CrunchBang Linux

I have received a number of messages over the last few weeks regarding CrunchBang Linux and the Asus Eee PC. I do not own an Eee myself, so it has been nice to hear from people who do and who have tried the distribution on their systems. The feedback which I have received has been extremely positive and users seem to be pleased to report that CrunchBang Linux runs really quite well on their nifty little netbooks.

It should be said that the distro was not designed with netbooks in mind. Indeed, the first Asus Eee PCs had only just been released when the first release of CrunchBang was being put together. Having said that, it is not hard to imagine that the distro might actually perform well on the netbook platform. I mean, Openbox is somewhat lighter than some of the full desktop environments like GNOME and KDE.

Anyhow, not long after opening the new forums, snowpine, our resident #! Eee PC Master, created a new thread for anyone wanting to discuss running CrunchBang Linux on their triple Es. If this interests you, it may be worth a look. Also worth a look is a really good write-up of one user’s experiences of running CrunchBang Linux on his Asus Eee PC 901, it can be found on the EeeUser.com forums.

If you have already tried CrunchBang Linux on your Eee, why not let others know what you think of it, what you like about it and what could be improved. Leave a comment below, or register and post on the forums.

The final build of CrunchBang Linux 8.10.01 is now available. This is the third release of the distribution and as the version number suggests, it is based on Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex. As with previous releases, 8.10.01 has been built from scratch using the Ubuntu MinimalCD.

As well as being based on the latest version Ubuntu, this release sees a number of changes, including, but not limited to:

• A new darker theme, see screenshots.
• Tablaunch has been removed, finally.
• dmenu installed, by popular demand. Bound to Alt+F3
• Some additional default shortcut keys added, including main menu and dmenu.
• OpenOffice.org replaced by Abiword and Gnumeric.
• pypanal replaced by lxpanel.
• AcidRip removed.
• Twitux replaced by Gwibber.
• Mirage replaced by GPicView.
• VLC removed in favour of Totem — VLC is now a Qt4 app :(

See the wiki for the full release notes and download information.

A huge thank you is owed to everyone on the mailing list, forums and blog who went to the effort of testing this release and providing feedback. Your feedback, help and support is really appreciated!

Users who downloaded the testing image maybe interested in reading the changes made between the testing and final release.

Oh, and one last thing, CrunchBang Linux does not really use release names, although on the mailing list the 8.04.02 release had the code name, “Back in Black”. Interestingly, the 8.10.01 image has a reported size of 666MB. Maybe the code name for this release should be, “Number of the Beast”? :)

Scott Wells has posted a nice entry on his blog about CrunchBang Linux growing up and moving to its new home. In his post, Scott also asks the question:

But who would make the most of this distro?

He then proposes some interesting and timely answers. Thanks Scott.

The new CrunchBang Linux forums are up and running. I am the only registered user at the moment, so it is a bit lonely and somewhat sparse in the way of useful posts. So, please feel free to pay a visit. Hot tip, remember to register your username before all the best ones get snapped up! :)

Regarding the actual forum software, it is PunBB, a fast and lightweight PHP-powered discussion board. It is the same as used by the folks over at Arch Linux. The installation was a fast and painless procedure and the forums offer a whole bunch of features which the old forums lacked. Hopefully the new forums will provide for some excellent discussions about CrunchBang Linux, and more.

A note about the old forums; unfortunately it was not possible to import all the old posts into the new forum. I will redirect as many of the old posts as possible. The others will remain archived, remember, cool URIs don’t change!

See you on the forums :)

CrunchBang Linux now has its own page on DistroWatch. The distribution was first submitted to DistroWatch anonymously, not long after its initial release. As with all new submissions, it was placed on the waiting list. To be honest, I never imagined it would ever make it off the waiting list, but it has!

If you are not familiar with DistroWatch, you should definitely take a look. It is a fantastic site and provides a first-class service to the free software community; the news and updates are particularly good and cover most, if not all Linux distributions. DistroWatch Weekly is also well worth a read.

So, sometime ago, I decided it that it might be a good idea to give CrunchBang Linux its own home. Up until now I have been using my own personal site to host all CrunchBang Linux project files; this was fine to begin with as I never envisioned that the project would go much further than the initial release. Several releases later, and with more to come, the time has arrived to separate the project from my own site and move it to its own domain.

This new WordPress blog is the first of several new applications to be hosted on the new domain. Others will include a new community wiki and a brand new forum. Stay tuned for more info.