#! Crunchbang Linux – A Short Review
So while I’ve been mucking about with Linux since 1999, I’ve never written a proper review of a distribution. I’ve enjoyed the likes of Slackware, Mandrake, Knoppix, Debian, Ubuntu, Mint and now my most recent favorite, Crunchbang. As part of the Debian/Ubuntu family, this lean and nimble operating system focuses on the Openbox window manager and a number of scripts, customizations and nifty Linux tools to create a responsive minimalist desktop many power users will appreciate.
Openbox, Conky x 2, ADeskBar, tint2 on Crunchbang Linux
Back in February when I got my Acer Aspire 6530 I installed Linux Mint and was happy to strip it down to Openbox and Gnome-Panel with Mint Menu after I grew tired of resource hungry Compiz effects. While many consider Compiz/Emerald to be great advances in usability, I just find them to be distracting. While my machines 512mb ATI Radeon Mobility HD 3650 could handle the effects I couldn’t justify using up nearly a gig of ram just for the desktop.
On a whim, while looking for a lightweight distro to install on a friends desktop, I decided to give the Crunchbang live cd a go. I was greeted by a simple text menu, and hit enter on my keyboard. A couple of short minutes later I arrived at a smart, dark if not spartan Openbox desktop with a pre-configured Conky, and tint2 panel.
I chose the Install option from the right click menu and a few short minutes later the system was installed using the familiar Ubiquity installer common to many Ubuntu based distributions.
The Openbox menu is organized into neat categories with sections for the usual Internet and Office apps as well as a number of neat terminal based apps such as newsbeuter and htop. Also installed were Skype and the codecs necessary for playing mp3’s, flash and most video, again saving me the trouble of downloading these, much as is provided in Linux Mint.
Much of the trouble of finding, installing and creating links/menu entries for many of the supportive appications which are so useful in Openbox, is avoided leaving the user with time to do important things like getting to work or finding that perfect wallpaper. Since it uses most, if not all, of the same software repositories as Ubuntu finding a favorite application is as easy as apt-get.
As far as resource usage, at boot the system uses about 300 megs of memory and barely causes a tick on the usage of the dual cpus. While running Firefox, Thunderbird, Exaile and even xcompmgr for compositing I’m only using about 702 megs of memory a far cry from the 1.6 gigs required under Gnome w/ Compiz.
Overall I find Crunchbang to be an great balance between lean resource usage and a complete customizable, comfortable Linux desktop experience. The maintainer, known as Corenominal on the distro’s user forum, has taken a lot of time thinking about this balance and it shows in a tightly integrated well considered environment.