On February 18, 2015, Crunchbang (!#) lead developer Philip Newborough announced that he would stop developing the popular Linux distribution which had ranked inside the top 20 on Distrowatch in hits per day. Soon after, revivals of the project began, such as Crunchbang++ and Bunsen Labs Linux, the last being the “official” community project, although it only offers a very rough alpha. Meanwhile, Crunchbang++ has had a stable release since April 29, so I thought I would review it and see if it’s ready for prime time.
1. Installer
Sadly, I couldn’t do an ease of use section since the installer is based off of the Debian netinstall CD, which doesn’t offer a live mode. That will be section 2 in this review.
The installer is exactly the same as the one used on Debian, down to the branding, and requires a working network connection. It’s a petite 628 MB in size.
Unfortunately, the installer seems a bit long for my tastes. It’s not confusing, but I think some of the setup screens could be combined into one, like user setup.
At this point you have to wait for the base system to install, which is about a 12 minute process.
Now you have to configure the package manager and select the best mirror. I’ve had the best success with the lug.mtu.edu mirror, so I picked that. This can be a confusing step.
Now additional packages have to download and install, which takes another 5 minutes. Then it has to install a bootloader, and we have yet another setup screen.
This takes another 30 seconds or so to complete and finish the installation up. It’s a very convoluted and long installer, so I have to go with a lower score for it.
Installer score: 7/10
Release date
|
ISO size (GB)
|
Distribution base
|
Default filesystem
|
Install time
|
Boot time
|
Size of install
|
Desktop RAM use
|
Kernel Version
| |
KaOS 2015.02
|
2/24/2015
|
1.4
|
Independent
|
XFS
|
18:03
|
0:36
|
4.6
|
415
|
3.18.7
|
Ubuntu MATE 15.04 Beta 1
|
2/25/2015
|
1.1
|
Ubuntu Vivid (15.04 Beta 1)
|
ext4
|
12:57
|
0:27
|
4.2
|
457
|
3.19.1
|
Manjaro 0.8.12 Xfce
|
2/6/2015
|
1.4
|
Arch
|
ext4
|
11:33
|
0:27
|
4.7
|
351
|
3.16.7
|
Netrunner 15
|
2/16/2015
|
1.9
|
Ubuntu Utopic (14.10)
|
ext4
|
16:20
|
0:41
|
6.4
|
714
|
3.16.0
|
openSUSE 13.2 KDE
|
11/4/2014
|
4.4
|
Independent
|
Btrfs (used ext4 because of known bug)
|
15:29
|
0:39
|
4.4
|
422
|
3.16.6
|
Bodhi Linux 3.0.0
|
2/17/2015
|
0.6
|
Ubuntu Trusty (14.04 LTS)
|
ext4
|
5:50
|
0:34
|
2.2
|
348
|
3.16.0
|
Linux Mint 17.1 Cinnamon
|
11/29/2014
|
1.4
|
Ubuntu Trusty (14.04 LTS)
|
ext4
|
8:45
|
0:42
|
4.5
|
343
|
3.13.0
|
Pinguy OS 14.04.2
|
3/22/2015
|
2.6
|
Ubuntu Trusty (14.04 LTS)
|
ext4
|
20:54
|
0:47
|
7.4
|
745
|
3.13.0
|
Korora 21 Cinnamon
|
2/6/2015
|
1.7
|
Fedora 21
|
ext4
|
13:24
|
1:04
|
5.0
|
602
|
3.18.3
|
Fedora 22 Beta
|
4/21/2015
|
1.3
|
Independent
|
ext4
|
10:10
|
0:46
|
4.2
|
843
|
4.0.0
|
Lubuntu 15.04
|
4/24/2015
|
0.7
|
Ubuntu Vivid (15.04)
|
ext4
|
11:55
|
0:22
|
2.4
|
216
|
3.19.0
|
elementary OS 0.3
|
4/11/2015
|
0.9
|
Ubuntu Trusty (14.04 LTS)
|
ext4
|
11:20
|
0:26
|
2.6
|
392
|
3.16.0
|
Linux Lite 2.4
|
4/1/2015
|
0.8
|
Ubuntu Trusty (14.04 LTS)
|
ext4
|
4:31
|
0:23
|
3.5
|
416
|
3.13.0
|
Linux Mint 17.2 MATE RC
|
6/16/2015
|
1.6
|
Ubuntu Trusty (14.04 LTS)
|
ext4
|
12:37
|
0:38
|
4.8
|
303
|
3.16.0
|
Crunchbang++ 1.0
|
4/29/2015
|
0.6
|
Debian Jessie (8.0)
|
ext4
|
17:25
|
0:17
|
2.3
|
187
|
3.16.0
|
Average of all distros
|
1.5
|
12:44
|
0:35
|
4.2
|
450
|
2. Ease of Use
Crunchbang++ uses the OpenBox desktop environment, designed to be lightweight. As shown in the spreadsheet above, it lives up to that goal.
To launch applications, you can either right click on the desktop, showing the OpenBox menu, or press Alt-F3 to open dmenu, which is a popular searchable application launcher. However, you have to search for the name of the binary file (so you would launch Chrome Dev by typing google-chrome-unstable). The OpenBox menu also doesn’t automatically update on installation of applications, so you have to either edit menu.rc or use the GUI tool to add new applications to it.
As shown, Crunchbang++ comes with a post-installation setup script, which is handy if you want to add extra goodies to the system that were not installed by default (such as Libreoffice).
The taskbar is quite nice as well, and groups applications by virtual desktop.
Ease of use score: 8.5/10
3. Design
The minimal design of Crunchbang++ is beautiful. The Conky is nice and minimal, and it’s exactly what I’m expecting for a distribution like this.
That being said, it looks quite bland and leaves a little to be desired. I prettied it up a little bit using the Numix theme, Lato fonts, and Maia icons.
The web font rendering is excellent out of the box and no tweaking is needed.
The SLiM login screen is beautifully minimum.
Design score: 10/10
4. Applications
The applications shipped with Crunchbang++ are what you’d expect with a lightweight distro, but unexpectedly there’s no email client.
Web Browser - Iceweasel (Firefox fork)
File Manager - Thunar
Email Client - NONE
Text Editor - Geany
Image Viewer - ViewNior
Terminal Emulator - Terminator
Music Player - VLC Media Player
Office Suite - Abiword+Gnumeric
The applications work well and as intended, however the lack of an email client is annoying and could be shipped without too much of a performance hit.
Applications score: 9/10
5. Installing packages
As Crunchbang++ is based on Debian, the repositories are wide, although not as wide as Ubuntu’s and there are no PPAs. Synaptic Package Manager can be used to install packages with a GUI, although it’s not as nice as say, Mint Software or Ubuntu Software Center. However, you shouldn’t have a problem finding the packages you need.
Installing packages score: 8.5/10
Final thoughts: Crunchbang++ beautifully brings together minimalness and functionality, but it’s a little rough around the edges. However, I’m excited for what the community can put together after the discontinuation of the original Crunchbang, and it can become a top-notch distro in a couple of releases. In the meantime though, stick to Lubuntu or Linux Lite if you want a minimalist distro.
Final score: 43/50 = 86%
Distro name
|
Final Score
|
Manjaro 0.8.12 Xfce
|
99
|
Linux Mint 17.2 MATE RC
|
98
|
Ubuntu MATE 15.04 Beta 1
|
97
|
Linux Mint 17.1 Cinnamon
|
95
|
Fedora 22 Beta
|
94
|
openSUSE 13.2 KDE
|
93
|
Korora 21 Cinnamon
|
92
|
elementary OS 0.3
|
91
|
Pinguy OS 14.04.2
|
91
|
Linux Lite 2.4
|
90
|
Netrunner 15
|
90
|
Lubuntu 15.04
|
88
|
Crunchbang++ 1.0
|
86
|
Bodhi Linux 3.0.0
|
84
|
KaOS 2015.02
|
80
|
Average of all reviews
|
91
|
Try Monara_x86-64 at http://sourceforge.net/projects/crunchbangmonara/ Its a Live DVD, a continuation of Crunchbang
ReplyDeleteNever saw this. I'll take a look and maybe install it on some of my older computers
DeleteOne user's bloat is another user's ease of use. Often the speed of a minimalist system is offset by the time it takes learning how to use it, and the slowdown of a "bloated" system is offset by the lack of guesswork, endless googling and hair-tearing that afflicts the average user who just wants to get it out the driveway and onto the road, already. If you can make a minimalist system work, my hat's off to you. But I'd appreciate an end to the pejorative "bloat" for things that for a lot of people have real utility and make the overall experience easier and less frustrating. Wide scroll bars "waste" space, e.g., but needle-thin ones waste time spent trying to grab onto them.
ReplyDeleteCB++ is my favorite distro. I love the simplicity and the speed. The system is build on top of Debian Jessie and therefore rock solid. Everything has a clean look and it's a pleasure to use. I run CB++ on an AMD Athlon 5350 and on an Atom D525.
ReplyDeletehttp://rpawlitzek.users.sourceforge.net/spare.html