Linux Hail Helena!

Having made the switch to Linux 1 year ago, first using Mandriva Linux and then switching to Linux Mint 7 (Gloria) after hearing some good reviews. I loved Mandriva but instantly fell in love with Mint.   I was never tempted to go distro hopping again. However having heard both good and bad things about Ubuntu Karmic Koala I bit the bullet and decided to update to the release candidate version of Linux Mint (Helena), which, if you don’t already know is based on Ubuntu’s Karmic Koala. I would have to say that I was immediately impressed with the balance of good looks and features at my disposal.

Installation

Running from the Live USB it correctly told me that my hard drive was failing, which is no surprise to me as have been having errors for the last few months.   The installation was simple to do and took a total of fifteen minutes, which is impressive for my 3 year old Laptop. On first boot, which took 64 seconds in total from switching it on to the loading of the desktop, in comparison to the evaluation version of Windows Seven which took 75 seconds. I was greeted with an elegant boot splash and the much improved log in screen. Connecting to a wireless network was a breeze as occasionally I had connecting issues when coming out of hibernation in Gloria. Fonts seem much sharper. All round graphics, memory and processing power and is more edgy and noticeably faster.

Conclusion

This may only be a release candidate but overall I am extremely impressed. Stability, speed and user-friendly it definitely is. I have only had a few minor problems.   Mint install crashed when selecting multiple items to install and crackling is coming from the speakers occasionally. I would expect these small problems to be ironed out in the final release. All in all this is a great version and I am proud to be a user of Linux Mint. Hail Helena!

Update

I have solved the problem with he crackling by watching this video. The alternative way of doing it would be to enter the following in a terminal.

Find the following line:
options snd-hda-intel power_save=10 power_save_controller=N
Change it to:
#options snd-hda-intel power_save=10 power_save_controller=N