CrunchBang 9.04.01

Has anyone tried the (still unofficial) #! CrunchBang 9.04 release on their Aspire One yet and if so, how does it work?

 

Well, I just installed and tried it myself and it doesn't seem there are any improvements in boot-up times and speed performance in general compared to the 8.10 version. Boot time's around 50-60 seconds without any tweaking and that just doesn't cut it in this day and age for a distro that's supposed to be light and fast. As for layout, a new system tray panel (bmpanel) is now default. Unfortunately the panel feels quite rigid unless you don't mind editing XML documents and scripts yourself. For those who feel more comfortable with point-and-click GUIs rather than to open documents for adding/removing/editing applications manually, it's harder now than with the previous 8.10. Personally, I don't mind editing documents, but the change of panel seems rather peculiar to me since it doesn't seem the user's gaining anything from the switch, quite the contrary actually.

All in all I'm pretty disappointed with the unofficial version of CrunchBang 9.04. There really isn't anything to write home about in my opinion (maybe I'm wrong though, I only tried it for two hours before uninstalling it again). I do hope the official release will be somehow significantly different both in ease-of-use and especially performance wise, but I highly doubt it.

 

50-60 seconds?! Youch :/ with the 8.10 release I'm getting about a 25 second boot on my A150, and that's without any tweaks

 

Maybe one still has to load SickBoy's kernel to optimize CrunchBang. Worked for me with 8.10, increased boot considerably and made everything work.

 

Yeah, it very well could be, Reno. But the thing is, neither Sarte's nor Sickboy's kernels work with the new Atom N280 processor and the GN40 chipset so for D150 users and newer it's not an option. For users with Atom N270 and the older chipset it will surely decrease boot times significantly using one of the above mentioned kernels. I can verify this because my spouse owns the older model with the Atom N270 and she's using the Kuki kernel with boot times around 30 seconds.

Also, in my previous post I forgot to clarify that my boot times were measured from cold boot until wireless connection. To be fair, most boot times were closer to 50 seconds than 60 now when I think about it, so maybe it also had something to do with my wireless network when testing. Still CrunchBang and all other operating systems up until now feel sloooow after one has experienced the new Moblin v. 2.0 beta. Now there's a fast OS if there ever was one.

 

Although tailored distros have some appeal, the main issue I believe is that so far no Linux distro supports all the hardware fully except Linpus which is, unfortunately, just about the suckiest distro out there.

I have Jaunty with a self-compiled kernel (Sickboy's was good but didn't support 3G cards so wasn't much use to me) and it runs fine. Cutting down the distro has limited value as my One runs fine like this. The only real issue I face is that the RH card reader only works if a card is inserted at boot time and even then sometimes crashes my machine completely requiring me to press the power button until it cuts the power - not good.

I applaud the efforts of the tailored distro teams but in my opinion they are on a hiding to nothing. If all the hardware is not supported then the benefits of a tailored distro are very small. The other main problem is that people underestimate the enormous amount of work required to produce a Linux distro, even if it is aimed at a single machine and based on an existing distro. One specialist distro for the One has already bitten the dust. Another looks like it is having trouble recruiting enough developers. I really don't see any lasting that long. For all these reasons, I think it makes more sense to focus effort on kernel development and getting all the hardware working. After that, use Xubuntu if you want a lightweight distro.

I am sorry to be so negative about the specialist distros, I do admire the dedication of the small number of individuals working on them, but I think they are on a hiding to nothing.

 

Pretty negative prediction lotus49.
I think there are enough AA1's out there, that someone will pick up the ball if some else drops it. I don't mind switching distro's as long as one of them works for me. So far, for me it's CrunchBang with Sickboy's kernel. I could just as easily switch to Kuki or Moblin or Linux4One or Sidux or Android or whatever works with as few glitches as possible. Almost anything is better than the sad support for Linpus Lite or giving in to the dark side and running XP. The Acer company sure isn't any help. There is however a pretty big Linux community that is a huge help. Even if it is ragtag at times and a little convoluted. It's like we (the Linux community) are the "Rebel" forces trying to maintain some form of sanity against the huge wave of "Imperial" domination.

 

I have been running Crunchbang 9.04.01 on my A150 since its unofficial release. I upgraded from 8.10 and running Sarvatt's kernel 2.6.30-rc3-atom. No issues, but I've done a lot of tweaking and a few upgrades to my system. Everything works and I'm very happy with it.

 

The official CrunchBang 9.04.01 has just been released. According to the release notes (http://crunchbanglinux.org/blog/2009/07 ... -released/) it looks like it's completely different from the unofficial version I tried earlier after all. I'm really looking forward to try this one and particularly the Tint2 taskbar panel.

 

Booted the lite version from my USB stick. Wireless worked - didn't try anything else, as I decided I like a little less austerity in my DE. Time to try the full version.

 

I don't understand the obsession with boot times. With a Unix box (unlike Windows) I just start it and run until I have some need to shut down. An extra 20 or 30 seconds over a period of weeks of operation is just insignificant. And even with Linpus, although the desktop appeared within 20 seconds, in fact, there was another 20-30 seconds or so of disk activity before it settled down and was fully operational -- that fast boot time to desktop was partly smoke and mirrors. Once an app has been cached after initial load, subsequent reloads are typically very fast.

For me, hardware support and reliability are more important, and for that I'm quite happy with Ubuntu 9.04 and 2.6.30 kernel. Everything just works on a D150. Other models may be a different story.

 

Full version wouldn't boot from a USB stick on my A150. The boot process apparently tried to set screen resolution to 1024x768, then 800x600, then dumped me into the initramfs shell with no explanation of what I should do. Oh, well.

 

Hi, RockDoctor. Thanks for your input. Now I've had time to install CrunchBang. Personally, I've had only good experiences with the new 9.04.01 full version and so far I haven't had any issues myself. About your initramfs issue. Usually, when I have encountered the infamous initramfs prompt it's due to either a corrupt download and/or a bad burning to CD or USB. As you know an MD5 checksum will establish whether it's because of the first issue and the latter can usually be resolved by burning the ISO image to another CD/USB or just format the destination media (CD/USB) and try again. Please let us know how you proceed should you want to install the full version again.

@ libssd: About boot times. Yes, it's not like the boot time is a show stopper, but when you're on the go it's quite handy to be able to boot up fast when you want to take notes or connect to Skype or what have you. Some of us are using the little One outside and having it running continuously on power (however cool that would have been) is just not possible at this moment until a more powerful battery is invented I'm afraid. That's probably one of the reasons why you're bound to find topics with people who are 'obsessed' with boot times hehe.

All in all, I like the CrunchBang 9.04.01 very much and would warmly recommend it to anyone who has some basic knowledge of linux to try it out. It's swift and beautiful. Wireless network was detected out of the box. As far as I can tell the only issue for the Acer One with its limited screen estate could be the dpi settings which is fairly easy to fix.

 

Well, you must have one really friggin long extension cord

Seriously, I think many of us use netbooks in a very mobile way. So boot speed does matter some, though is still an overrated metric. To me battery life is the big winner. Next up is easy of installing random applications.

Yeah, it's nice if everything works "out of the box" when installing a new OS, but I am the type who has fun playing around to get it working anyway.

 

If I suspend, the 5200 mAh battery on a D150 battery loses about 10% of its charge overnight, which is about what I experienced with a 12" iBook on an 11,000 motorcycle mile ride to Alaska in the summer of 2006.

http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~libssd/Alaska2006/

I almost never turned if off, carried a spare battery, and never ran out of juice. There are places in the Yukon and Alaska where power outlets are pretty hard to find, although I never had to go more than 48 hours between charges. The 6-cell battery that comes with a D150 lasts about twice as long as the battery on an iBook, and I carry a spare 3-cell battery, so I can go even longer between charges with the D150. The only circumstance in which I can justify turning the AA1 off with any regularity would be if I were hiking the Appalachian Trail, and I doubt that I would be making that journey with a netbook.

 

I use #CrunchBang Linux, standard version. As far as I know the only Ubuntu based OS that really Works out of the box on AAO. And if you add Sickboy's kernel, it boots even a bit faster. #Crunchbang uses Openbox as GUI, very light and basic, but ok. If you want XFCE, LXDE etc it's no problem to change desktop environment. But on my AAO 110 SSD with only 512 MB RAM it's very important to run as light as possible.

Another tip: Change network manager with WICD, then the system stops nagging about keyring password after every boot.

 

Sorry, but that's nonsense. Ubuntu 9.04 and CrunchBang are the same in hardware recognizion for the Aspire One. Compared to Ubuntu 9.04 which CrunchBang is based upon, Crunchbang hasn't included any special drivers for the Acer Aspire One. Your experience is very subjective and it's not even a moot point to suggest that CrunchBang is better suited for the AAO netbook than the original Ubuntu in that respect. BUT... CrunchBang does work faster after installation due to its crippled down applications. Don't get me wrong, I fancy new fast operating systems, but it's just not true to say Crunchbang is working better out-of-the-box than standard Ubuntu when in fact Ubuntu is working just fine and at least is on par with its' competitors'. Ok?

 

libssd, I took the liberty to click on your link
http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~libssd/Alaska2006/

and my oh my, that's some pretty good pictures you've got there. All beautiful. Thanks for sharing, buddy.

 

Thanks for the comments on the Alaska web site. I'm still surprised at how many access points I was able to find in some very out of the way places.

Thanks also for the clarification re the various flavors of Ubuntu distributions. Different people have different preferences, but all distributions based on Ubuntu 9.04 should be pretty much the same regarding hardware support. Sometimes I think that we in the Linux community spend more time trying out different distributions than actually doing anything. A computer and its OS is a tool; use whichever one fits your needs.

 

The CrunchBang disclaimer is enough to curb my enthusiasm: