Crunchbang Squeeze

Yesterday I installed a Debian testing base system and then manually installed a Crunchbang style setup. I did it manually because I thought that using the crunchbang-installer-9.04 script would cause problems, mixing Jaunty and Crunchbang 9.04 repo's with Debian testing might cause some issues, as well as problems like Firefox being rebranded as Iceweasel in Debian.

For those that are interested this is a simple how to:

Download & burn the 'netinst' iso:

http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/

Follow the installer through, it's very straightforward and will automatically configure your network if you use dhcp. I found the Debian netinstall much easier and quicker than a Ubuntu minimal install. One of the good things about the Debian installer is that it allows you to choose your mirror during the install so that you're not stuck with a slow server with continual dropouts like with the default Ubuntu UK server.

When asked what software to install select 'Standard System' & nothing else.

Finish up the install, reboot & login as root:

# apt-get update

# apt-get install xserver-xorg-core xorg hal udev alsa-base alsa-utils gdm cups snmp openbox openbox-themes obconf obmenu nitrogen gmrun dmenu lxappearance tint2 conky xcompmgr synaptic ttf-bitstream-vera ttf-dejavu terminator

# dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

# gdm

Once you're logged in you can add the additional stuff to make things more complete. You can use your configuration files from Crunchbang, remember to back them up first. The Crunchbang menu provides a good source for installing all your applications.

One of the first things you'll want to do is add the debian multimedia repo' to /etc/apt/sources.list:

http://debian-multimedia.org/

Install the keyring before running apt-get update.

To get my printer configured I had to install a few extra packages, this is for an HP printer:

$ sudo apt-get install hplip hpijs system-config-printer

Download a few basic apps. I've always installed Crunchbang Lite, so I start with a basic set of applications and build up from there, obviously you can replace these with your own choices:

$ sudo apt-get install iceweasel thunar thunar-volman thunar-thumbnailers ffmpegthumbnailer mousepad vim scrot vlc gpicview file-roller gnome-screensaver gnome-power-manager

I have an Nvidia graphics card, to install the Nvidia driver download from Nvidia:

http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us

You'll need a few packages:

$ sudo apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-$(uname -r)

To install you'll need to kill the X server, switch to console 1: press ctrl+alt+F1 simultaneously, once there login using your username & password & stop gdm:

$ sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop

Install the driver:

$ sudo sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-185.18.36-pkg2.run

Follow the install process. Make sure you allow the installer to automatically modify /etc/X11/xorg.conf. Once done load the Nvidia module:

$ sudo modprobe nvidia

Restart gdm which will bring back X:

$ sudo /etc/init.d/gdm start

If the kernel is ever updated during a system update you don't need to re-install the driver only the kernel module:

$ sudo sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-185.18.36-pkg2.run -K

Additional stuff:

To set your user to use sudo you need to edit /etc/sudoers as root using su:

$ su

and enter the root password, then:

# visudo

and add your user to the user privilege section:

# User privilege specification
root    ALL=(ALL) ALL
username  ALL=(ALL) ALL

I had a problem with obmenu not running, to solve this you have to edit /usr/bin/obmenu and change:

#!/usr/bin/python2.4

to

#!/usr/bin/python

Once all this is done you should have a fairly standard Crunchbang system with a Debian testing base. There will be things missing like the places pipe menu, system-update script, etc, and you'll probably find that it'll never be as complete as a proper Crunchbang install. For instance to shutdown or reboot I just use 'sudo poweroff' & 'sudo reboot'. You could use something like Oblogout which is mentioned in the forums.

Doing this will get you some newer application versions like mpd-0.15.4 which increases the functionality of ncmpcpp. You also get some problems though like the new cups-1.4, to get my printer working I had to run 'system-config-printer' as root, as cups would not detect my usb HP printer, this was after disabling 'usblp' as recommended on the Arch linux home page. As Debian doesn't have 'rc.conf' I added usblp to /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf, where you can also disable your annoying system bell:

blacklist usblp
blacklist pcspkr

Eventually Squeeze will become Debian stable. To keep the system as Debian testing change all instances of 'squeeze' to 'testing' in /etc/apt/sources.list. This will negate the need to re-install every six months like with Ubuntu. I've found I'm using less RAM than a standard Crunchbang Ubuntu install and everything seems to be working very well. I have previously done this with an Arch base and got fed up fixing breakages after certain 'pacman -Syu's. Hopefully Debian testing will be more stable than Arch and breakages will occur less often.

Hope this is of use to someone, any ideas for improvements are very welcome.