CrunchBang Linux

After a slight delay and a prolonged testing period, the final builds of CrunchBang Linux 9.04.01 are now available. As the version number suggests, it is based on Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope. As with all previous releases, 9.04.01 has been built from scratch using the Ubuntu MinimalCD. The builds were completed on the 6th July 2009 and contain all security and package updates available at that time.

What’s New?

For the first time, CrunchBang Linux is available to download in both 32 and 64-bit builds. The addition of the 64-bit (amd64) builds were a major contributing factor to the delay of this release, although the end result was worth the extra development time. Other noticeable changes as a result of moving to the latest stable Ubuntu release include:

• Much improved boot performance with faster start-up times.
• Improved support for wireless cards.
• Ext4 filesystem support.

Other changes over the previous 8.10.02 release have been kept to a minimum, with the exception of:

• The lightweight tint2 panel/taskbar replaces lxpanel.
• Transmission BitTorrent client replaces Deluge.
• A full Vim installation included by default.
• Pyroom fullscreen editor included by default.
• Many other minor tweaks and fixes including:
  • Improved documentation added to default configuration files.
  • Openbox menu items added for commonly used configuration files.
  • New and improved default Openbox and GTK themes.
  • Additional Openbox and GTK+ themes installed, including the popular Dyne themes.

Download locations

Please see the CrunchBang Linux 9.04.01 downloads page for download locations and alternative installations methods.

Feedback

If you have any feedback, comments or suggestions for improvements, please feel free to post them below or on the CrunchBang forums. As always, all feedback and constructive criticism is welcome and greatly appreciated!

A new edition of the CrunchBang Monthly Newsletter been published. Issue #0904 covers the month of March ’09 and features:

• Public Relations – This section provides links to blogs and articles in which CrunchBang has been featured/discussed. It also contains a listing of CrunchBang related videos on YouTube.com, definitely worth a look!
• CrunchBang IRC – Marcus has been examining the IRC logs and has made some amusing conclusions — apparently CrunchBang users are great thinkers!
• Development – Philip continues the tradition of answering questions about the development of CrunchBang. Remember, if you have any questions related to the development, please feel free to send us an email and we will try cover them.
• Documentation – Ed has again scanned the forums for noteworthy stuff and he highlights his top picks for the month.
• Artwork Section – The winner of the big CrunchBang Logo Competition is revealed! We also get a glimpse of the new proposed default GTK+ and Openbox themes for CrunchBang 9.04.01.
• Tips, Tricks and Hints – Cruz has exceeded himself again, this time with a lot of CLI tips about the Bash history feature. Interesting stuff!
• Translation – Max is taking over the bits and pieces of the translation area and working on having it all systematized. If you want to do something for the CrunchBang community, you might want to get enrolled in the translator corps.

The CrunchBang Monthly Newsletter is created and maintained by Scrat and his team of editors. If you would like contribute, please contact a member of the team.

IMPORTANT: if you wish to discuss the results of the logo competition, please do so in this forum thread. Thank you.

As stated in the first monthly newsletter, we are having a competition to create a new CrunchBang logo. From the newsletter:

We’re officially announcing a #! logo competition. This competition is open to all and you may submit as many entries as you want. We’re looking for a logo that accurately conveys the simplicity, speed and uniqueness of #! …snip…

We’ll keep the competition open until the 23rd of March 09.

Editors of #! Newsletter will narrow down the entries to three and pass the final decision over to Philip Newborough.

So, fire-up your copy of Inkscape or GIMP, get those creative juices flowing and submit your entries to this forum thread.

Notes:

• Please enter original artwork only.
• All submissions should be unencumbered — this means anyone should be able to use the logo however they see fit, including for commercial purposes.

Good luck!

The first CrunchBang monthly newsletter has been published. The newsletter is a community project and has been put together by the CrunchBang Monthly Newsletter Team. The team, I am not including myself in this statement, have done a fantastic job putting the newsletter together and it has been really interesting to observe the 8 editors collaborate on the document — I hope you will agree that the end result is both an interesting and informative read!

The first issue can be found at: http://crunchbanglinux.org/wiki/crunchbang…/issue_0903

On a personal note, I would just like to thank everyone involved and especially Niels Rasmussen (aka Scrat), who I am sure the rest of the team will agree, has done an exceptional job at cracking the whip and getting everything/everyone organised. Thank you Scrat! :)

In an effort to open up the development of CrunchBang, I have created a new project on Launchpad. The project is to be driven by the CrunchBangers team. CrunchBangers is an open team and anyone with an interest in the future development of the distribution is welcome to join. I have currently set the introduction to read as:

Creating a project account on Launchpad is something I have been meaning to do for sometime. Hopefully the tools made available by Launchpad will enable this project to step-up to the next level. I will try to publish/integrate more information about the various Launchpad services over the coming days/weeks. Meanwhile, if working to help shape the future of this distribution is something of interest to you, please feel free to join the team and become a CrunchBanger!

The final 8.10.02 builds of CrunchBang Linux, CrunchBang Linux “Lite” and CrunchEee are now available. The new releases contain numerous changes and many fixes provided by the CrunchBang community. For more information about these releases, please see:

Standard Edition

• Download locations.
• Alternative installation instructions.
• Release notes.
• Application list.

Lite Edition

• Download locations.
• Alternative installation instructions.
• Release notes.
• Application list.

CrunchEee ASUS Eee PC Edition

• Download locations.
• Installation instructions & discussion thread.
• Release notes.
• Application list.

Credit & Thanks
A huge thank you is owed to everyone who has involved themselves in the growing CrunchBang community. Your feedback, help, support and contributions are really appreciated and are helping to shape CrunchBang Linux into a usable distribution! You rock!

Today sees the release of CrunchEee, a special version of CrunchBang Linux developed specifically for the Asus Eee PC. This new edition is similar to the “Lite” edition, but for the inclusion of a full suite of Internet applications and an Eee PC specific Linux Kernel and scripts. More details about the release candidate can be found on the forums: CrunchEee 8.10.01 Release Candidate 1.

With regards to the name, “CrunchEee” was very kindly suggested by Dan Lynch of Linux Outlaws.

The first release candidate for the new CrunchBang 8.10.01 “Lite” edition has been uploaded and is available for testing. The image can be downloaded from:

http://crunchbang.net/pub/linux/crunchbang-lite-8.10.01rc1.i386.iso
md5sum: 3f98147648b10e6f533e4106d4056c0d
Approximate size: 416MB

With regards to the differences between the Lite edition and the Standard edition, a slightly different approach has been taken with this release; whereas the 8.04.02 Lite edition simply had all but the terminal, web browser, file manager, editor and media player removed, the same has been done for this release, however the remaining applications (except Terminator) have been swapped out for lightweight alternatives.

• Firefox is replace by Kazehakase (with Flash support).
• Thunar has been replaced by PCmanFM.
• Totem has been replaced by VLC.
• gedit has been replaced by Leafpad.

All items within the “Preferences” and “System” menus remain unchanged (with exception to below).

Other changes include:

• Xfce4 integration/dependencies removed.
• Themes are now set using the lightweight gtk-chtheme package.
• Screen resolutions are handled by lxrandr.
• lxpanel has been replaced by tint and trayer.
• gdebi and ndiswrapper have been installed by default.

Also, fixes have been implemented for some issues which have been highlighted in the current Standard edition, namely CUPS/printing support.

If anyone would like to give the new release a try, please do so. As always, your feedback and suggestions will be more than welcome! :)

–

A note for anyone using a separate home partition. Please be aware that where possible new installations will respect the contents on your existing home partition. Therefore, any exiting configuration files will not be overwritten. This could lead to unexpected issues with your Openbox session. It might be advisable to backup and remove/rename ~/.config before attempting an installation.

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”? :)

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 :)