CrunchBang Linux on Debian (Squeeze / Sid) ? (Page 1 of 3)

+100 I also support this idea

I've got an installation like that atm, on my test machine.

When I get a few days free, I'm going to look into what corenominal did with remastersys and try to make something similar in Debian, and push out the iso somewhere.

No promises of quality or timescale.

Yesterday, I made my triumphant return to CrunchBang!

I have been running a Debian LXDE testing/unstable system on my Dell Mini 9 for the past couple of months. But with the official release of #! 9.04, I decided to give #! another try.

The verdict? Debian does indeed seem a little "peppier" (though I have just installed the 2.6.30 kernel in #!, maybe that will help) but it is not a huge difference. I definitely agree that the default Debian Gnome desktop is a lot faster than the default Ubuntu Gnome desktop, but I think when you just have Openbox and a few apps, the differences between Ubuntu/Debian/Arch/Whatever are minor. #! doesn't use a lot of resource-hogging applications, so I think it would be pretty fast no matter which distro it is based on.

The most compelling argument for keeping #! based on Ubuntu is hardware support. #! 9.04 runs flawlessly on the Mini 9; Debian required some "tweaking" to get the wireless working. I would guess that a huge part of #!'s success is due to Ubuntu and its awesome hardware support. I think if #! ever does switch over to Debian, we will see a huge increase in newbie questions like "why won't my wireless connect?" "where's Firefox?" etc. And from what I've seen of the Debian forums, they are not supportive of "remix" distros like the Ubuntu forums. (Let's face it, positive reviews on ubuntuforums.org are a big part of #!'s success.)

In conclusion I personally would love to see #! Debian, if for no other reason than rolling release. But I think for the growth and future popularity of the distro, Ubuntu is the correct choice.

Also there is the free/nonfree issue... philosophically, I think that any hypothetical Debian port of #! should use only free software... which might not sit well with #! users who are accustomed to having all of the codecs pre-installed.

Personally I figure that if the majority of your users are going to install something non-free and there's no free alternative, then forcing them to jump through hoops isn't doing you or them any favors. I always try to use FOSS software, but codecs can be a real problem sometimes. I need my computer to work, so I can't let a philosophical disagreement keep me from getting things done (can I say that anymore without appending a (TM) symbol?).

In any event, I think that I'm now convinced that #! shouldn't move to a Debian base in general, but perhaps it's worth releasing a script to transform a standard Debian installation into CrunchDeb? Then people could choose which base distro to start from, and it would be understood that this is an experimental setup for geeks and risk-takers only. I'd probably give that a spin, at least.

On third thought, maybe it's best if Corenomical stays focused on the main distro that most people will be using (unless, of course, he finds such an experiment intriguing).

+1 for this idea.  I tried to build #! on top of a debian net install and was able to get a working system but nothing that had the was even close to #! for fit and finish.  Getting off the 6 mo cycle would be nice.

Excuse for barging in on this but for a noob like me, snowpine arguments make a lot of sense. I just had to jump a few loops to upgrade my #! from 8.10.02 to 9.04.01 and would be as eager as any other flatfoot to get off the upgrading merry-go-round, but in my case, what made me take the leap to spend time tweaking crunchbang was mostly that it is Ubuntu based, so my meager knowing of all things Linux wouldn't be wasted...

Last edited by Midas (2009-07-14 21:47:52)

Wow, didn't know that my simple comment actually got so much attention 

Allow me to clear things up a little, this is the main intent for me bringing this up in the forum

As to codecs and such, understand that Ubuntu itself does not comes with much codecs configured either, that's why they have different repositories.
Distro like CrunchBang and Linux Mint choose to enable and configure them probably be default.
- CrunchBang (if base on Debian) can also incoporate such repositories  e.g.
   - for multimedia                    -   deb http://www.debian-multimedia.org testing main
   - for opera (beta anyone ?)    -  deb http://deb.opera.com/opera-beta/ sid non-free
   - for openoffice                    -   openoffice 3.x is already in squeeze/sid
   - google                              - deb http://dl.google.com/linux/deb/
   - etc.

Regarding newbies having problem with CrunchBang (if base on Debian), definitely there will be some new problems
No new users can boot into CrunchBang and know what to do, those type of new users will go to Ubuntu and Mint.
Let's face it, most CrunchBang users are not the normal type of newbies, we are the "elite newbies", the type that is most willing to explore, learn, play and able pick up things along the way

Would be good that CrunchBang can be the likes of Arch (which I am also using) and not just another buntu spinoff.

Now that I've finished my mumbling ... let me catch some sun

Afraid there's little info that I have for netbooks, I once got Debian working on it  [http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEeePC]
but it was confiscated from me by my little daughter because she thinks it's cute.

She installed easy-peasy (all by herself) on it and no one ease is allowed to touch it after that

I installed Debian on my Eee PC using this guide:
http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEeePC/HowTo/Install

Although I didn't keep it around long enough to really test it out properly (it seemed to work very well, but I had other distros to experiment with...).

I tried to follow that guide on an Eee 901 but it failed at the end. It couldn't install Grub and it couldn't install LILO either. This was a few weeks ago.

http://www.itwire.com/content/view/22545/1141/