21 replies to this topic

[ShaqARif]

Another forum member (android) mentioned this one to me, as a lightweight Ubuntu based distro, so I thought I would give it a go...

I downloaded the LiveCD and burnt it to CD. This took a couple of goes (helpful tip - don't move your CD Burner around whilst it's burning...)

Booting up the LiveCD, first impressions were good - the splashscreen was clean and looked classy. There was a nice jingle as it booted up - sound works, yay! The openbox window manager was fast and had a clean appearance. I went straight to the Install CrunchBang option and the familiar Ubuntu install menu presented itself. I decided to set up with no swap, dedicating all 4GB of the primary SSD to / and the 8GB to /home. I found that swap is only useful when for hibernation, and as I prefer to use the sleep option instead, I wasn't to fussed about losing hibernation.

The installation was pretty quick and I was soon rebooting into CB for the first time, a process that took around forty seconds - not to shabby as it hadn't been tuned yet. I found that sleep worked fine, in fact better than it does in Kubuntu 8.10, as it works faster time around rather than taking two attempts). I installed Adam's kernel (I have an older version as .deb on a hard drive). Rebooted, and I now had network connectivity. I tried out my USB 3G modem, which was an Huawei E220, and that was picked up immediately and configured by Network Manager 0.7. CB uses some components from Gnome, the panel from LXDE, and the file manager that's typical of XFCE (thunar). This all works together surprisingly well, and conky is also configured to show key bits of info, as well as various application shortcuts, which is quite handy.

OpenBox is the default window manager and as mentioned previously is quite snappy, though a bit sparse. Other options are available, but 'dwm' didn't seem to do anything, and Openbox.kde crashed on starting. I would like to add Metisse to this, I think it would be a good fit.

The install takes 2GB, which includes a fair few applications, with a definite multimedia slant - apart from Totem and Rhythmbox, you also have Audacity, Kino, Serpentine, GIMP and Inkscape. OpenOffice isn't there, the distro creator instead going for the low-fat option of Abiword and Gnumeric. Still it's quite a useful set of apps squeezed into the 2GB.

mp3 support is included, which was handy. The one issue that I did have was that the volume was quite low, but I'm sure I'll be able to resolve that by browsing around here.

Other 'nice' things was the easy to use desktop image switcher, a little app called nitrogen. The supplied images were not really to my taste, consisting of a few nature shots, but it is very easy to add more.

To summarise, this is a very neat distro with the power of Ubuntu 8.10, but lighter than xubuntu. Combined with elmurato's script and Adam's kernel, this would be a very good fit for your eee.

http://crunchbanglinux.org/

[snowpine]

Hi there, glad you like Crunchbang. To change the volume, all you need to do is press super+V (super is the Windows key on most computers). We have a nice thread going on the Crunchbang site with some eee-related tips and tricks, please consider sharing your experiences: http://crunchbanglin...-on-the-eee-pc/

[mkrishnan]

Nice review. :)

How much of a mess does it throw up if you try to delete some of the things it comes with and swap them out for others, e.g. if for instance you liked the lightweight underpinnings but wanted Thunderbird and OpenOffice, and not Clawsmail or Abiword? In Ubuntu, this kind of thing isn't too difficult, although you do end up with some small issues surrounding the "ubuntu-desktop" umbrella package.

It looks also like it's Intrepid / 8.10 based, yes? Does it have its own repositories, or does it generally install things from Canonical? If they use their own repositories, how quickly are upstream security fixes, etc, rolled in?

And you mentioned both Elmurato's scripts and Adamm's kernel... do they both work without modification on Crunchbang?

[snowpine]

Hi Mohan, Crunchbang is basically Ubuntu and uses the same repository (plus the Medibuntu and Crunchbang repositories) so you can install Thunderbird and Openoffice no problem (I installed OO so I know it can be done). Be aware that the default Crunchbang menus do not update automatically when you add new applications (this is a feature and not a bug) but it is easy to change this default behavior: http://crunchbanglin...to-update-menu/

There are both Hardy and Intrepid versions of Crunchbang available. The Hardy version had some issues with the crunchbang-desktop metapackage if you tried to uninstall certain applications, but the Intrepid version should fix this problem. There is also a "light" version for those who prefer to install their own applications; 8.04 light is available now and 8.10 light should be coming soon.

Adamm's kernel worked for me no problem; never tried the Elmurato script. Check out the link in my previous post to learn more about Crunchbang on the eee.

Edited by snowpine, 28 November 2008 - 05:04 PM.

[ShaqARif]

@snowpine - I've signed up at the CrunchBang forums, and although I missed that topic the first time round, I will certainly hope to contribute.

@Mohan - I've not tried the replacing of defaults yet, I'll certainly be looking to replace clawsmail with Thunderbird, so that will be a good test, I'll let you know how I get on.

It is 8.10 based and uses the Canonical repositories.

Adamm's kernel plugs in just fine, I've actually got an 8.04 version of the kernel in because that was all I had on my WD Passport, but it got me an internet connection. I will upgrade to the the latest kernel tonight and will also try elmurato's script and update here.

This is one distro that's really shooting up the distrowatch charts, it's currently 13th (last 7 days) putting it above heavyweights such as Sabayon, Slackware and Gentoo!

@snowpine - the volume thing - it's setting the line-out value to a higher value that fixes this...

Edited by ShaqARif, 28 November 2008 - 05:11 PM.

[swisscow]

Just installed it on my 901. Used to run it on a Dell laptop.

I don't know why, but I love this distro. Just feels so good.

My experience was downloaded Crunchbang 8.10 to my main pc, used unetbootin to dump it onto a USB stick

Used this to install crunchbang to the eee pc

Connected a network cable and downloaded the array kernel

Rebooted. Used synaptic to install eee-control - added this to startup

SWEET!

[Paper Lawyer]

As a newbie, I quickly started to struggle with crunchbang when I installed it tonight. I installed Adamm's kernel but struggled to run scripts (is it a case of using the prefix "bash"?) and could not install eeecontrol easily - I simply could not get the GUI to fire up :(

[shengchieh]

Interesting distro, definitely rising up quickly on distrowatch.

Does everything works on the 701 4G/linux model? I.e.,

ethernet
wireless
microphone
speaker
ACPI
etc.

Do you need to add the ubuntu eee script or not?

Sheng-Chieh

[swisscow]

Quote

As a newbie, I quickly started to struggle with crunchbang when I installed it tonight. I installed Adamm's kernel but struggled to run scripts (is it a case of using the prefix "bash"?) and could not install eeecontrol easily - I simply could not get the GUI to fire up :(

I did at first but after following the instruction: Start eee-control-daemon manually with /etc/init.d/eee-control start

then adding : eee-control-tray as a new menu item, it all seems to work fine.

Even after rebooting I only have to select the menu item eee-control and all works good.

[oupsemma]

It's been ages since I'm in love with Crunchbang! :P
http://forum.eeeuser...=328475#p328475

[barba]

Hello! After months of distro-hopping, I installed Crunchbang-Linux, some weeks ago. Perfect on my 701-4G. But I prefer the LITE-Edition, based on Ubuntu 8.04: only 1.6GB with my preferred application added, and (dont know wy) faster to boot than the 8.10, both with the Array-kernel. But the MOST important thing is that right-clicking the clock the panel hides: that, and "Disablemenu" Mozilla addon (hides mainmenu and statusbar), allow the sceen bigger for the web pages.
barba

[Paper Lawyer]

I've reinstalled CrunchBang this morning and ran Riceeey's script (not tried eee control again though!).

Had some fun setting up Conky to include a weather feed. These links are helpful:

http://conky.sourcef...onkyrc-hellfire (script including use of weather.sh)
http://ubuntuforums....ad.php?t=660172

My big stumbling block is CrunchBang 8.10's inability to use a external screen - the fonts, layout go haywire and the EEE's screen simply blanks. The external monitor is a 22" 1680x1050 screen. My attempts to use xrandr have failed.

[swisscow]

Quote

My big stumbling block is CrunchBang 8.10's inability to use a external screen - the fonts, layout go haywire and the EEE's screen simply blanks. The external monitor is a 22" 1680x1050 screen. My attempts to use xrandr have failed.

I have just connected my eee with crunchbang to an external and xrandr did the trick for me..............though I need to play with it more to be sure exactly what setting.

[Paper Lawyer]

Have you created a script? It would be very helpful to know the commands you used.

[ShaqARif]

I've been working on my CrunchBang install over the weekend and I now have Metisse working fine. The panel in metisse doesn't haev a notification area by default, but I've got 'trayer' working and I will incorporate that into the fvwm-panel. For the menus, I'm looking at writing a perl script that will auto-generate the menus from the *.desktop files in /usr/share/applications. If anybody is interested in using Metisse with CrunchBang, let me know and I will put up some instructions.

Issues to be resolved:

- Function key for mute and sleep don't work
- Function keys for voulme up/down, brightness and wireless work, but there is no notification
- User defined key brings up configured application (opera), but without window decorations - just discovered, this also stops any window accepting keyboard input...

I'm using elmurato's script, I'm guessing it might just need a little tweaking to work with fvwm and trayer...

Edited by ShaqARif, 01 December 2008 - 11:55 AM.

[swisscow]

Quote

Have you created a script? It would be very helpful to know the commands you used.

For the external monitor, no script

The command I used was xrandr --output VGA --mode 1024x768 (or whatever size you want)

[Paper Lawyer]

Quote

Quote

Have you created a script? It would be very helpful to know the commands you used.

For the external monitor, no script

The command I used was xrandr --output VGA --mode 1024x768 (or whatever size you want)

I used a similar command (but 1680x1050) but I had the problem described above. However, I'll give it another go during the next few days and report back.

[Paper Lawyer]

Quote

Quote

As a newbie, I quickly started to struggle with crunchbang when I installed it tonight. I installed Adamm's kernel but struggled to run scripts (is it a case of using the prefix "bash"?) and could not install eeecontrol easily - I simply could not get the GUI to fire up :(

I did at first but after following the instruction: Start eee-control-daemon manually with /etc/init.d/eee-control start

then adding : eee-control-tray as a new menu item, it all seems to work fine.

Even after rebooting I only have to select the menu item eee-control and all works good.

I have been distracted by an Arch Linux install on another PC (which I have connected to my widescreen monitor as even when overclocked, my EEE struggled to drive the widescreen monitor as a second screen) but I've reinstalled eee control this afternoon. I struggled to add a new menu item in Crunchbang but I did manage to find the openbox config file and simply added the eee control tray command to the start up script. Problem solved!

[mookiemu]

I love Crunchbang! It's my new favorite! I installed it my 901 (lite version) and everything worked right out of the box. (except for the built in mic. That's the only blemish on man otherwise perfect distro).
Crunchbang is now far and away my favorite distro! I was so smitten by Crunchbang that I installed it on my old laptop (lite x64 Version ) and my new Sony Vaio (full x64 version) two days after I bought it.

CrunchBang is great for old computers, but I'm blown away by it's speed and stability on a fast modern computer. Networking and Samba worked perfectly. The interface and design of the distro is sublime. Very classy and tasteful. I much prefer it to the much ballyhooed OSX. The boot up speed is tremendous and I was able to add at least an hour to the battery life of my Vaio! I also installed chromium browser and use that as my default browser. Terrific!

A lot of people like to use Linux to resuscitate old computers. In many ways this does Linux a disservice. When you see the performance of a distro like Crunchbang on a well stacked compuuter.

This is a perfect distro for Virtualisation. I installed Virtualbox on all my Crunchbang computers and this is where it really shines! My vaio has virtual versions of Haiku, Tinycore Linux, pc-bsd, and an optimised nlite version of xp ( http://en.wikipedia....NLite_and_vLite ). When I get a moment I'll make a vlite version of Vista to install in virtualbox.

Another project I want to take on is to take an old dualcore machine I have and install crunchbang x64 lite and use it completely as a host for the different virtual machines.

[kerpob]

Another convert here - but for my new Atom N230 nettop. Debian variants still don't play well with sound on my eee 701.

Crunchbang worked out of the box on my nettop where Debian and Mint failed (the former didn't support the wireless, the latter was sluggish). Since then I have been very impressed with the menu and general ease of use.