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kenizl86

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I'm pretty sure this question has been asked many severals of times on many severals of forums, but I still need to ask it, mostly because I would love some seasoned input into the matter that is currently bothering my brain (and laptop).

The situation:
My old laptop's motherboard fragged out, so it was time for me to get a new old laptop (a Lenovo Thinkpad T400 [fancy I know!]). My old dead laptop had a dual-booted system running Windows 7 and #! Linux (crunchbang for the un-informed). I re-installed Win7 on my new old one, and I went to install #!, when lo-and-behold I found out that the distro suddenly caught a bad case of death. This of course plunged me into a deep hysteria, frantically scrapping to find a new distro; cuz I need my Linux yo!

The question:
I need a new distro, but there are so daggone many of them that it hurts my brain to look at the list on DistroWatch. Arch, ubuntu, kubuntu, lubuntu, xubuntu, ubuntu studio, slackware, minix, dragora, and on and on until I have an aneurysm out of sheer overwhelming choices. So the question now is- what do you guys recommend?

The specifications:
To narrow this down I have a few concerns/stipulations/uncertainties. First of all let me say that I tried many distros in the past (not an innumerable plethora, just a few like Mint, Ubuntu, Backtrack, Xubuntu, and such), but #! was the first to get lodged in my chest cavity like an old bullet fragment from a ridiculous hunting accident that holds many fond memories (not really; it was much more pleasant than that). I loved that it was simplistic on the outside, but had lots of guts and configurability on the inside while still being simple. So I'm looking for a distro that I can use for school (I'm a Computer Science major in college), which means that it needs a WM/desktop environment (or if it doesn't come packaged with one it can be easily set up with one). Preferably it should be simple but not overly so (that's right, no Ubuntu for me, especially since my computer would probably xplode). I want to be able to further my linux/unix understanding with the system but not have to tweak it all the time (for example I don't want to have the scenario where I sit down to write a research paper and all of a sudden an update bricks my computer).

I've looked around and tried to figure it out, but it's really hard to make a decision. For example: Arch is KISS, but with the bleeding-edgeness you might brick your comp in an update; Slackware is powerful, simple, and stable, but has a fraction of the packages Arch has; Ubuntu is a little too much like Windows (overly simple); Mint is also too simplistic; Debian I can't seem to get working on my 64-bit comp (although I've tried and tried); etc. I also considered using #! even though it was dead, but I wasn't sure how wise this was. I also thought about doing LFS, but I don't really have the schedule to sit down for a weekend and configure it and keep it going.

Summary:
1. #! died
2. Cried, considered continuing using #!.....
3. Need a new linux distro that is simple, powerful, and configurable (with WM like was set up in #!)
4. Would love input from you the community!
5. Will install new distro and rejoice in the Frabjous Day
6. Kill Windows and live with distro happily ever after
 


First off, let me say that..... You're FUNNY..... :D Secondly, since you DON'T want Ubuntu, let me think for a minute..... How about OpenSUSE, since it has KDE, which is HIGHLY configurable.....? :)
 
1. #! died
News of its death may be premature. Philip Newborough, aka Corenominal, has announced that HE will cease development of Crunchbang. Others will step forward.

Try Googling "Crunchbang is not dead"...

It used to be a favorite of mine, When everything else would seem to fail, Crunchbang just worked...
 
You'll be pleased to know that several members of the old #!/Crunchbang community have decided to continue #!'s legacy with a new distro called #!++ (Crunchbang++).

Website is here!
https://crunchbangplusplus.org/

Might be worth checking out the beta version they have up on the site.

Crunchbang is still usable though. My kids' laptop / my old laptop currently has the latest/last version of Crunchbang installed on it. I've got it set to use the Debian testing repos, rather than stable. So with any luck, it should be good for a while. As far as I understand it, with Debian testing as the package source, it should just act as a rolling/semi-rolling distro. It shouldn't matter too much that the Crunchbang project itself is dead.... For a while at least!

Also, surprised that you are unable to get Debian to install. The last couple of versions of #! were based on Debian (And earlier versions were Ubuntu based). If you could get #! installed, you should be able to install Debian without too much trouble.

I know some #! users have been talking about using the Debian minimal netinstall image to get a bare-bones, command-line installation of Debian and then manually add/configure additional packages (light-dm, openbox, tint2 etc) to end up with their own #!-like system based on Debian. Otherwise, just use the last version of #! and keep an eye on the #!++ site. Perhaps consider switching to #!++ once they release their first stable release.

From a quick look at the Crunchbang website, it appears that there is another fork of #! called 'Bunsen Labs' - obviously keeping up with #!'s tradition of Muppets themed code-names for their releases! Doesn't look like they've got much more than a github set up so far, but would be another project to watch! Looks like they're still using the Crunchbang forums as their main communication channel too. The main players in that distro look like they're admins/mods there.

The only other alternative would be to use Arch, or if you wanted to side-step some of the manual configuration, you could use Archbang; which is a distro which attempts to recreate Crunchbang, but using the Arch repos as the package source. I know Arch can be a PITA to maintain at times, but it would probably be the next best thing WRT the amount of packages available and performance.

On my main laptop, I'm currently using Kubuntu 14.04 - seeing as my new machine has enough grunt to handle it. Albeit the 32 bit version, as I encountered serious stability issues with the 64 bit version.... But I rarely use the Plasma desktop any more, I use dwm instead. Recently I was thinking about going back to #!, then I saw that Phil/Corenomial had announced the end of the project. So I'm sticking with my Kubuntu install for now. Will probably look into installing another distro whenever I can finally be arsed to, or when I am finally forced to upgrade. Like at the end of the LTS period!

In the meantime, I'll be keeping an eye on the various #! forks and will decide on which distro to switch to next, when the time comes!
 
Ubuntu is a little too much like Windows (overly simple); Mint is also too simplistic

Just because they are initially simple isn't a good reason to dismiss them. Ubuntu with Unity is not the only flavour, as @JasKinasis says there is Kubuntu. There are also Xfce, Lubuntu, etc. Look at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuFlavors

Linux Mint also comes in a Debian vesion. LMDE.
http://www.linuxmint.com/download_lmde.php . Could be an alternative way into Debian.

There are also "off-the-peg" Crunchbang lookalikes like:
GoBang http://gobangos.sourceforge.net/ Ubuntu based
and Archbang http://sourceforge.net/projects/archbang/files/
...the latter might be a way to try Arch without the install hassle.

I haven't got Broletto to work nicely yet
http://www.broletto.org/ Debian based
 
Thanks for all the input guys!

And thank you for the compilment blackneos940!

Yeah, I saw that #! was forking, and it made me a bit wary. Mostly because I wasn't for sure about how much like crunchbang #!++ or bunsen labs would be, and I really just like the old #! formula. I did see that some people have done what you did JasKinasis, updating the sources. My main concern is that how long will that work until #! won't be compatible with the new releases? Oh how I loathe the thought...

Also, like I said, I considered just sticking with #!, but then I thought I'll eventually sooner or later have to re-install with a new system; and seeing as I've never successfully done that before, it scared the pants and socks and other paraphernalia off me. I guess the way to go would be to create a separate /home partition and preserve that until it's time to install a new OS? Then the question arises though about how much to allocate to everything else as partitions and etc. etc.

And arochester, it's not that I'm dismissing Ubuntu, it's just that it's not entirely what I'm looking for. I need a lightweight system to run on my new old laptop (hence the reason it's my new "old" laptop :), and Ubuntu burns up everything pretty quick. I also am not too fond of the way a DE tends to take up a lot of space and resources. Maybe I'm just being too picky, but I like my distros like I like my... Tacos. Nice and beefy but no tomatoes.

Thanks again everyone for the input! I'll keep what you guys said under consideration! And if anyone has a link about how to properly migrate Linux, that would help soooooooo much!
 
Late submission I know but Manjaro Openbox edition is really good. It blew me away. Just a suggestion. ;)
 
I'm trying SPARKY Linux on an old laptop and it seems to be running fine. You can get it prepackaged with different ISOs and DEs.
 
I decided to run the same distro on a15yr old laptop, a10 yr.old laptop and a 4 yr old netbook.
Solydxk did the trick. (I used the home version Solydx).
 
No problem, good sir..... :3 Hey, I've got a Floater in my Eyeball..... :(
 
I for one will miss corenominal and the lack of #! Janice, however I still use #! as Sid and it is not difficult to take it there. Plenty of advice on the forum and direct step-by-step tutorials on dist-upgrade. Also if you want to do a Debian netinstall and add #! menu and packages, cannot use link Edited. Google (CrunchBang packages). I personally use a Debian netinstall with no DE (uncheck all blocks when it asked for choices), then on boot-up I enter TTY (ctrl + alt + F1), since the lack of a DE, no display manager to login. So you are prompted to use your usr and password. Do an apt-get update, then add all the openbox packages, including a display manager such as lightdm. I usually add openbox obmenu obconf lxterminal or xfce4-terminal nitrogen lxappearance iceweasel geany gdebi. Enter, like being in the terminal, and sudo reboot. You will boot into an openbox window manager after entering your user and password. Then you add whatever else, synaptic etc. Run into a problem, check #! forum for more guidance. I end up with essentially what corenominal must have used to build #!. Very fast and light on memory.
 
In principal much of what you said Zepher is true however one needs to be careful to avoid pulling in gtk3 dependencies.

I think the best thing to do is look at LinuxBBQ Bork iso which is a nice minimal iso and add what you need, much easier. Lxterminal isn't necessary I would commend Gdebi, Obmenu. I'd use XFE for Filemanager, Feh to manage wallpaper and stick with apt-get - much lighter than Crunchbang ever was.

I respect the work of Ceremonial though.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxbbq/files/2015/linuxbbq-bork-20150203.iso/download
 
Yes, you are very right. Trying to help the folks who need a little guidance, an alternative. I also use LinuxBBq Bork, excellent. I run a total of 8 drives, 6 are various openbox and 2 are fluxbox, testing one for an acquaintance. I keep trying, experimenting with building a perfect openbox for myself. It will never happen, too many really good and seasoned folks on so many forum, are there to shed light on something new, and that is what is great about Linux. Arch has been one of my biggest info sources, don't even have Arch on my computer. LinuxBBq, Siduction, Aptosid, all have been a learning experience. Keeping a distro light as possible is a goal I work at. GTK3 and Qt are always something to consider. Thank you for your input it is appreciated. - zephyr
 

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