Thursday, January 31st, 2008

"CrunchBang - A faster Ubuntu!"

Marius Nestor of Softpedia has written a review of CrunchBang Linux. I was pleasantly surprised when I read it, it's actually quite positive. Quote:

We took CrunchBang for a little test drive on one of our systems here at Softpedia, and we found it quite interesting and very fast. It includes the following applications:

  • Epiphany web browser
  • Firefox web browser
  • Thunderbird e-mail/news client
  • Liferea RSS reader
  • gFTP FTP client
  • XChat IRC client
  • Pidgin instant messenger
  • GIMP image editor
  • Inkscape SVG editor similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw or Visio
  • Eye of Gnome image viewer
  • Agave palette designer
  • Specimen font previewer
  • Xsane image scanner
  • OpenOffice.org office suite
  • Totem movie player
  • Rhythmbox music player
  • Audacity audio editor
  • PiTiVi video editor
  • Kino video editor
  • AcidRip DVD extractor
  • Cheese webcam application
  • Sound Juicer CD extractor
  • Serpentine audio-cd extractor
  • GnomeBaker CD/DVD writer
  • ROX-Filer file manager
  • Thunar file manager
  • Xarchiver archive manager

It also includes a few text editors, a lot of system administration tools and other useful scripts. We've noticed that CrunchBang doesn't have a fancy boot splash, not even a cool boot screen like Ubuntu has, but it boots so fast that I think you don't even have time to see the boot splash.

In conclusion, our tests revealed that a torrent application is missing and we do believe that Brasero is much better that GnomeBaker when you want to write CDs or DVDs. CrunchBang is a fast and good looking Ubuntu remaster. It includes a lot of useful tools, scripts and applications. Give it a try!

The review also features a whole bunch of screenshots. The full review can be read at:
http://news.softpedia.com/news/First-look-CrunchBang-A-faster-Ubuntu-77535.shtml

Also, I've received a number of emails and comments regarding the initial release, most of which have also been positive. I'm still not convinced the distribution is fit for general consumption; however, it's nice to know that some people are enjoying it.

Regarding the actual feedback, something that has been mentioned on more than one occasion is the use of the modified Darkilouche theme. It's a trivial thing really and only cosmetic, however it does seem to cause a few issues with some applications; VLC for example, which is not installed by default, has issues with the playlist window, text is light on light. If I do make another release, I'm undecided on the matter, I'll more than likely change the current theme to something less problematic.


8 Responses to “"CrunchBang - A faster Ubuntu!"”

  1. Derek Buranen wrote,

    gftp over filezilla? I'm partial to all things zilla I guess.

    Kudos on making a distro anyway. It's something I can hand the people who say Ubuntu is ugly.

  2. Philip wrote,

    @Derek: Thanks :) Regarding the FTP client, I've always used gFTP, apart from when I use the ftp command. I've found it to be rock solid in operation and it pretty much covers my FTP needs. Having said that, I have heard good things about Filezilla and so I'll look into it. Thanks for the recommendation :)

  3. blindraven wrote,

    I'm thinking of throwing this over a default 8.04LTS install. It would be perfect if this release was signature specific, baring in mind it was never meant for public release - it would still be cool.

    An OpenBox-buntu with nothing but shell/screen/cli utilities would be hot like johansson.

  4. Eric Amundson wrote,

    Philip,

    I'm thrilled to have learned of CrunchBang! As of today, I've installed it about five times and am enjoying it immensely.

    I'll echo the preference for FileZilla, mostly because it's cross-platform and I've just had more positive experiences with it. In years past, I had stability problems with gFTP and ended up using FileZilla because it was my FTP client of choice from my Windows days.

    That said, it's easy enough to swap programs out.

    Thanks again!

  5. Jonathan Vasquez wrote,

    I'll echo that as well. FileZilla has to be the best FTP client out.

  6. bone2006 wrote,

    I haven't tried it yet, but I'm in the process of downloading it now. I'm dowloading the lite edition and I'm looking more for performance than anything else. I was running xubuntu, but hopefully this will give me a better performance.

    I agree that filezilla I would prefer though

  7. Guillermo wrote,

    Your distro is amazing man! Keep up the good work! Perfect balance between usability, speed and looks!

  8. Bizo wrote,

    I am still waiting for next months' edition of Linux Format (Oct) I saw the cover and it's on their cover dvd. I am so anxious… I really am exited over this. Proprietary stuff like mp3 codec and adobe that is cool if you are like me and you don't have all the bandwidth in the world. Congratulations to all the good guys out there writing code, developing the next best and biggest computing innovations and technologies! You guys rock!!

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