Review: Linux Mint 9 GNOME

Recently, Linux Mint 6 "Felicia" became obsolete. Like any standard Ubuntu release, Linux Mint is supported for 1.5 years after initial release. My installation of Linux Mint 7 "Gloria" will face the same fate in about 5 months. Given that I will leave home for college before that, I wanted to upgrade to a newer version. Due to all of the hubbub over Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala"'s instability upon release, I skipped Linux Mint 8 "Helena" (though the reviews said it fixed all of Ubuntu 9.10's flaws and did more). As the newest version of Linux Mint (version 9 LTS "Isadora") is a long-term support (3 years after initial release) version based off of Ubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx", I decided to install that. Also, Ubuntu 10.04 had been getting extremely positive reviews, so I figured that Linux Mint 9 would do even better in the Linux Mint tradition [of surpassing corresponding Ubuntu releases in quality and polish]. Follow the jump to read the rest of my review.

Review: CrunchBang ("#!") Linux 9.04.01

A friend of mine (you know who you are) mentioned that his computer has been slowing down. I've recommended trying out Linux; after hearing the specs (less than 256 MB RAM), I searched for a suitable light distribution and settled on CrunchBang (hereafter called "#!") version 9.04.01.
The version may give a hint as to its origins: #! is Ubuntu under the hood but has an elegant Openbox (as opposed to GNOME) front-end (and compatibility with all the GTK+-based applications). #! thus also has access to Ubuntu's excellent repositories, and anything applicable to Ubuntu is applicable to #! (unless the issue pertains to the desktop environment/window manager).

(UPDATE: Follow the jump to see the full review and pictures.)