#!CrunchBang Linux: Flash! Bang! Wallop! What A Distro!

IT'S easy to ignore the tide of Linux distributions based on Ubuntu - there are just so many of them and you wonder what yet another could possibly be offering that is not already offered elsewhere.

I almost fell into that trap with #!CrunchBang Linux 8.10.01, which henceforth shall be known as CB (otherwise this review will take me all weekend!).

Thank goodness I didn't just walk on by.

Why didn't I? I think it was that intriguing logo/name combination and the promise of a distribution which married the speed of the Openbox window manager to the solid foundations of Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex.

Then I began checking out the CB website and forum, which are darkly, stylishly minimalist - and I do like my dark, stylish minimalism.

These are still early days in the life of CB, as evidenced by the small number of posts on the forum - but if you take the trouble to read them, you will see the kind of friendly, helpful, community spirit that some distributions seem to lose once they attain widespread popularity.

The fact that so many of the posts are positive is also a very good sign for such a young project.

While browsing around the forum I noticed the man behind CB, who goes by the nickname 'corenominal', is actually Philip Newborough from Lincoln, England - and I do also like my English Linux distributions, being of that national persuasion myself.

CB appeared recently on the Distrowatch 'new distro' list and now has its own page, where it is described thus:

"CrunchBang Linux is an Ubuntu-based distribution featuring the lightweight Openbox window manager and GTK+ applications. The distribution has been built from a minimal Ubuntu system and customised to offer a good balance of speed and functionality. CrunchBang Linux is currently available as a live CD; however, the best performance is achieved by installing it to a hard disk."

A very rapid, 800kbps-plus download later (get CB here) I had said live CD in my clammy mitt, ready to give it a go... and it turned out to be the best decision I made all weekend (mind you, there weren't many others - Eggs and bacon or cereal? Tea or coffee? Walk in the park or snooze?).

I will say one thing for Philip Newborough, he is consistent and thorough. CB retains a crisp, stylish look from boot screen to desktop to website to forum - no frills or fuss, just clear, stylish design choices throughout. Full marks.I ran the live CD - and subsequent HDD install - on my Pentium 3.4GHz test machine which has 1024MB of RAM, an NVidia 9500GTS Super graphics card with 512MB of dedicated RAM, an 80GB test partition, twin DVD/DVDRW drives, wired ethernet and an Acer AL1912, 19inch LCD capable of 1280x1024 resolution.

The live CD does pretty much what Ubuntu 8.10 does in live CD mode, only it does it much more quickly thanks to that Openbox/GTK+ combination.

And crucially for me, the out-of-the-box multimedia capability of CB is much better as all the necessary codecs/plugins/decoders are included in the default setup.

This last point alone makes CB worth investigating further, in my opinion. Which brings me to the HDD install and the real meat of this review.

CB uses the Ubuntu installer, which makes perfect sense as it works flawlessly every time I use it. It detected the Linux Mint partition I also have on my machine and added it to the GRUB boot menu for me, which is always a comfort.

A gentle word of warning here. Before you run CB for the first time post-install, turn your speakers down a wee bit because if you don't, the login screen system sound - kind of a sci-fi lasery whoosh - will make you jump!

Post-install I found my sound and LCD monitor correctly configured and my wired broadband access automatically running. I used the Restricted Drivers utility found in the System menu to install the (recommended) Nvidia 3D driver, version 177, which worked fine after a restart (although I didn't get the expected Nvidia splash screen prior to the CB login appearing).I've banged on a lot so far about how stylish CB is, but it's also about content. The default applications list is too long for me to reproduce here, but the highlights include, by category:

Internet: Firefox, Claws email, Liferea feed reader, gFTP, Deluge bittorrent, Skype, XChat, Gwibber microblogging client, Pidgin, Network tools

Office: Abiword, Gnumeric, Evince document reader, gEdit

Graphics: GIMP, Inkscape, GPicView, Agave palette designer, Specimen font previewer, Fonty Python, Xsane

Sound and video: Totem, Rhythmbox, Audacity, PiTiVi video editor, Kino, Cheese

Tools: Brasero, Orage, Thunar file manager, 3x terminal emulators, File roller

The System menu provides most of the Ubuntu options minus, I'm sorry to say, the option to create a USB pendrive version of CB - I have posted a query about this on the CB forum, because it would make a fantastic option: CB's Ubuntu heritage but with all the speed of Openbox, all on a USB stick.

The Preferences menu is way more interesting than the System menu, because it's here that you find a number of GUI applications which enable you to configure Openbox quickly and easily.

You can switch on compositing for some minimalist desktop effects with just one click, you can edit your Conky.rc file (Conky is switched on by default and includes a list of handy keyboard shortcut combinations) and there are links to wallpaper and screensaver configurations.

The Openbox configuration GUI is a joy to use and there are a staggering 107 themes - yes, 107, I counted them - which surely provides enough choice for even the fussiest of users. CB also includes the User Interface panel from the XFCE desktop environment, though I found this to be a little buggy, particular when I used it to change my system fonts (which are too small by default - 8pt Sans).Let me run you through CB's multimedia performance quickly - and there's a very good reason for it being quick, because everything just works.

I was able to play MP3s and CDs with Rhythmbox, watch an .AVI format video in Totem, view YouTube, Apple movie trailers and BBC streams in Firefox 3.0 and watch DVDs with Totem.On this last point, watching DVDs, I did get an error message which I have since found out has affected other users - there's a forum post on it here.

It didn't stop the DVD from playing, but I was not able to fast-forward the movie or select from a chapter list in the Totem sidebar. Personally, I prefer VLC or SMplayer to Totem but for now I'm sticking with the original applications to retain CB's default setup for a few days longer.

Should you want to change your applications, Synaptic is included, along with Ubuntu's massive repositories, and of course you are always able to maintain your system from the commandline with a quick 'apt-get' or 'aptitude'.One thing that is missing from CB, however, that features in Intrepid Ibex is the new version of Network Manager, so there is no immediately obvious way of, for example, managing mobile broadband dongles. (EDIT: My oversight - Network Manager can be found by right-clicking on the network icon (two tiny PCs) in the panel, from which you can configure mobile broadband and other network connections by selecting 'Edit connections'. This config box can also be started from a terminal - just type 'sudo nm-connection-editor' . My apologies for the oversight - and thanks to ShaqArif on the #! forum for putting me straight.)

The final thing I would like to remark on is the blazing speed of CB: The Openbox desktop loads in 3 seconds - honestly - and applications are not far behind, either loaded via the right-click menu or via the shortcut key combinations.

It's a very stable distribution, too, which you would expect with its heritage but remember - this is also a very young distribution, so kudos to Philip Newborough for that.

I would be happy to run CB on a production machine - that's the confidence an Ubuntu base system brings, I suppose - and shall certainly be keeping a close eye on this exciting young distribution in the future. I happily recommend it to you.