corenominal - Code, Design, GNU/Linux, Faeries, Pixies & Robots!

Legs

Feb 8, 2012 (about 1 year ago)

Last month, Mr Dark wrote:

Why have you turned #! into a server distro????
Debian Stable is the server version… (to be compared with centos)
Debian Testing however is the desktop version of Debian!
Please do yourself a favor and add “Testing” images back.. that way as many users wount leave you as they do now, and some might even move back!

Normally I would be happy to ignore such a comment, (it obviously came from a misguided person, or troll) however, it did get me thinking about how fantastic a release Debian Squeeze has been.

I have been using Squeeze, in one guise or another, on desktops and servers, for well over 18 months and it has been an absolute joy to use (I say “joy”, but to be honest, I am not sure that “joy” is the correct term. What is the correct term for something that stays out of the way and just works?)

I am so glad I made the decision to switch from using Ubuntu when I did. This last 18 months of using Debian has not only provided me with a solid OS on which to build, but it has also given me a better understanding of the advantages of using a release for more than 6 months at a time; something I am sure I would never have been able to achieve as an Ubuntu user. Now, before I get slated, I should point out that I am well aware that Ubuntu do provide a long term support release, but the thing is, as an Ubuntu user I always found the temptation to upgrade too much to resist (I point the finger of blame directly at the Ubuntu hype machine, not at my infallible self) :P

Anyhow, while I am looking forward to playing around with Debian Wheezy, the current Debian testing branch, I can foresee Squeeze and my #! Statler builds remaining on a couple of my boxes for a good while yet. IMHO, the release still has plenty of legs left in it, even if some people consider it only fit for servers. Troglodytes!

BTW, I updated the Statler images today :)

Tagged with: crunchbang linux, debian

16 responses to “Legs”

• safetycopy on,
  Feb 8, 2012 (about 1 year ago)

  Great, thanks to this post’s title, I now have the ZZ Top song stuck in my head :D

  Seriously, though - looking forward to installing the new image later today!

• lordmacbayne on,
  Feb 9, 2012 (about 1 year ago)

  i have some trouble finding certain packages in squeeze (like, focuswriter). not terribly often though. really i could not be happier with #! on squeeze.

• CBizgreat! on,
  Feb 9, 2012 (about 1 year ago)

  Gee thanks safetycopy now I have that song stuff too ! D:

  As for the rest of it, am totally good with the myriad of distro maintainers of the world making their own choices when it comes to what to base on, what to include/exclude … blahblahblah. So agree whoever that person I’ve never heard of is … he’s acting trollish. Tend to vote with ma feet, if a distro goes too far off course compared to what I prefer, would just go with something else I like better. Reasonably enough … more I like a gnu/nix distro more I’m going to use, promote n support the thing.

  As if it matters at all #! gets my thumbs up as an end user. Great mix of crunchiness and bangy super light gnu/nix. Am also glad you/Corenominal stopped using buntu for the distro’s base, as I would’ve n have skipped many a distro for that alone. Don’t doubt some of them were fine OS’s either. Am just buntu biased for various reasons and don’t like that gnu/nix distro. Being how also consider meself relatively infalliable … Choosing to blame Canonical for what’s become a somewhat deeply rooted dislike for buntuish type stuff. Shrugs.

  And now a quick hop over to youtube to find that song … end babble.

• Karim on,
  Feb 10, 2012 (about 1 year ago)

  I want to tell you that using Stable with Backports and Multimedia is exactly what made me switch to CrunchBang in the first place. I think the person saying Testing was always better for a desktop was trolling. Having rolling releases potentially break parts of your system is not what you need when you just want to get stuff done. Thumbs up for a great distro!

• HilltopYodeler on,
  Feb 10, 2012 (about 1 year ago)

  I’ve rather enjoyed the stable version, and honestly, the only times that I can recall having had real issues with #! were back when it was pulling from “testing” rather than from “stable”.

  In fact, I’ve actually back-pedaled and am now testing out your most recent (now about one year old) XFCE version on one of my old machines to see if it would be a viable solution for some folks I offer support to, who own hardware of a similar vintage (ThinkPad T23). I’ve been an avid OpenBox user for the last several years and never really got around to testing out the XFCE version until now. So far, methinks that it’ll be a nice distro for them and will last them for a long while, and it turns out that I like using it so much that I’ve installed it on my production machine at work! My test machine at work (as well as all of my other machines at home) will continue to run the standard OpenBox version. I’m anxious to test out the latest release.

  By the way, in regards to the original question, “Why have you turned #! into a server distro????”, some of us desktop users are also using our desktop machines to provide a test server environment (mostly for PHP/MySQL in my case…), so a BIG thanks to you corenominal for making #! a great server platform as well as desktop environment!!!! CrunchBang Linux makes my life a lot easier.

• merelyjim on,
  Feb 11, 2012 (about 1 year ago)

  I can’t comment on the server stuff - I don’t know enough about servers to do that.

  But I do know that for every negative comment* about #! there are a few dozen new users a week who are saying, “this is the best stuff ever!”

  Please continue to follow your gut. It’s worked out very well so far.

  • Fine. I want an Xfce version back - but I can easily live without it, or ad it myself…

  P.S.- “You can’t please all the people all the time. And if you promise you can, you’re a damned lier…” A. Lincoln. Maybe?

• llewton on,
  Feb 11, 2012 (about 1 year ago)

  well… not necessarily a troll, perhaps misguided. a teenage neophiliac perhaps, of the “arch” persuasion. on the other hand people who need to get work done on their computers appreciate the value of debian stable on their “desktops” whatever that means nowadays. i haven’t worked from a desk box in years, for instance. anyway, i’m also coming up on a year and a half running squeeze and although i’m beginning to feel the need to update some non-essential programs to fix some bugs, but can’t due to the libs involved and whatnot, it’s very minor stuff that i can disregard for the sake of the overall value of stable. that said i am thinking about switching to wheezy at some point during the summer, probably.

• jezra on,
  Feb 13, 2012 (about 1 year ago)

  Have you ever considered a “rolling” release based on Debian CUT? It should have fairly up to date software and more stability than testing.

• Erasmus on,
  Feb 14, 2012 (about 1 year ago)

  Thanks for mentioning Debian CUT Jezra, Debian is an amazing distro, I’m sure many people were glad when Phillip bypassed the Ubuntu layer and cut to the chase. Thanks to your mention of CUT above, I’m learning more about the project also!

• corenominal on,
  Feb 14, 2012 (about 1 year ago)

  @jezra, yes, I have considered it, but I probably need to consider it some more. I like the idea of a rolling release, but at the same time, there is a lot to be said for having a stable platform.

• Grant on,
  Feb 17, 2012 (about 1 year ago)

  CUT looks really interesting and might just entice me back to Debian as my main OS. I’ll have to check it out for an Xfce build. I like 4.8 to much to go back to Squeeze.

  P.S. Nice work on the new images. Something for everyone :-)

• Alex on,
  Feb 21, 2012 (about 1 year ago)

  Hi,

  I’ve tried Crunchbag for the first time 10 minutes ago and I like the slickness and elegance. It’s very clean and functional. If actually installed, it’s probably fast too. It’s my favorite light distribution at this point.

  Of course, I have some feedback too:

  1. Running a Lenovo G570, the wireless doesn’t work in the 64-bit BPO version. It works great in the normal version.
  2. None fot he fn controls like brightness, volume etc. work in either variant but I remember them functioning in Ubuntu.
  3. I clciked the time and got the calendar month popup. NOW I CAN’T GET RID OF IT AND IT’S DRIVING ME CRAZY. I clicked the time with every mouse button imaginable and also tried Esc or clicking a specific day. It just doesn’t go away! It’s unusable if I can’t get rid of it and I’ve never had to spend even more than 10 seconds to get rid of something like this on any other OS. It’s still there as I type this… WTF CAN I DO?
  4. It needs a search/launcher feature. The run command is a type of launcher but has no autocomplete. If there’s any feature int he last 5 years that increased my enjoyment and efficiency, it’s search as you type from Windows 7 and especially Spotlight from OS X. In Spotlgiht, I can just type 44*5 and get the result, or type “ethereal” and get a definition option. Similarly, I can type “Fi” and Firefox will be automatically selected as the first option… press Enter and it launches. Or, I can type of course, some phrase I use inside a document and that will pop right up too. It’s SOOOOOOOOOO USEFUL that I don’t use any desktop icons anymore. Everything I need to find or launch is through Spotlight. This is a feature I really miss and Unity has something like it.
  5. It would be great if the icons at the top showing running applications could have enlarged previews a la Windows 7 when mousing over or some type of Expose functionality.

  Everything else seems to work great!

• Alex on,
  Feb 21, 2012 (about 1 year ago)

  OK, so I logged out of the Live CD and right back in. Now, I click the time and get the same calendar pop-up. Strangely, if I now click the time again with either mouse button, it goes away. What a HUGE RELIEF. However, I assure you that last time, it would not go away no matter what I did. I tried the same thing then as I did now.

  Also, I have no clue what clicking the top left window control is supposed to do. There isn’t any pop-up to explain and I don’t notice anyhting different.

• Alex on,
  Feb 21, 2012 (about 1 year ago)

  Sorry for all the comments but I just wanted to install this and am a bit worried. I have an SSD drive and Windows 7. Can this be safely resized and does it have TRIM support by default? I don’t notice a way to select that the drive is an SSD.

• corenominal on,
  Feb 21, 2012 (about 1 year ago)

  @Alex, the BPO version should support TRIM, although you may need to edit your drive’s ‘/etc/fstab’ entry to enable it.

  Regarding your other comments/points, if you have not already done so, I would recommend joining the #! forums for further discussions :)

• thunk on,
  Jul 29, 2012 (about 10 months ago)

  Still using Statler ever since it came out and I couldn’t be happier, so meh to that guy.. Keep it up Corenominal you’re doing a fantastic job.

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