CrunchBang Lite now testing

Just a heads-up for all you lightweight-distro, Openbox, and CrunchBang fans... the new CrunchBang Lite 8.10 release candidate is now available for testing: http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/topic/219/crunchbang-linux-81001rc1-lite-edition/

It has a speedy new suite of applications including PCManFM, Kazehakase, Leafpad, VLC, etc. and runs circles around Xubuntu on my old laptop. It's also a great little distro for the eeepc and other netbooks.

I know that "lightweight distros for older hardware" is a popular topic around these parts, well here is your chance to get involved with testing a great distro and maybe make suggestions for the final release. :)

Makes me wish i had an old machine. I've bookmarked this for when i need some light functionality...Thanks man.

this looks interesting. put near the top of the distros to try soon list :-)

I always thought CrunchBang was absurdly heavy for an Openbox remix. This is a step in the right direction.

cardinals_fan said: I always thought CrunchBang was absurdly heavy for an Openbox remix. This is a step in the right direction.

It is "absurdly heavy" because it is based on Ubuntu. :)

There's been some chatter on the Crunchbang forums about porting it to Debian Lenny. I think that would be a fantastic combination.

And yes, SliTaz uses Openbox too and is super-duper light; I use it too. :)

snowpine said: Just a heads-up for all you lightweight-distro, Openbox, and CrunchBang fans... the new CrunchBang Lite 8.10 release candidate is now available for testing: http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/topic/219/crunchbang-linux-81001rc1-lite-edition/

It has a speedy new suite of applications including PCManFM, Kazehakase, Leafpad, VLC, etc. and runs circles around Xubuntu on my old laptop. It's also a great little distro for the eeepc and other netbooks.

I know that "lightweight distros for older hardware" is a popular topic around these parts, well here is your chance to get involved with testing a great distro and maybe make suggestions for the final release. :)

From the CrunchBang release notes, it appears that the only realy difference between Standard and Lite editions is what programs come preinstalled. Other than that, does anyone think that this will run faster on an older machine, than the Standard CrunchBang install? And if so, why? What are the differences?

My Specs: Name: Dell Inspiron 2650 Processor: Mobile Intel® Pentium® 4 processor 1.69 Ghz Screen: 15” XGA RAM: 256MB DDR200 3.3V DDR HDD: 20GB Optical Drive: CD-Rom Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce2 Go 100 Sound: Intel Network: None built in, Airlink USB Wireless adapter (no bluetooth)

BGFG said: Makes me wish i had an old machine. I've bookmarked this for when i need some light functionality...Thanks man.

you don't need an old machine to use it. it's ubuntu 8.10 and has all the latest apps.

it runs "things happen instantly" fast on an average computer. this aint your daddy's openbox, this is an incredibly fast efficient way to compute.

crunchbang is the thang. \\:D/

For anyone interested, the Linux Install Podcast recently did an install of Crunchbang: http://thelip.net/?p=75

nabilalk said: From the CrunchBang release notes, it appears that the only realy difference between Standard and Lite editions is what programs come preinstalled. Other than that, does anyone think that this will run faster on an older machine, than the Standard CrunchBang install? And if so, why? What are the differences?

Hi there, when I originally posted this, Crunchbang was on release 8.10.1. Now it's up to 8.10.2, and the Full and Lite versions are more similar than different--Full has switched to pcmanfm and Lite has switched to Firefox, for example. I don't think you'll see a huge difference in speed on your computer, the biggest difference is that Full has lots more installed applications.

wolfen69 said: ..crunchbang is the thang. \\:D/

+1

This is GREAT distro.

wolfen69 said: you don't need an old machine to use it. it's ubuntu 8.10 and has all the latest apps.

it runs "things happen instantly" fast on an average computer. this aint your daddy's openbox, this is an incredibly fast efficient way to compute.

crunchbang is the thang. \\:D/

Touche!!! :) Touche!!!!!!!!!!:D

I'm trying it because I want something to boot faster from my USB pen drive. There isn't that much dragging me away from Ubuntu at the moment to be honest, sure OpenBox is something cool and new to play with but I can stick that on top of a standard Ubuntu install...

Feel free to correct me guys but I'm really not noticing massive speed differences... What has everyone else found?

Openbox is better for older (and hence slower) systems. This is the case with me. Crunchbang is light years ahead, in terms of speed, of a typical Ubuntu(Gnome) install on my system.

If you've got top of the line/relatively new hardware, you likely won't notice a speed improvement when going from Ubuntu to Crunchbang.

scottuss said: I'm trying it because I want something to boot faster from my USB pen drive. There isn't that much dragging me away from Ubuntu at the moment to be honest, sure OpenBox is something cool and new to play with but I can stick that on top of a standard Ubuntu install...

Feel free to correct me guys but I'm really not noticing massive speed differences... What has everyone else found?

Crunchbang probably boots around the same speed as Ubuntu, since it uses Ubuntu as its base system. I do find that Crunchbang is faster than Ubuntu once it is up and running, as it is lighter on resources. I really notice the biggest difference with things like opening menus, switching back and forth between apps, resizing windows, etc. as opposed to boot time.

Almost all distros will run relatively slowly from a USB drive, by nature of the technology. If you want a fast OS on a pen drive, I recommend something like Puppy or Slitaz, both of which are loaded completely into ram at boot. There is a bigger speed difference between SliTaz and Crunchbang than between Crunchbang and Ubuntu, in my opinion.

scottuss said: I'm trying it because I want something to boot faster from my USB pen drive. There isn't that much dragging me away from Ubuntu at the moment to be honest, sure OpenBox is something cool and new to play with but I can stick that on top of a standard Ubuntu install...

Feel free to correct me guys but I'm really not noticing massive speed differences... What has everyone else found?

You may possible really like this site:

*_http://urukrama.wordpress.com/openbox-guide/_*

:-)

Since Crunchbang 8.04 is based on Ubuntu 8.04 LTS, will sudo apt-get update keep Crunchbang 8.04 updated, in the same way that it would keep Ubuntu 8.04 updated, until 2011?

Stan_1936 said: Since Crunchbang 8.04 is based on Ubuntu 8.04 LTS, will sudo apt-get update keep Crunchbang 8.04 updated, in the same way that it would keep Ubuntu 8.04 updated, until 2011?

Yes, absolutely.

That's great, because I've got a satisfactory Crunchbang (8.04) install. I'm sticking with it....it's got what I need.

I am curious does the lite version come with all the codecs installed like the standard version? I am getting a dell mini 9 and heard that the standard version runs really well on them, but I don't need all the programs that come installed. If the lite version is just missing some of the installed programs but is essentially the same otherwise I think I will throw that on there.

yes, the lite version comes with codecs. but you will have to tweak some things to get it to work properly. see this page for more info.