CrunchBang Linux gets own home

My favorite lightweight distro (edition) of Linux is Philip Newborough’s young CrunchBang Linux, an unofficial variant of Ubuntu Linux using the OpenBox window environment. Now that it’s moved past its wobbly fawn phase, Newborough’s moved it from his CrunchBang blog to crunchbanglinux.com. Bookmark and savor.

But who would make the most of this distro? Perhaps someone who already knows his or her own way around Linux desktops: some of the settings need to be made in text files, with skill equal to someone who maintains a simple Web site. Perhaps someone who has a spare old (but not antiquated) computer that needs to be pressed into service and needs to be more than an Internet appliance. Someone who demands a desktop have a certain aesthetic cachet. A CrunchBang machine might act like the resurrected Lazarus, but ought not smell like him. It might become a no- or low-cost gift in the spirit (or necessity) of a recessiontide Christmas. Or a job-hunting workhorse for a fellow church member who otherwise might be tempted to go into debt for a computer, provided you’re willing to help if bugs rise up.

By Scott Wells

Scott Wells, 46, is a Universalist Christian minister doing Universalist theology and church administration hacks in Washington, D.C.

3 comments

  1. It also allows me to do large spreadsheet calculations in my 4 year old HP laptop with 512M RAM that I could not do easily with the vanilla Ubuntu 8.10

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