" GNOME (which I also hope to test soon, as I am a fan of Linux Mint). (The reason why they can go into Fresh OS is because some of the new packages for the new Linux Mint release will also go into the (unstable) repository for Linux Mint "Debian".) The second will be an "Elementary" version and will essentially be a port of a standard Elementary OS desktop; it will use the Elementary icons, Midori as the default web browser, Empathy as the default IM Client, AbiWord and Gnumeric instead of OpenOffice.org (though the latter will still be included), and a dock (Docky) at the bottom for switching windows. The third will be a "Light" version and will use Chromium as the default web browser, Pidgin as the IM client, AbiWord and Gnumeric instead of OpenOffice.org (which again will be included, but not the default), the new Mint icons, and a tint2 panel at the bottom for switching windows.
How does all this sound? I'm excited! Anyway, stay tuned for an upcoming preview of Linux Mint 10 "Julia" GNOME!

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Comparison Test: Peppermint OS One 08042010 vs. Ice 10012010

One: Main Screen

(NOTE: I know a lot of commenters have asked for clickable thumbnails. Unfortunately, this appears to be an issue with Blogger, because when I initially upload pictures, they are clickable thumbnails, but a few minutes later, they magically lose their functionality. I'm not sure why that is, and the only workaround is to make the images the original size, which is huge (800 by 600 pixels each) and would drown out all the text, which isn't good. Unless you're OK with seeing smaller images (and they will have to be made this small), this is how it is for now. Sorry. I'm not too happy about this either, so I hope this situation will change soon.)
By popular demand, I am testing Peppermint OS (both versions). This is not going to be a completely in-depth comparison as in the comparison of KDE distributions, because the two versions of Peppermint OS differ only in the details; the way they work is essentially the same. I tested both in VirtualBox and allocated 256 MB of RAM to each version.
So what is Peppermint OS? It's not actually based on Linux Mint, as the name might suggest (more on that later); it's an LXDE distribution based on Lubuntu, with an emphasis on cloud applications. What does this mean? This means that Peppermint OS replaces many traditional desktop applications with web-based counterparts; it uses Mozilla Prism (One) or Ice (Ice) to essentially make the webpage like any other desktop application, without needing to open a fully-fledged instance of a web browser. This makes it possible to put things like Facebook and Picasa in the LXDE main menu (more on that later). Follow the jump to see how all this works out.

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