My wife owns a Linux Asus Eee 701 from when they first hit the market and we really like it. She bought me the WinXP version shortly thereafter and I hated it, but did not know how to install a Linux OS on it. After about a year of letting the WinXP Eee collect dust, I used Google to find forums with the info I needed. I found others using CrunchBang without any problems so I learned how to make a bootable SD of it and installed it over the WinXP, that was about a year ago. I’m so happy with it, thanks to all!

Nice job on the review, I just thought I would add my opinion in here. I’m a university student and so with money being tight I had to sell my high powered gaming machine (running Sabayon with Wine for games) and bought a cheap, old, used machine. I have been running Xubuntu on it just because I knew it would always work and would be light enough for my machine. I haven’t always enjoyed my Xubuntu experience and so I am always on the lookout for a new distro which is light and will work better. Crunchbang seemed like a good candidate and so after backing up my data I decided to brave the install. I found that everything was good except for 2 things which were show stoppers for me. I am unfortunately back in Xubuntu until something better shows up.
The 2 show stoppers for me were the fact that the menu in Cruchbang was very daunting for a relative Linux noob like myself. Basic things like Firefox are easily identified but when you get into system configuration programs the names are just so daunting and I found it frightened me to go into these things for fear of wrecking my system. A more noob friendly menu might be a nice addition to a future release. The second show stopper, and the biggest thing, was that it required me to create my own shortcuts to programs I installed. Yes, I know that Crunchbang has most programs installed by default that a user would need, or at least it has a substitute for what a user is used to, but when I tried to install any other program that I wanted, I had to manually create my own shortcuts which, after trying to do the first one, I gave up. If I really put my mind to it and bothered people on forums, I could have done it, but I don’t have the time or desire to do that. If I am to be running Linux it ought to be easy enough for me to figure out what to do myself. With Windows, sure it has it’s many problems which is why I refuse to run it but I always make my comparisons to it and it’s user friendliness. Someone who has never touched a computer in their life could easily figure out what to do in a Windows system. If Linux wants to compete with Windows and attract users, it MUST learn to do that.
I love the idea of a minimalist system so that people with older machines, like myself, can run them without getting annoyed at the speed, but something has to change with the user friendliness.

Hi, #! is perfect for netbooks. I use it on my eee 901 its one of the fastest booting fully featured distros. Its great use of hotkeys to start applications is perfect for the small screen and much neater than fiddling with a mouse. Puppy is also good on small screens but IMHO it lack the novel approach of #! and am I right in thinking that the ubuntu repositories are more extensive than puppys? Because many people use #! on netbooks and older pcs and probably choose it because of its slickness and speed the use of abiword over ooffice is, I think, right.

Martin

Guess I need to try #! on my Fujitsu Lifebook P1120 – much in need of a minimal requirements distro. Puppy runs pretty well (eye candy and all), but I would like the greater package choices of the Ubuntu repositories. Also, the lack of Open Office as a default attracts me even more. As pointed out, it can be easily obtained and added on after the fact if wanted, but I already have it with Linux Mint 7 and gOS 3.1 on my more powerful PC’s, so no need for that expansive duplication on something as limited as the P1120 (240 MB, 800 Mhz Crusoe that seems more equivalent to about a 400 Mhz Intel CPU). Keeping it light as an “original” netbook (from long before that term was coined) is imperative.

RO

The best “minimalist” system uses careful planing to avoid losing functionality. No mean trick. Puppy comes close save for its “run as root” thing. Can’t comment on Antix, have not looked at it.

Given the size of the repos CrunchBang can access it seems to me users can stock their own toolboxes as they choose. After all, my bloat is your gotta have.

Nice to choose, it seems to me. So I vote for a pretty lean base install and an ability to build from there.

Your reviews are among the best. Well-written.
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Puppy is a popular distro, but runs as root. Please, if you do review Puppy from the standpoint of a typical desktop user, describe why typical web surfers should be running as root.

There is a safety factor associated with running from CD or from a poor-man’s install (assuming the system is rebooted often). However, saving user configuration would seem to defeat the extra safety factor. And saving config, especially with the FF3 bookmark system and for web surfers using addons such as noscript or nosquint or cookiesafe, is a huge convenience that many would not want to forgo. Or maybe not… I’ll be interested in your opinion.
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When someone says “Bloat”, he is often talking about features that I want, whether OO, KDE, Gnome, or FF. The “Members Choice” voters on Linuxquestions.org would seem to agree.

Crunchbang is also great for netbooks because of two main factors:-

1. A fast boot time (27s on my eee901)
2. The use of hotkeys to launch programs. This is much easier than fiddling with a mouse cursor on a small screen.

Martin

Hi Jim.

Just wanted to say “Kudos” for a great review of #!. I’m using the 64bit version of 9.04.01 on a laptop, and it flies. I think what swings it for me is just what the previous poster said, all the advantages of Ubuntu (or most of them anyway) without the bloat!

Also, been using antiX for a while now, on several machines. Great little distro and i’d love to see you review sometime if you get the chance? It’s quite a bit snappier than #! and has a great community.

Now i’m off to read a few more of your reviews.

Cheers…. DJiNN

Jim Lynch wrote:

Thanks for the comment, windmonger. I’ll add Puppy and Antix to my list for later review.

That would be most welcome, Jim. I just wanted to add that CrunchBang’s minimalist design is quite refreshing and it is more user-friendly than my foregoing comments tended to suggest. In fact I have installed it as my second platform after Ubuntu Netbook Remix 9.04, replacing Mandriva 2009 Spring KDE.

As for Puppy Linux, I have installed it at various times in the past, only to wipe it off my hard drive each time. Although it offers booth speed and good looks, Puppy Linux was less than a joy to use because there’s no way to uninstall the bundled applications (the files are read-only) and saving wifi settings became a major irritant. With CrunchBang at least, one has a great deal more control over the system.

windmonger wrote:

…however, could have been more balanced if you had discussed the downside. … To cite two examples, one cannot display programmes or launchers on the desktop and configuring the menu isn’t exactly a cinch.

Soory, I have to disagree here. Being a windows-user mostly, my first attempts to Linux were KDE-based, because the ease of configuring things. Now Crunchbang is the first lightweight distro , which I think is really uncomplicated, because you 1.) have quick access to config-files via the right-click menus and even a Gui-Menueditor. 2.)First releases (8.04/8.10)had LXPanel installed, which is now replaced by tint2 (i think…). I still use LXPanel with 9.04, because of the self-updating menu. To add this affords just a few clicks.
Having used CBang for some months now, i miss the right-click menu as well in windows as in other Linuxes…
PS: I like unclutterd desktops – so its fine for me to have no launchers there, but start programs with 2 keystrokes!