The Beginning.

tknomanzr · 2015-02-08 12:13:19

pvsage wrote:

^ So far, it looks like different DEs handle gtk2/gtk3 differently. Cinnamon doesn't seem to handle gtk2 at all; XFCE does a fair job. MATE is more consistent across the board, but doesn't have the scope of tweaking available for gtk2 themes in LXDE.
EDIT: Standalone Openbox, without well-written obconf.xml and menu.xml, is right out. Might as well be flying blind there...though the Openbox config files in Waldorf offer a good roadmap.

Not fully tweaked to my liking but I am posting this on an openbox Jessie netinstall. At this point a very rough draft but it's doable. Wireless in the netinstall was a pain though, which leads me to realize one the of things #! offered was some non-free repos from the start. I know it's not the Debian way but it sure simplifies stuff.

Time · 2015-02-08 12:29:17

A week ago I installed Debian Gnome + Openbox,
using a small part of CrunchBang packages (many are no longer needed).
I liked. Will soon be home to make a screenshots.

Last edited by Time (2015-02-08 12:29:51)

hhh · 2015-02-08 12:34:16

tknomanzr wrote:

Wireless in the netinstall was a pain though, which leads me to realize one the of things #! offered was some non-free repos from the start. I know it's not the Debian way but it sure simplifies stuff.

So use the "unofficial" non-free images Debian provides...
http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unoff … ly-builds/
<edit>your architecure>iso-cd>either firmware-Jessie-DI-rc1-i386-netinst.iso or firmware-testing-i386-netinst.iso and change sources to jessie after the install (unless you want to track testing)</edit>

@pvsage, what are you talking about w/ re: gtk theming? If you have Adwaita or Greybird selected as a theme, Cinammon doesn't theme gtk2 apps? Xfce doesn't theme gtk3 apps? I'm missing something...

Last edited by hhh (2015-02-08 12:38:29)

Zill · 2015-02-08 12:53:58

MATE has its advantages as it is a fine DE based on "old-fashioned" Gnome 2. However, Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) already offers MATE with a Debian base and so a "new" CrunchBang based on this would simply be another "me too" distro that would have nothing new to offer.

IMHO, one of the best features of CrunchBang is that it is fully-featured and yet still light enough on system resources to run well on older and/or low-powered hardware. This is a great "USP" that I believe we should retain with the new distro. LMDE is good but it is definitely not as light as CrunchBang!

Incidentally, LMDE is shortly to move from a semi-rolling Debian Testing base to the new Debian Stable (Jessie) base.

HELPME · 2015-02-08 13:01:26

why do we need a desktop environment?
cant we just make it all up from scratch as we go along? (lfs/dfs)
or this http://live.debian.net/
or this https://www.debian.org/CD/netinst/

also what are the goals?
.community-driven
.configurable
.lightweight
.stable
.foss

Last edited by HELPME (2015-02-09 04:02:06)

intoCB · 2015-02-08 13:07:31

Zill wrote:

MATE with a Debian base and so a "new" CrunchBang based on this would simply be another "me too" distro that would have nothing new to offer.

Just use Debian with MATE. No need for a new distro. Do people have an aversion to Debian?

hhh · 2015-02-08 13:30:12

intoCB wrote:

Do people have an aversion to Debian?

Debian provides too many choices for most people. You can't just link to the non-official images, for example...
http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unoff … -firmware/

... because then they still have to know that there's no Live build for jessie yet, or that weekly-builds will bring them to the jessie ISOs, then do I need an iso-cd or a jigdo-cd, and then "what are these files here"?

#! has Option A / Option B, done.

Last edited by hhh (2015-02-08 13:31:04)

Time · 2015-02-08 13:48:12

Unofficial non-free CDs including firmware packages not always work properly.
For example, after installing the system, you can only see a black screen.

chillicampari · 2015-02-08 14:01:14

ohnonot wrote:

...
Actually, this could become a point for me to start contributing in a more serious way.
I don't know; I don't want to advertise myself here, but where would be the place to knock on the door?

I think a lot of things will be playing by ear, but if you can, try to be in the IRC meeting twoion is putting together here:

http://crunchbang.org/forums/viewtopic.php?pid=417129

pvsage · 2015-02-08 14:30:36

tknomanzr wrote:

Not fully tweaked to my liking but I am posting this on an openbox Jessie netinstall. At this point a very rough draft but it's doable. Wireless in the netinstall was a pain though, which leads me to realize one the of things #! offered was some non-free repos from the start. I know it's not the Debian way but it sure simplifies stuff.

Time wrote:

A week ago I installed Debian Gnome + Openbox,
using a small part of CrunchBang packages (many are no longer needed).
I liked. Will soon be home to make a screenshots.

Great stuff tknomanzr & Time!

hhh wrote:

@pvsage, what are you talking about w/ re: gtk theming? If you have Adwaita or Greybird selected as a theme, Cinammon doesn't theme gtk2 apps? Xfce doesn't theme gtk3 apps? I'm missing something...

Will post scrots soon. Need sleep now. Short version is as much as I appreciate the work you've done on crunchy-dark-gray, I'm trying to find a DE that makes it redundant by letting the user adjust colors of all applications on the fly, yet still has the lightweight feel of CrunchBang. (Of course KDE has the customization, but that typically comes with bloat...unless you strip the bloat or selectively build from brass tacks.)

EDIT: In other news, I found out a little while ago that the vertical sync problem in the Nouveau driver has been fixed; Jessie doesn't need the proprietary Nvidia drivers for tear-free video anymore.

Last edited by pvsage (2015-02-08 14:42:57)

El Cruncho · 2015-02-08 14:56:57

HELPME wrote:

why do we need a desktop environment?
cant we just make it all up from scratch as we go along? (lfs/dfs)
or this http://live.debian.net/
or this https://www.debian.org/CD/netinst/
also what are the goals?
.community-driven
.configurable
.lightweight
.foss

I like that. As for lfs/dfs vs netistall (aka vanilla debian), for a beginner like me I'd go vanilla.

So what is left is (in that order):
- Openbox install (I think there's a quick guide on Debian)
- Tint2 install
- Conky install
- Wifi config
- Maybe some other default system software, like for screenshots
- From there, the software choice is up to each user.
- The appearance: just copy/paste your config from your CB distro (hopefully it's that simple)
Done. Or am I supposedly missing something? Probably some other hardware compatibility tweaks.

Oh, and I suppose that the liveCD thing is to make it easy to install it again already configured, right?

One last thing: when it comes to updating to the next stable Debian, am I supposed to start all over again (like reinstalling the home partition and starting the process all over again every 6 months or every year)?

As for the community support, maybe a new branch in the debian forums makes sense. But it doesn't feel weird to keep this forum and this name, or another if Corenominal is THAT much against it. I suppose that the name referencing isn't such a big issue anyway. So another independent forum could be a possibility too, but what for? A guide for a specific debian install, and the support for it, that's pretty much it, if I'm not mistaken.

Last edited by El Cruncho (2015-02-08 15:02:47)

th3pun15h3r · 2015-02-08 14:59:03

Remember there was a xfce version of crunchbang, a lot of user-friendly gui tools. Can still have a right click menu and shortcut keys, conky, no desktop shortcuts, or you can add shortcuts a menu start button. Also I think there might be a window aerosnap up to 4 windows, (there was a ubuntu ppa for it I use to use when I used linux lite for a time). Oh and builtin composite effects optional as well.

El Cruncho · 2015-02-08 15:04:44

At first I thought it was Debian xfce, not Crunchbange xfce you were talking about, #! Die Hard. I suppose getting Debian xfce and removing useless stuff (to each user's judgement) can be a possibility). I guess it feels better to me to start fresh and add up a limited amount of stuff.

Last edited by El Cruncho (2015-02-08 15:09:23)

HELPME · 2015-02-08 15:38:59

I suggest lime to replace geany as the default editor because it kind of suits the aesthetics.
http://limetext.org/

pvsage · 2015-02-08 21:08:47

Haven't really slept much, but had a bit more of a dig into using Openbox & LXDE. As one would expect, there's an lxsession config file that can be edited, which is where LXPanel would be removed.

Here's a couple screenshots of Cinnamon and LXDE, the latter illustrating how LXAppearance handles gtk2 recoloring with LXSession running.

direct links

intoCB · 2015-02-08 21:13:38

^That looks really good.

Time · 2015-02-08 22:00:30

pvsage wrote:

tknomanzr wrote:
Not fully tweaked to my liking but I am posting this on an openbox Jessie netinstall. At this point a very rough draft but it's doable. Wireless in the netinstall was a pain though, which leads me to realize one the of things #! offered was some non-free repos from the start. I know it's not the Debian way but it sure simplifies stuff.
Time wrote:
A week ago I installed Debian Gnome + Openbox,
using a small part of CrunchBang packages (many are no longer needed).
I liked. Will soon be home to make a screenshots.
Great stuff tknomanzr & Time!
hhh wrote:
@pvsage, what are you talking about w/ re: gtk theming? If you have Adwaita or Greybird selected as a theme, Cinammon doesn't theme gtk2 apps? Xfce doesn't theme gtk3 apps? I'm missing something...
Will post scrots soon. Need sleep now. Short version is as much as I appreciate the work you've done on crunchy-dark-gray, I'm trying to find a DE that makes it redundant by letting the user adjust colors of all applications on the fly, yet still has the lightweight feel of CrunchBang. (Of course KDE has the customization, but that typically comes with bloat...unless you strip the bloat or selectively build from brass tacks.)
EDIT: In other news, I found out a little while ago that the vertical sync problem in the Nouveau driver has been fixed; Jessie doesn't need the proprietary Nvidia drivers for tear-free video anymore.

Screenshots are ready. I ask all here http://crunchbang.org/forums/viewtopic.php?id=38947 wink

tknomanzr · 2015-02-08 22:03:34

Ill go ahead and put this here for now, though it may end up my screenshot for the month:

This is Vanilla Debian installed from a very basic netinstall. I did this the Arch waay and intentionally landed at the shell and built up from there. This is an openbox implementation that does not use ANY #! scripts but does use most of my previous config files to save me some work. Once I get the time and get my thoughts sorted out, likely later this evening, I will attempt to document the journey.

This looks pretty much the same as my recent arch install and is what my #! Animal install looks like as well. Im still not 100% done configuring it all but then I wasn't with #!Animal before this all went down.
some variances from stock openbox:

I could not get pnmixer to compile. wxwidgets has been in a huge state of flux lately it seems. I ended up with volumeicon-alsa linked to terminal based alsamixer for the time being.
Terminal is Sakura because that's what I have been using lately
I don't yet have a calendar linked into the clock app in tint2
File manager is pcmanfm, once again because that is what I have been using
You can't see it in this scrot but the menu is stripped down to the bare bones atm
I don't have dmenu and gmrun installed yet

Also, I have been having sporadic name resolution problems even though I am pointed to opendns servers. It is something that only seems to be affecting this install, so I will need to look into it some more.

Final Edit:
This install is very light-weight atm, weighing in at roughly 322mb with 2 browser tabs open. I think it is roughly equivalent to #! though I likely did not start using --no-install-recommends early enough.

Last edited by tknomanzr (2015-02-08 22:08:36)

porkpiehat · 2015-02-08 22:08:59

I really hate to admit this, but I have to say that pvsage is the only one I have seen actually do anything useful, and the one who has come up with the best and most workable idea for the future of #!. The "soul" of #! is the menus and themes (the rest of it is just Debian stable, admit it). A meta package, a tarball, or a post-install script could make #! out of any Debian netinstall.

johnraff · 2015-02-08 23:01:40

@porkpiehat agreed. Graphics are really at the centre, and pvsage has put his finger on it.
Tweaking that stuff is not my forte unfortunately, but I really appreciate a nice-looking interface.

Meanwhile I can play with scripts, packaging...

PsynoKhi0 · 2015-02-08 23:50:09

May I suggest a different approach?
A modular post-install script to configure a minimal system to replicate #!'s look and feel. Each module would apply to different base distros, e.g. Debian current, Ubuntu LTS, Centos 7, Arch (might be able to get the ArchBang peeps onboard), openSUSE 13.1 etc.
Sounds to me like less of a hassle to maintain.

tknomanzr · 2015-02-09 00:01:39

pvsage wrote:

^ So far, it looks like different DEs handle gtk2/gtk3 differently. Cinnamon doesn't seem to handle gtk2 at all; XFCE does a fair job. MATE is more consistent across the board, but doesn't have the scope of tweaking available for gtk2 themes in LXDE.
EDIT: Standalone Openbox, without well-written obconf.xml and menu.xml, is right out. Might as well be flying blind there...though the Openbox config files in Waldorf offer a good roadmap.

This is true Openbox OOTB is either extremely basic or in Arch's case extremely ugly. However, as you said, we have a good base for theming it already. Whether folks agree or disagree with my theming choices is of no matter. What does matter is it is easy enough to move the configs in from whatever theming you prefer...even #! stock and go from there.

tknomanzr · 2015-02-09 00:06:56

hhh wrote:

intoCB wrote:
Do people have an aversion to Debian?
Debian provides too many choices for most people. You can't just link to the non-official images, for example...
http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unoff … -firmware/
... because then they still have to know that there's no Live build for jessie yet, or that weekly-builds will bring them to the jessie ISOs, then do I need an iso-cd or a jigdo-cd, and then "what are these files here"?
#! has Option A / Option B, done.

Right and thanks for the info. I had no idea I could pull an install version down with non-free firmware, even after carefully reading the wiki for a few hours yesterday before I launched into a new install. I will most likely redo the install at some point with this option and also try to slim it down further by being more careful about pulling in unecessary packages.

xskoulax · 2015-02-09 00:29:13

I think probably the most important thing moving forward, be that spinning up a distro with the same goals, or getting a crunchy install option in Debian itself, or whatever is that we maintain what I consider CrunchBang's greatest achievement the community it has fostered. I have seen it stated plenty on IRC that people "came for the distro and stayed for the community."

Whatever path is taken to move forward, maintaining continuity of this community should be a planned objective.

pvsage · 2015-02-09 08:40:52

porkpiehat wrote:

I really hate to admit this, but I have to say that pvsage is the only one I have seen actually do anything useful, and the one who has come up with the best and most workable idea for the future of #!. The "soul" of #! is the menus and themes (the rest of it is just Debian stable, admit it). A meta package, a tarball, or a post-install script could make #! out of any Debian netinstall.

I really hate to agree with you, but you're right, and to be fair, I haven't done much.

CrunchBang Linux

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#51 2015-02-08 12:13:19

Re: The Beginning.

#52 2015-02-08 12:29:17

Re: The Beginning.

#53 2015-02-08 12:34:16

Re: The Beginning.

#54 2015-02-08 12:53:58

Re: The Beginning.

#55 2015-02-08 13:01:26

Re: The Beginning.

#56 2015-02-08 13:07:31

Re: The Beginning.

#57 2015-02-08 13:30:12

Re: The Beginning.

#58 2015-02-08 13:48:12

Re: The Beginning.

#59 2015-02-08 14:01:14

Re: The Beginning.

#60 2015-02-08 14:30:36

Re: The Beginning.

#61 2015-02-08 14:56:57

Re: The Beginning.

#62 2015-02-08 14:59:03

Re: The Beginning.

#63 2015-02-08 15:04:44

Re: The Beginning.

#64 2015-02-08 15:38:59

Re: The Beginning.

#65 2015-02-08 21:08:47

Re: The Beginning.

#66 2015-02-08 21:13:38

Re: The Beginning.

#67 2015-02-08 22:00:30

Re: The Beginning.

#68 2015-02-08 22:03:34

Re: The Beginning.

#69 2015-02-08 22:08:59

Re: The Beginning.

#70 2015-02-08 23:01:40

Re: The Beginning.

#71 2015-02-08 23:50:09

Re: The Beginning.

#72 2015-02-09 00:01:39

Re: The Beginning.

#73 2015-02-09 00:06:56

Re: The Beginning.

#74 2015-02-09 00:29:13

Re: The Beginning.

#75 2015-02-09 08:40:52

Re: The Beginning.

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