This is one of the nicest Ubuntu-based distributions out there

Apr 29, 2014 12:32 GMT  ·  By

The Pinguy development team has just announced that Pinguy OS 14.04 Mini is now available for download, featuring most of the options and packages that will also be present in the upcoming full release.

As the name implies, Pinguy OS 14.04 Mini is based on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr), but it's a completely different system from what you would expect. The Pinguy distros have always been different and interesting, and the current release didn't disappoint, even if it's called Mini.

Some of the users will actually prefer the Mini version of Pinguy OS because it won't be all that dissimilar from the Full release. In fact, the two of them are pretty much alike, but the difference is made by the packages that have been preinstalled in the latter.

“It comes with all the tweaks the full version will have (full version will be based on the Mini’s) and has all the extra added system tools like Samba and boot repair, but for apps it just has Firefox with all the plug-ins so things like Netflix, Flash, QuickTime, Divx, Java, Hangouts etc. will work out-of-the-box and VLC for media files.”

“It’s just a nice clean solid base to add your own apps to. It does include all the repos from the full version so has a huge selection of apps available from the software center (Spotify, Dropobox, Skype, Steam etc.).”

Unlike other Ubuntu-based distributions that limit themselves to the adoption of the stock version of some other desktop environment, Pinguy OS comes with some pretty nice features. Even if it's based on GNOME Shell by default, the developers have implemented quite a few changes, like the Gno-Menu, Media Player Indicator, Top Icons, and a few other extensions.

To make it even cooler, Pinguy OS 14.04 Mini also features Docky, the minimalistic dock that has been getting a lot of fans lately. The desktop is also adorned with a handy Conky setup featuring the weather and some data from the computer, like memory and CPU usage.

A very interesting feature is the default Peerflix and the Firefox scripts that have been added. These should allow users to just click a torrent link in order to view the movie in VLC, without having to download the actual file with a dedicated torrent client.

A complete list of changes and improvements can be found in the official announcement. You can download Pinguy OS 14.04 Mini right now from Softpedia.