CrunchBang - Code, Design & GNU/Linux

CrunchBang Linux 8.04.02 Release Notes

Update: CrunchBang Linux 8.10.01 is out now!
See: http://crunchbanglinux.org/wiki/release-notes/8.10.01

I have released a couple of new images for my CrunchBang Linux project. This new release brings CrunchBang Linux up-to-date with packages available from the 8.04.01 point release of Ubuntu. The new images have been completely rebuilt from scratch and feature a whole bunch of changes.

What's new?

• As stated above, all packages from the Ubuntu repositories have been updated to bring them in-line with Ubuntu 8.04.01. Most notably, Firefox 3 is no-longer beta software and a couple of well-known security vulnerabilities have been patched.

• Openbox has been updated to the latest version. See Openbox:Changelog for more information.

• An alternative XFCE4 desktop environment is available from the GDM login screen. It has been set-up to behave identically [well, near enough] to the default Openbox session. e.g. right-click menus, shortcut keys etc. This new feature is currently being guinea pigged by Becky the Linux user.

• Both the Openbox and XFCE4 sessions use the XFCE4 Settings Manager. This adds some overhead to the Openbox session, but also provides a solution to the problem of gnome-settings-daemon overriding users settings when invoked by accident — there are a surprising number of applications which invoke gnome-settings-daemon for no obvious reason.

• ROX-Filer has been replaced by Thunar as the default file manager; the thunar-volman package now handles auto mounting of devices. This is a huge improvement over the previous release, which used Ivman.

• A new "Lite" image has been made available. This image features the same Openbox and XFCE4 environments, but does not have the plethora of applications available in the full image. Hopefully, this new image will go a long way to satisfying requests to remove applications. The Lite image comes in at approximately 403M, making it significantly smaller than the standard image at approximately 633M.

• An alternative installation method. CrunchBang Linux can now be built from a minimal "CLI" installation of Ubuntu.

• Numerous other tweaks and changes, including but not limited to:

  • A new Usplash theme.
  • New GDM theme.
  • Xarchiver replaced by File Roller.
  • GnomeBaker removed in favour of Brasero.
  • Terminator now set as the default terminal emulator.
  • RealPlayer plugins enabled by default.
  • OSMO replaced by Orage.
  • Et cetera.

Download locations

As always, CrunchBang Linux has been developed for my personal use; however, everyone is free to download and use as they see fit. If you do decide to download, please pay special attention to the disclaimer, which basically states, "if you brick your system, do not come running to me."

For download locations, see: CrunchBang Linux 8.04.02 Download Locations. For the alternative installation instructions, see: CrunchBang Linux 8.04.02 Alternative Installation.

Screenshots

Some screenshots of CrunchBang Linux 8.04.02 in action, click on the thumbnails for larger images.

Becky the Linux user

Last night I installed Linux on Becky's laptop. I have been trying to persuade Becky to give Linux a go for a while, but until now, she had been quite content with using Windows XP. Then, last night, when Becky asked me to create a backup of her collection of digital photos and music, I took the opportunity to ask her [again] if she thought it was about time she dropped her ageing Windows XP installation in favour of modern Linux desktop. To my surprise, she agreed.

So, I created a backup of Becky's data and proceeded to install my latest remastered version Ubuntu. I could of installed a vanilla Ubuntu install, but I wanted her first real experience of Linux to be as smooth as possible. Once the installation had completed, I restored Becky's data and handed back her laptop; she powered it up and proceeded to go about her business.

I waited for the comments and questions, but they never came. As it turned out, I actually ended up pestering her to show her a few things; we had a play with entering a few terminal commands and installing the odd package. Finally, Becky reluctantly said, "It's quite good".

Result :)

moosplash — for all the cow lovers…

…I give to you a cowsay inspired USplash theme.

Not digging Flash? Then by the power of cow, view the ogg format.

Download and installation instructions for Ubuntu are available on my wiki. Enjoy :)

TerminatorToo

The Terminator is great. Terminator 2 is arguable greater. This Terminator is also great, as is this Terminator, probably, although I have never tried it.

2 projects, 1 name, an annoying issue which I would not wish on anyone. Unfortunately though, for Chris Jones of this Terminator project, it is an issue; an annoying issue which is probably compounded due to the fact that the other Terminator project is also a terminal emulator.

I feel for Chris as he is faced with 2 options, leave the name as is [and forever field questions from muppets like myself], or, change the project name. To be honest, I would not imagine either option is overly appealing; still, if I were to put myself in Chris' shoes, I think I would be inclined to change the name sooner, rather than later. I would do it for the following reasons:

• Respect for what came before, after all, is it not the Ubuntu way?
• Firebirdfox did it, although ultimately the project failed.
• My mum's mum's mum used to say, "A change is as good as a rest."

Having now committed to letting Chris know what to do, it would be remiss of me to spout all this nonsense without coming up a serious contender for a suitably catchy alternative name. So, I was thinking, what about TerminatorToo? Disregarding the silly pun, it would have the advantage of users not having to mentally relearn keystrokes when typing into any tab-completion enabled environments. Just a thought.

Finally, all testiculating aside, I am interested to know what you would do if you found yourself in this situation? Of course, I am speculating, but I think Chris would be interested too.

Terminator Terminal Emulator

There has been a lot of talk over the last month or so about Terminator. This week I have finally managed to pull my finger out and have a play with it. I had not bothered before now due to the fact that previous releases had depended on gnome-terminal; however, the latest release has dropped the gnome-terminal dependency and can now be configured via a simple config file located at ~/.config/terminator/config

I am totally impressed with Terminator. For anyone who has not heard [is there anyone?], the main advantage to using Terminator is its ability to split the screen into multiple terminals. The advantages this brings were made immediately obvious to me as I attempted to customise the look and feel of my new terminal window; in this screenshot I have the manual page open for terminator_config while editing my new config file. Good stuff.

The latests 0.9 release can be grabbed from the PPA for Terminator on Launchpad.