
Crunchbang is not dead - ethagnawl
http://crunchbangplusplus.org/
======
keithpeter
Corenominal's original post[1] I thought was entirely reasonable and measured:
basically the crunchbang mission can be achieved entirely within a Debian
stable install now. However, I suspected that someone would continue the
project simply because of the branding and _fun_ factor. And it has happened.

[1]
[http://crunchbang.org/forums/viewtopic.php?id=38916](http://crunchbang.org/forums/viewtopic.php?id=38916)

~~~
apt-bunt
I totally agree with you on this, and with Corenomical's idea that perhaps the
need for the Crunchbang distro had run its course. I understand how people
like the differnt GUI tweaks provided by certain distros and why people wanted
to continue Crunchbang.

Continuing with Crunchbang just seems like a lot of wasted effort to me. The
effort could be better spent working within the Debian project itself.

~~~
not-a-hacker
I am not personally capable of making a crunchbang-like distro out of Debian,
and I don't like any of the many other distros I've tried. Obviously self-
described hackers don't need #! because they can build it. #!'s userbase is
diverse. And some of the more capable users just like the settings and can
spend their hacking hours elsewhere.

------
owlish
Posting this from #! right now.

> Philip has mentioned that, since CrunchBang has been his project from the
> beginning, he would like to see the name separated from any derivative that
> succeeds it.

Not sure if the people responsible for this fork are aware

~~~
tubbs
Philip posted this [1] on his twitter account, so I would say so.

[1]:
[https://twitter.com/corenominal/status/566945562512347136](https://twitter.com/corenominal/status/566945562512347136)

~~~
keithpeter
I must say the image is genius: plugs into that Sex Pistols photocopy fanzine
punk meme we had in the UK possibly a little before corenominal's time.

~~~
tubbs
Philip's UK origins make it especially appropriate!

------
pgl
For those of us who aren't familiar with the project, what is Crunchbang++?

~~~
dredmorbius
Crunchbang, I'm realizing as I read your question was a one-man Linux distro
project. The creator announced its end a week or few back.

Which somehow the various stories here are failing to elucidate.

Which gives me yet another opportunity to trot out one of my most popular HN
comments of all time: "Please Forward to Marketing":

[https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/27d5xr/please_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/27d5xr/please_forward_to_marketing_how_to_present_your/)

 _Tell me what your product is. What it does, where it works, how it does it,
what it requires. Is it a physical product (or is it shipped in one), an
interactive application, a Web service, a programming language / tool? As a
reader notes, don't make me use Wikipedia to figure out WTF your company
does._

(Originally on HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7489870](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7489870))

------
HCIdivision17
Mint is what I recommend to friends and aquaintences interested in this Linux
thing. But #! is the distro that I enjoyed getting work done in. It hits that
aesthetic sweet spot of sparse and functional perfectly for me. So I for one
am thrilled to have a Jesse update (making time to hack an update together or
fuss with the package update friction is a luxury I just don't have
anymore...)

------
morganvachon
Add me to the party, I'm downloading now and will be hammering away at it on
my distro-testbed machine.

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gegtik
I'm excited to hear this! I've gone through a dozen distros and I always come
back to #!

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johntaitorg
I'm a bit new and stupid here but my work PC, my kid's PC and a tossaround PC
all use Crunchbang. Kids love it.

Since Crunchbang uses the Debian repos, can I somehow get onto a
Debian/Openbox etc. direction without a reinstall?

and Thank-you #! Great project xx

~~~
broodbucket
I don't use #! myself so I can't check, however you can find out how far away
you are for yourself.

Check your sources list (either /etc/apt/sources.list or a set of files in
/etc/apt/sources.list.d). Are you pulling in packages from Debian repositories
already? If I remember correctly #! had its own repo which contained its WM
configuration and whatnot but the rest was stock Debian. If so, there's
probably no action required.

If not, I would wait and see what some more experienced #! users are doing
with repository migration. The Crunchbang forums are probably a good starting
point.

------
hiou
I've been using Crunchbang as my base Debian starter for years now. It's a
great distro to get some sensible defaults and then switch over to tracking
Debian testing and go from there. Very excited to see a new update!

------
pearjuice
Couldn't they become Crunchbang its project maintainers instead and adopting
the existing product, brand and community?

------
nickysielicki
I _really_ need to understand, why the hell do you guys have such weird
emotional allegiances to linux distributions?

Do a ubuntu minimal install and install openbox. In one fell swoop you've
created something at least as good as crunchbang! Holy fuck!

I can understand why the l33t skiddie does it; they're anal about spending
hours making their desktops shiny and tricked out with chinese cartoon
backgrounds. I just expect a little more... productivity from hn.

~~~
gareim
It's the configurations that kept me on it for so long! Things just worked out
of the box and it was amazing. I did a minimal install of arch + the necessary
components once (and a netinst of Debian too) but it wasn't the same because
my configurations never went deep enough. I always ended up getting frustrated
having to do it all myself.

These days, I just use virtual machines when I need Linux, but I'd switch back
to Crunchbang if multi monitor (one output from motherboard, one from gpu)
worked better.

~~~
joshuapants
This is the thing people tend to miss, I think. There are a large number of
people who don't like GNOME/KDE/Unity/whatever but who also don't want to take
the time and effort to assemble the whole thing from pieces.

I did the same thing with Arch, as well as with Void Linux. Void, in
particular, is a distro I find very interesting and would like to use, but the
hours I would spend making a usable desktop for myself (assuming I would even
succeed, and prior experience has shown that not to be the case) are better
spent elsewhere.

------
subway
This is rather silly.

The CrunchBang maintainer's reasons for discontinuing the distro are spot on.
It's absurd to fork the entire distro, adding a delay on package updates from
the upstream distro just for the sake of defining a default set of packages.

Create a complementary apt repo for any packages you need that aren't
available upstream (CrunchBang has very few of these), and perhaps spin an
installer image that installs Debian with your preferred default package set,
but for the love of god, stop adding lag to the process by which your users
receive security updates and bugfixes from upstream.

~~~
gareim
Didn't Crunchbang do that already? It's been a few years since I last used it,
but I remember the sources.list pointing directly to Debian's repos and there
was a special Crunchbang repo for small things. Maybe I'm remembering wrong
though.

~~~
2ion
No, this is correct. It's the Debian stable repository + a supplementary
Crunchbang repo.

