The desktop and the cloud are getting hitched. You see it in everything from Windows 8 with Office 2013 to Ubuntu with WebApps to Mac OS with iCloud. And, of course, there’s Chrome OS, which is just the Chrome Web browser running on a thin-layer of Linux. Then, there’s Peppermint OS Three, a real Linux marriage of cloud and desktop.

Unlike Ubuntu (http://www.ubuntu.com), which adds some cloud functionality to a Linux desktop, call it 90% desktop and 10% cloud, or Chrome OS, which is 90% cloud/Web browser and 10% desktop, Peppermint is the closest desktop I’ve seen to a 50/50 blend of desktop and cloud.

Peppermint Three, the just released new version, is based on Lubuntu 12.04. Lubuntu, in turn, is an Ubuntu-based Linux desktop that uses the lightweight LXDE desktop environment. Unlike the more popular GNOME and KDE desktops. LXDE is designed to be very fast and to use as little in the way of system resources as possible. As the name indicates, Peppermint also uses some features from the Linux Mint.

Peppermint OS Three: The real-deal desktop cloud Linux. More >