Linux Mint 8 Helena RC1 released!

[iclozm]

I'd just like to add that Helena installed flawless on two systems:

my main pc

Intel 3.4g
3gb DDR2
Abit IC7 Max3
Radeon X1800xl
PCI Wireless Card
external DVD burner

and my laptop

Gatway 5740 with upgraded 2gb system mem

Wireless, Burner, Printer installed in a breeze, simply linux made easy.

I really enjoy Linux Mint... wait... I lied... I love it!

Chris

[kitanis]

The default background is terrible.

Take the green part out of the bottom right corner and it would look nice.

you can always change it to that same thing you want by going to the Appearance option in the Preferences section.. Its there

[richyrich]

I sure like the new Disk Utility !

[jlr1701]

I'm looking forward to the 64-bit Mint 8, but after a very bad experience with Ubuntu 9.10, I'm nervous about it. Karmic has a MAJOR, show-stopping bug involving the Nvidia video drivers. After getting left at a flickering login prompt with no X a few times and not finding a workable solution to the problem, I dumped Karmic and came back to Mint 7. I'm very concerned about upgrading to Mint 8 and then finding myself with the same problem I had with Ubuntu.

Anything to worry about with Mint, or not?

Thanks,

Jeff

P.S. I have an Nvidia GeForce 260 card. Just FYI, Ubuntu 8.04 hates it too. I tried it, and the LiveCD just dropped me at a busybox prompt with an error message involving initramfs, I think.

[Brian49]

I ran Mint 8 from a live CD.

The heralded improvement in bootup time did not materialise - it was roughly the same as with Mint 7 (about 90 seconds).

As soon as I reached the desktop, a disk-check program popped up telling me that my hard drive has many bad sectors and should be replaced. Afterwards I ran a full battery of tests (from the Dell utilities CD) and the drive passed them all with no errors. So at the very least this disk-check should not be set as a startup application in Mint 8 - it could cause needless alarm to potential new Mint users.

Other aspects of Mint 8 seemed fine, but not significantly better than their counterparts in Mint 7.

At the moment I can see no good reason to upgrade to Mint 8; Mint 7 works flawlessly, apart from being slow to reach the desktop.

[wobf58]

Mint 8 looks great, also the default background. The software installer is very good. Everything works right out of the box. Just wondering when the KDE version will surface

[jerry629231]

when i downloaded the iso and did the cheksum, it said that the iso was legit, but when i burn it to a cd at 4X, it wont boot

what am i doing wrong?

[vassilianna]

I downloaded the iso, checked the signature (via md5) but the dvd did not burn properly. Brasero copied the files(and i used low speed),but in the end a warning appeared saying that the files are somewhat corrupted...i can't understand - i'm sure it's the right iso file. Does it have to do with Brasero?

[geekman]

I downloaded the iso, checked the signature (via md5) but the dvd did not burn properly. Brasero copied the files(and i used low speed),but in the end a warning appeared saying that the files are somewhat corrupted...i can't understand - i'm sure it's the right iso file. Does it have to do with Brasero?

I had the same issue using brasero yesterday when I tried. I installed k3b and it worked fine and the install went fine

I have had similar issues with brasero in the past and have used k3b exclusively till I decided to give it a shot yesterday

[geekman]

Hi - just wanted to say that this is another excellent piece of work at least for me on my machine.

The install was effortless, the ati proprietary driver installed and works fine.

The default wallpaper and theme are very pleasant and actually would work well in a corporate environments I would think.

To borrow an old phrase from the SuSE crew. "have a lot of fun"

[No_Asylum]

Ran the LiveCD for 2 days straight. Didnt wanna log back into my regular system, because the LiveCD is actually faster. Couldnt tell for sure if Mint 8 has fixed the Wireless issues that Karmic has, but it looks promising. Guess I'll have to wait a few weeks before I can install the 64bit version

Overall an impressive release... tho I do have to agree with (everyone) else .. the Little Green Triangle on the wallpaper has got to go.

[Aging Technogeek]

I've been playing around with Helena since she first appeared on HEAnet Wednesday and ,so far, can't find any major gripes. I installed her on three different systems - A desktop, a laptop, and a netbook - and everything works as expected (with one small exception to be discussed later).

The desktop: Intel Core 2 Quad T6600, 2.4 Ghz clock, 6 Gb DDR2 PC2-5300 ram, WD 640 GB 7200 rpm hard drive, Intel 82G33/G31 Integrated Express Graphics Controller, Zydas ZD011 USB wireless network adapter.

Installed to live desktop in less than 2 minutes. Everything worked. Installed to hard drive in 10 minutes. Everything works. Full Compiz custom effects, wifi connects before boot completes, boots in about 20-25 seconds. So far I have found no faults.

The laptop: HP dv9500T 17 inch. Intel Core 2 Duo T7700, 2.4 Ghz clock, 2Gb DDR2 PC2-5300 ram, 2 X 120Gb 7299 rpm hard drives, nvidia G86(GForce 8400M GS) Graphics controller, Intel PROwireless 4965AGN internal wifi card.

Installed to sdb with 4 Mint 7 versions on sda (Main ED., 64 bit, XFCE, and KDE). On first boot and all after, Grub took 20-30 seconds to load the boot menu and 3-5 seconds to respond to any boot choice. Further investigation (good thing I enjoy doing Mint installs) revealed that the problem lies in installing Mint 8 to sdb and booting from sda. Even with no other OS installed, this setup causes Grub 2 to be very sluggish. Everything else - wifi, compiz, suspend, hibernate, etc. - all work out of the box.

The netbook: Acer Aspire One D150 10 inch. Intel Atom N270 hyperthreading CPU, 1.6 Ghz clock, 2 Gb DDR2 PC2-5300 ram. 160 Gb 7200 rpm HD, Intel Mobile 945GME Express Integrated Graphics Controller, Atheros AR5001 internal wireless.

Everything worked first try. Even on this slower system, Helena boots in less than 45 seconds with all other response times in proportion.

Can't think of any commrnt other than "WOW ! " Many thanks to Clem and the team for another outstanding performance.

It was a little bit more complicated to get my AT&T air card to work in Helena than it was in Gloria, but itwas finally sorted out. Also, for the first time since I started using Mint (Felicia) bluetooth works for me without having to install Blueman or some other third party bluetooth manager.

Hopefully, the Grub developers will cure the slight problem outlined above and Helena will be perfect.

<EDIT> I disagree with many of the other posts in this thread. I like the new default background (well, as much as I ever like default, branded backgrounds).

[vassilianna]

also installed mint 8 in a desktop with windows xp,but suddenly it shuts down and doesn't start...what to do? please help

[historyb]

I'm looking forward to the 64-bit Mint 8, but after a very bad experience with Ubuntu 9.10, I'm nervous about it. Karmic has a MAJOR, show-stopping bug involving the Nvidia video drivers. After getting left at a flickering login prompt with no X a few times and not finding a workable solution to the problem, I dumped Karmic and came back to Mint 7. I'm very concerned about upgrading to Mint 8 and then finding myself with the same problem I had with Ubuntu.

Anything to worry about with Mint, or not?

Thanks,

Jeff

P.S. I have an Nvidia GeForce 260 card. Just FYI, Ubuntu 8.04 hates it too. I tried it, and the LiveCD just dropped me at a busybox prompt with an error message involving initramfs, I think.

Same thing happened to me, I have ATI. What was found after I posted my problem on the Ubuntu forums is that it is an ACPI problem not a video card issue

[Husse]

I think I should add that there are major changes in Helena under the hood, things you don't see but that improves Mint
A bit too technical to describe here, but among other things a better way to make Mint remain Mint even after (the wrong) updates

[mmesantos1]

I found the fix for the audio problem, getting the poping sound when audio activated after sound not used for a bit. I hope this helps someone else with this issue.


Karmic has a powersaving feature that can cause audible pops when your soundcard sleeps and wakes up, if you have an Intel HDA based audio device. The easiest way to test is to play some sound and then close all sound-making applications. Wait, and in 10 to 20 seconds, and your sound card should pop.

If that happens, you can test further by 1) checking that you have an HDA, and 2) disabling that feature:

Note to people searching the forum: Karmic only. Jaunty and earlier do not have this feature. So, if you're hearing clicks in Jaunty, you have a different problem from what I'm talking about here.

Open up a terminal. Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal. Paste (Ctrl+Shift+P is paste in Terminal) this command in and press enter.

Code:

Code: Select all
cat /proc/asound/cards

It should mention "HDA Intel" For example, mine says:
Code:

Code: Select all
0 [Intel ]: HDA-Intel - HDA Intel
HDA Intel at 0xb0000000 irq 22

If you have an HDA Intel, this one will let you change the configuration:
Code:

Code: Select all
gksu gedit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf

Enter your password.

Find the line that starts with
Code:

Code: Select all
options snd-hda-intel power_save

and type a # at the beginning of that line to disable it. Save the file, log out, log back in. Now, try playing a sound, closing all sound-making applications and see if the pop has gone away.

**just a note that after modifying /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf you can force the sound modules to reload without having to reboot by using the following command:

Code:

Code: Select all
sudo alsa force-reload

[zeki]

Hi,

i have installed Mint 8 Helena RC1 but when i install games there are not available in Linux the Linux Mint Menu. This is bug 1 and when i insert in the task another menue then i see ubuntu icons.

Where are the drivers for Digittrade and Yakumo Dvbt Stick????

There was in Linux Mint 7!!!!

The uplslash (bootsplash) have bugs! It dont show right!!!

SORRY FOR MY ENGLISH

Thanks Zeki

[wob]

Hello everybody,

I just downloaded RC1 and testing. It seems that it is pretty fast even on LIVE CD. I am still on Felicia, and I am looking forward for Helena final release.
All the best guys,

[StanTheMan]

I have a number of test root partitions on a multi-boot system. I still have installed Mint Gloria KDE and a number of other OS s. Now have a fresh install of Helena which works well, except for the new type grub-pc bootloader. I also have the grub-pc bootloader installed on Debian Squeeze and Ubuntu 9.10 .
The old grub- bootloaer on Gloria would boot everything except the OS s with the new grub-pc systems.
The new grub-pc will boot everything except PCLinux)S 2009 and Mandriva 2010. Maybe because they are RPM systems.
I have PCLinuxOS on sda7 and Mandriva on sda8. Here is an except of my new grub.cfg file showing where this bootloader is completely confused trying to recognize sda7 and sda8 .

menuentry "linux (on /dev/sda7)" {
insmod ext2
set root=(hd0,7)
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 635302ae-9ac2-4b65-938b-4d1dac6238e7
linux /boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=linux root=UUID=635302ae-9ac2-4b65-938b-4d1dac6238e7 splash=silent vga=788
initrd (hd0,6)/boot/initrd.img
}
menuentry "linux-nonfb (on /dev/sda7)" {
insmod ext2
set root=(hd0,7)
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 635302ae-9ac2-4b65-938b-4d1dac6238e7
linux /boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=linux-nonfb root=UUID=635302ae-9ac2-4b65-938b-4d1dac6238e7
initrd (hd0,6)/boot/initrd.img
}
menuentry "failsafe (on /dev/sda7)" {
insmod ext2
set root=(hd0,7)
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 635302ae-9ac2-4b65-938b-4d1dac6238e7
linux /boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=failsafe root=UUID=635302ae-9ac2-4b65-938b-4d1dac6238e7 failsafe
initrd (hd0,6)/boot/initrd.img
}
menuentry "linux (on /dev/sda8)" {
insmod ext2
set root=(hd0,8)
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 5082dea3-3348-4050-b9e5-dca284b09d63
linux /boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=linux root=UUID=5082dea3-3348-4050-b9e5-dca284b09d63 acpi=on splash=silent vga=788
initrd (hd0,7)/boot/initrd.img
}

This same problem occurred with Debian Squeeze and Ubuntu 9.10 .

[mee]

Very, very good. Seems to work fine for me installed on a Del XPS M1710, no issues at all. Compared to Mint 7 the wireless is faster to aquire, better frame rate and certainly more stability with games such as Quake Wars. Cedega runs well and installs and runs Steam and steam games faultlessly. Wine is working bug free and still offers great support from MS Office and the Macromedia Suite. Video editing with Lives and Kino is outstanding and support from web cams seems to have improved.
Aesthetically grub could do with a bit of work, but I can live with the look. I have not come across any bugs as yet and I am using the OS on a daily basis at work.
Mint 7 was already very good and one of the best Linux distros, Mint 8 just makes Windows look even more pointless.