CrunchBang Linux

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!

For all the podcast junkies, monsterb and threethirty (a couple of Linux Cranks) have reviewed CrunchBang Linux for Hacker Public Radio. The review is fairly short and sweet, but CrunchBang seems to have been well received. You can download and listen to the review at: http://hackerpublicradio.org/eps.php?id=0265

The Linux Install Podcast, otherwise know as thelip, has returned after a prolonged absence. For the first episode in over 6 months, the presenter chose to feature and install CrunchBang Linux.

If you have not come across thelip before, the podcast is well worth a listen. The format of the podcast basically follows the presenter as he talks through the installation of a chosen Linux distribution. This makes the podcast a great resource for new and novice users. More advanced users might also want to consider listening as the presenter is very knowledgeable and many handy tips can be gained from his experience.

Please consider downloading Episode 49 featuring CrunchBang Linux and showing your support for this most excellent of Linux projects; it really is a boon for the Linux community.

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 latest episode of the Linux Outlaws podcast features a review of CrunchBang Linux. The hosts, Dan and Fab have both tried the latest CrunchBang release and discuss the distribution at some length. It is a really great review and the guys do a good job of dispelling some of the misunderstandings around the subject of the how “lightweight” CrunchBang is.

For anyone not familiar with the show (is there anyone not familiar with the Outlaws?), Linux Outlaws is a podcast in which the presenters take a “laid-back” look at Linux and the Open Source scene. The presenters have good chemistry and the show is entertaining and insightful. The production quality is excellent and the show is released most weeks. It is well worth a listen, or even a subscription within your favourite podcast catcher.

If you do listen to the review and you would like to discuss any of what was said, you might want to join the growing community of Linux Outlaws listeners by visiting the Linux Outlaws forums. There is a dedicted thread available for discussing this episode.

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! :)

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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.

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.