Sad news about Crunchbang, but do respect Mr. Philip Newborough's decision on not going any further with the distro. Essentially is dead now. I know many folks who use VSIDO also use Crunchbang, I do. There is a statement he posted in the Crunchbang forum on his reasons why he is quitting. -zephyr http://crunchbang.org/forums/viewtopic.php?pid=416493#p416493
Really sad to see it go. But life goes on and who knows if we get pushed in a new and other fun direction.
Going to be interesting if the community actually gets a new debian-based project off the ground.
I think no matter what happens, it will always be compared to the original...
That is a dark horse no matter the outcome
aibo said it best on the IRC
RIP #!
Sad indeed, but Phillip did a phenomenal job with #! which I used for some time. He needs to do what he needs to do in life.
It was through #! that I became aware of a maverick with the nick VastOne and this wonderful thing called Vsido 8)
^ Thanks..
Maverick... hmmm Wonder what Digit thinks... :-\
Sad to see a flagship go down, but not really surprising Phillip has been out of for a while. I'm hoping that it will continue is some form.
In hindsight it might have been good to spread the knowledge, so it didn't come to this point. I seem to remember there were and probably still are, many interested in the debian build process.
Just my 2 cents.
:)
^ He never ever gave an inch on his processes and that was a great disappointment ... but we all find ways, no?
Argh, that be true matey! ;)
I pretty sure, that if there was someone interested, that it could be done straight from the debian repos. The sacrifice would be in reducing/eliminating the custom packages and the repo.
Or, if there were a small team of maintainers, it could be done easily.
Is there a need to continue it though? The point has been made, I think, and copied/cloned as well.
I've spent a good time on Crunchbang. Sad it's dead. It was a reference and one of the best Debian Stable customizations available. Also, one of the best communities in the Nix world.
First time I installed #!, I really didn't know what to make of it, after all I was new to Linux, and was sick of Windows. But, I kept it and messed with it, and when ran I met problems, and a lot back then, it seemed MachineBacon was the man with the answer and helped me tremendously, along with another individual Dano, they really guided me a lot. It is no wonder that the great folks of VSIDO were also on the Crunchbang forums helping out with scripts and sharing what they could offer. I recently download an old smxi how to tutorial by VastOne, and used it on other distro's to install. All of you and I am sure you know who I am talking about, have been around a great while, I think Crunchbang and VSIDO have a lot of the same stuff under the hood, and that makes VSIDO the awesome machine that it is. Crunchbang has an enormous forum and hopefully the community will carry it forward, so much info that it is mind boggling. But, really what I am suggesting, I know here I go again. But, a vacuum has been created for a really awesome, lightweight, modern, and recent Debian Testing or Sid distro that maybe, why not reintroduce VSIDO openbox as an option. I am quite aware there is not a replacement of any substance. I also have VSIDO openbox on my computer, enjoying just how well it behaves and appearance. No one wants to be an opportunist at someone else expense, but a lot of folks are lost on what to turn to as a replacement. Just an idea, because I think VastOne and Jedi, and the other great talents on this forum could deliver an awesome openbox. I don't think corenominal would be offended in the slightest. Just saying, you know. -zephyr
Thank you zephyr for being such a great addition to VSIDO... 8)
We are pretty much a democracy here and most every decision is made by the community...
We eliminated all but FluxBox from the choices on VSIDO primarily because there was not any other distro that used only it.. that is a unique flavor for VSIDO much like how if you wanted an OB distro you chose #!
I have no issue using and having OB as a choice with VSIDO but will say that it makes no sense (to me) as to why we would do it. It is probably the easiest and lightest app ever to install with apt-get... and once you or anyone who loves OB installs it, you then proceed to make it just what you want... If there is a base VSIDO look to OB, what would that be? Would we make it look just like FluxBox but a different menu style?
There are some requirements to any WM or addition... the tint2 systray and tint2 dock as it is now and the menu items as they are now... I do not care for icons on the menus in OB but if it is done that is fine too...
So choose it, make it and I will implement it..
For the record, I have done all I can to separate VSIDO (and myself) from #! as a build and a distro. I never ever wanted VSIDO to be anything like #!. The only thing I ever used was the excellent welcome script that is part of VSIDO
I agree completely with the ease of installing openbox on probably any distro. Yes, apt-get delivers all the key apps for the build. I have enjoyed the completeness of VSIDO, and my distro of choice for just everything computer related. I do enjoying using openbox, very easy to configure and tweak. Fluxbox is almost identical, but a lot more visual effects and a bit more sophisticated. I do see your point. I think that VSIDO will experience an increase in weekly downloads. No one does it better than VSIDO. By the way while I'm on the forum, I personaly liked the refracta installer, hope everyone decides to keep it. -zephyr
VSIDO has been Fluxbox only for quite some time now. (aprx 2 years or a little longer?) In the end, like VastOne has said, it was a community decision. The offer was made to keep Openbox as a choice if someone would maintain a thread with configs, themes, and such to keep it looking uniformly the same with Fluxbox as much as possible, to maintain a sort of VSIDO identity. No one really ever stepped into that role, and the end result turned out to be a Fluxbox only distro.
The first few releases of VSIDO originally came with the Xfce4.10 Desktop Environment, with Openbox as a second choice for a lean Window Manager. This made lots of sense then as VSIDO had several Xfce4 dependencies with some of the default apps at that time. (and still does) So, we had Xfce4.10 for the bling and fancy looks and bells and whistles, and at the other end of the spectrum, Openbox for the minimalists among us. Then along came a user named vrkalak, sometime in Feb. of 2013, and said "hey, have you guys looked at Fluxbox"? Long story short, a lot of us tried it, loved it, and now it is the default for the distro! The Fluxbox website even lists VSIDO as one of the few Linux distro's that use Fluxbox as the default Window Manager. (btw vrkalak, your help back then was invaluable to all of us and very much appreciated!)
I remember being the second or third person to have the pleasure of using VSIDO before it was released 'into the wild' as they say. VastOne adamantly made sure I knew that it was not a Crunchbang derivative, or in any way related to or comparable to Crunchbang. We knew there would inevitably be folks from the dark side giving VSIDO a serious ride. Crunchbang came with Openbox. I can still remember the user who requested Openbox as a part of VSIDO in the beginning. With it's small footprint and having no bloat in it, the decision was simple to include it. However, over the next few months as VSIDO grew, the interest in Openbox became non-existent.
Sorry for the little history lesson, it is posted here as much for my benefit as anything else. I'm sure there is a wonderful spot waiting over in the Window Managers thread for someone to start an OB configs and such post. With the demise of Crunchbang, it would be simple enough for an Openbox fan to get some configs, styles, and themes posted there for those that might prefer OB to FB in a distro that will continue to "Roll On"...
Appreciate greatly the history lesson, and really couldn't agree more about one distro and concentrating solely on that effort. Crunchbang had the luxury of a lot of great talent feeding its forum, thus developed into a dependable and unique distro. There was a lot of breakage with the distro at times, and visited often to the forum for a fix, which I got, and usually in bit and pieces which eventually fixed my problem. VSIDO, no complaints, and appreciate the fact that the developer (VastOne) and Jedi often ask for opinions and solutions. It is no doubt a community driven distro. Frankly, this is the best distro going, and although I do appreciate Siduction, Aptosid, and a few others, I'm at home with VSIDO. VSIDO I might add, has a mystique about it as well, I have no idea who concieved the appearance, theme or concept of it design, but it is down my alley. I do want to point out that if anyone was to create a serious, mature, and sensible openbox, the compliment was to you folks. I can create my own openbox on Debian Testing and be happy with it. Fluxbox is a step or two above openbox, and that is my sentiment, no one does Linux like VSIDO. -zephyr
QuoteThe Fluxbox website even lists VSIDO as one of the few Linux distro's that use Fluxbox as the default Window Manager.
It's a shame. OpenBox won the match. Much love for OB out there and many distros have it onboard while FB is typically ignored. In a "perfect world" them both should be equally popular.
Looking for a good distro having FB as default is what brought me to Vsido in the first place. vrkalak and ElderLaCoste are guilty for this... Thankfully. I discovered two great things by stepping into here almost by chance; What great system Vsido is and how great FluxBox is. I cannot be more pleased. I still have a lot of love for OB, but for me, FB won the match. :P
Big Thanks to VastOne, vrkalak and Elder!
Snap, jedi, zephyr, Digit and all that use and praise VSIDO, you humble me with this kindness...
I'm quite sure all users appreciate the hard work and effort that is put into this great distro. I have not a clue to what extent how much time is expended keeping this fine tuned machine going, a new distro every two weeks or sooner if a major development is in place, must consume a lot of time. It is that dedication to VSIDO and the user experience, we are all surely impressed with. Thank you. -zephyr
Looks like the #! community will have some competition. (http://crunchbangplusplus.org/)
I wonder if it's a #! user from the forum putting this one together.
QuoteIt is that dedication to VSIDO and the user experience, we are all surely impressed with.
+1 to this comment.
It is a script to Debian netinst and then attempt to add what is needed with more scripts...
If you are gonna go to those links, why not just build your own? I think it was John Raff over on #! who perfected all of the Debian netinst #! scripts, is this just a retread with a web site?
Strange to see such a powerful distro go down that path
No idea who is behind that and what's he after. Sounds weird to me.
BTW, I just followed the johnraff's cheat sheet somewhat. Got a nice waldorf-like system on Jessie on virtual machine.
It has gotten a bit chaotic over there and I have no plans of ever returning...
Sad days IMO
The #! front page is quite uninviting too. :(
^ Yar... it almost looks like the forum is closed. That was my first reaction...
It is starting to look a lot like another BBQ over there regarding the development. It would not surprise me at all to see those two communities and development teams combined and entwined for the future releases
What troubles me though is how people are being treated. Seems very anti FOSS like IMO
Yep, IMHO at this point, it makes some more sense building a custom #! like system from a Debian net installer (just what corenominal proposed) or joining the BBQ than following Bunsen... whatever it ends up to be.
To keep the community going and support users, they should proceed with business as usual.
They should also shift the whole development discussion offline, until they have something concrete.
Would be nice of they posted updates to keep the community in the loop too.
Just my 2 cents.
^ that would have been the sane thing to do. If rational thinking had been applied
Unfortunately the emotional responses from some of the most ardent people there has now left a troubling aftertaste. It is yet another classic example of why Linux fails to gain footholds in some circles.. we tend to eat our young when confronted
And they won't have much time to rectify the situation.
They need to post a statement on the front page stating their intent.
There was no need to rush in and start development of the next version of #!, as it doesn't have to coincide with the release of jessie.
For me, #! has now turned into another Devuan.
I moved on some time ago.
This is an old topic, but I just wanted to add I found some people over at the Cruchbang forums very rude...I had the bright idea...hey, why not BunsenLabs with Fluxbox...so I posted it in the "Ideas and Suggestions" section of their forum and some of the guys with 3k posts started calling me a troll! I mean, come on...I can't post a thread in the "Ideas and Suggestions" forum without being called a troll!
Anyway, will never go back there again.
Welcome to VSIDO hudson, we are damned glad to have you... I sincerely believe that will never happen to you here, if it does let me know
We like Fluxbox and have some serious talented people who share without question...
Enjoy!
And if you decide to use OpenBox we won't bash you. Instead, We ask for "screenshots or it never hapened" :P
^ +1 Well said Snap 8)
thanks VastOne and Snap!
Actually hudson, I think if you go to the Fluxbox homepage, you'll find VSIDO listed as one of the top distro's that come ootb with Fluxbox!
Quote from: jedi on July 29, 2015, 07:47:19 AM
Actually hudson, I think if you go to the Fluxbox homepage, you'll find VSIDO listed as one of the top distro's that come ootb with Fluxbox!
@jedi : I just checked the fluxbox site, and don't see VSIDO mentioned anywhere. :(
Quote from: ozitraveller on July 29, 2015, 11:10:40 PM
@jedi : I just checked the fluxbox site, and don't see VSIDO mentioned anywhere. :(
:o No kidding? :o Wow, I thought they once listed the distro's that used it by default, and we were at the top of the list! :'(
Eating my words now in case anyone is wondering!!!
Top of the list on the old wiki site. (http://old.fluxbox-wiki.org/index.php?title=InTheWild)
@PackRat, thanks for that! I was sure we were tops somewhere besides here...
That is an intersting site now. (http://www.fluxbox.org/) It talks of getting help but points to a wiki that is incomplete and has no help. It would behoove whoever is running that site to point to places such as VSIDO for help since we have an abundance of users using FluxBox and sharing that wealth of knowledge...
Quotewiki that is incomplete and has no help
You mean the new github page wiki? You're right it's a bit of a pain. The search box at the bottom will usually get you where you need to go, but the old one with the Table of Contents was much better.
before I joined I would google some Fluxbox topic and land at the Vsido forums. Fluxbox's wiki seems to need more work but they have great man pages. Here's a fun fact:
Openbox 3.4.11 released - last update: Feb 08, 2010 - 7:49 pm UTC
http://openbox.org/wiki/Openbox:News
Fluxbox 1.3.7 - Bam! Zero Bugs!!11! - Sun Feb 08 12:57:55 UTC 2015
http://www.fluxbox.org/news/
exactly five years later! of course, it just means Openbox is stable...there are lots of benefits to running Openbox...written in C, smaller and faster, etc.
Package: openbox
Version: 3.6.1-1
Installed-Size: 1205
Package: fluxbox
Version: 1.3.7-1~exp1
Installed-Size: 4064
Yep, noticeable lighter... But can anyone tell fluxbox is not stable? I haven't found issues yet.
Regarding speed I can only speak from my own subjective experience. Yes, Openbox feels a tad faster and snappier, but FB is damn fast too. Fast enough for me. I don't care sacrificing a tiny bit of speed for features.
hey Snap, I meant Openbox is stable and finished...that's not so bad. But Fluxbox is still being developed, so that's nice too.
regarding Fluxbox's speed, you might want to try this in your init file:
session.screen0.menuMode: Click
session.autoRaiseDelay: 0
This give a memory comparison of the various wm's:
https://l3net.wordpress.com/2013/03/17/a-memory-comparison-of-light-linux-desktops/ (https://l3net.wordpress.com/2013/03/17/a-memory-comparison-of-light-linux-desktops/)
Interesting that the 1.3.7 version of FluxBox has been available since February and is still stuck in Experimental
I will test it for a couple of weeks and if it is stable I will include it in the next round of ISO builds
There still seems to be changes going on to Openbox & Fluxbox, at least by Debian.
Openbox
https://github.com/mati75/openbox-debian (https://github.com/mati75/openbox-debian)
https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=mati75%40linuxmint.pl (https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=mati75%40linuxmint.pl)
Fluxbox
https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=paultag%40debian.org (https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=paultag%40debian.org)
https://anonscm.debian.org/cgit/collab-maint/fluxbox.git/ (https://anonscm.debian.org/cgit/collab-maint/fluxbox.git/)
Quote from: VastOne on July 30, 2015, 09:22:03 PM
Interesting that the 1.3.7 version of FluxBox has been available since February and is still stuck in Experimental
I will test it for a couple of weeks and if it is stable I will include it in the next round of ISO builds
I upgrade to the git version of fluxbox - 1.3.7 - after every clean install; it's awesome.
@hudson - openbox is still being developed; read the Download page and look at their git repository to track development. I don't think they have posted to the News section for years now. Pace of development is slow for both since they were originally based on blackbox (o.6/0.7) which was already mature code. Both are solid wm's that pretty much do what you need them to do.
Quote from: PackRat on July 30, 2015, 11:31:45 PM
Quote from: VastOne on July 30, 2015, 09:22:03 PM
Interesting that the 1.3.7 version of FluxBox has been available since February and is still stuck in Experimental
I will test it for a couple of weeks and if it is stable I will include it in the next round of ISO builds
I upgrade to the git version of fluxbox - 1.3.7 - after every clean install; it's awesome.
good enough for me, 1.3.7 is now the default in VSIDO
Thanks PackRat
BTW, is it just me or does anyone else see the irony of a mass development discussion in the GoodBye to Crunchbang thread?
I Lub It!
Quoteregarding Fluxbox's speed, you might want to try this in your init file:
session.screen0.menuMode: Click
session.autoRaiseDelay: 0
Yep, I already did that. I saw your tip somewhere else. ;)
Quote
This give a memory comparison of the various wm's:
https://l3net.wordpress.com/2013/03/17/a-memory-comparison-of-light-linux-desktops/
I know that article and saved the chart some time ago. Don't get me wrong. I was on Crunchbang for a long while (we have to say the word Crunchbang from time to time in this thread to stay on topic, don't we?) and love OpenBox too, but I prefer what FluxBox gives for only a very small HD, speed and RAM penalty. In my Crunchbang days I had both WMs installed. FB pulled me back twice. You know, that learning curve... OB is much easier. But FB ended up being my WM to go.
FB itself is what brought me here. Vsido is one of the very few distros having FB as default. Not many choices out there while plenty of OB distros everywhere. Thankfully Vsido is awesome on it's own. For me Vsido has three pillars: Debian Sid made easy, FluxBox & SpaceFM. I don't miss Crunchbang or OB at all.
Quote from: Snap on July 31, 2015, 06:50:57 AM
Quoteregarding Fluxbox's speed, you might want to try this in your init file:
session.screen0.menuMode: Click
session.autoRaiseDelay: 0
Yep, I already did that. I saw your tip somewhere else. ;)
as a general FYI for anyone who reads this conversation, keep in mind that many items in the ~/.fluxbox/init file can be interrelated - session.autoRaiseDelay: 0 also needs session.autoRaise: true (which is the default). And I think it may only work with Mouse (sloppy) focus. What is your focus policy set to Snap?
The fluxbox man page is actually one worth reading start to finish.
True. I didn't noticed any difference to say the truth. My focus policy was click to focus, of course... just discovered it now and understood why the suggested change did nothing. No auto rise.
QuoteThe fluxbox man page is actually one worth reading start to finish.
It can be said louder but not clearer. Thanks for the slap on the face. Going through it.
Quoteman fluxbox > ~/documents/man-fluxbox
Just to have it always on hand as a tab in medit along with the fluxbox config files in their respective tabs. The init file is a bit tricky to follow. Then the search button and F3 become your friends.
Thanks for the heads up PackRat...I'm going to have to go through all of the init settings one day...learn one trick and get five problems!
Snap, I followed your same trajectory. Crunchbang and Openbox were great and I used them forever. But now I'm enjoying Fluxbox...especially the dynamite man pages and easy config files...makes things so much simpler.
I totally disagree with corenominal...Crunchbang made running Linux so much easier. Learning the ins and outs of Debian is a total bitch (for me, at least). With Crunchbang I installed and configured in less than a week and ran it for years. I think Debian took a few months for me to be content with it.
I stepped out from crunchbang when Wheezy started to show its age about year ago. I made a mess of my system having lots of stuff from the backports and compiled stuff needing different libs. Moved to SolydXK while it was rolling and tracking testing. (Now it follows stable though Jessie is still fresh). It still is my main sytem. Too lazy to install and configure everything from scratch. I'll do it some day but not too soon. Currently my workflow is a bit crazy... or absurd. Vsido is always running as a virtual machine on top of SolydK. I do some work in Vsido and some in SolydK. I constantly switch from one to the other with no criterium. Sometimes I surf the web on Vsido, sometimes on SolydK. So many times when playing music, edit pictures or whatever I do, I do it from the guest instead of the host... Crazy...
QuoteI totally disagree with corenominal...Crunchbang made running Linux so much easier. Learning the ins and outs of Debian is a total bitch (for me, at least). With Crunchbang I installed and configured in less than a week and ran it for years. I think Debian took a few months for me to be content with it.
Yep, otherwise we all be using vanilla Debian instead of Debian based distros. The Debian defaults are raw and minimal. People use to talk about what a mess is installing and configuring Arch. Well, for me the only difference is that Debian has an installer. Once installed you have the same kind of raw and crude system needing a lot of work to be done. But folks keep saying that Debian is easier.
Looking over SolydXK, I think that would of been a wiser choice for me. I didn't know better, so I went with straight Debian. It was nice to find out I could get the 13 DVD's and have all software local. But, to configure, you need to deal with:
- display manager
- window manager
- gtk themes
- fonts
- multimedia codecs
- notifications
- automounting disks
- microcode
- device drivers
- etc, etc
it's really not that hard to install everything, the work is in finding out what you need and making it all look good. Several times I thought I'd just bail to Windows (if only Windows had workspaces) or OS X. I mean, it gets to be a kind of madness setting all this stuff up! But, I shouldn't complain now...the end result is a lovely system you can use for the next five years.
#! successor Bunsen Labs now has it's own site and forum. (https://www.bunsenlabs.org/)
Need to re-register if interested in joining and were a previous #! forum member.
Good luck to them.
^ thanks for that, glad to see them bid farewell to the coat tails of #! and it can now really RIP peacefully .... :) :)
Hello, VastOne, you've been doing this distro for so long and I didn't know. It was Snap, who showed me the way. I thank him for that. You won't recognize my nick, for it is new. I joined #! forums at the same time as you had. I had dropped #!, Debian and gone the Ubuntu way, trying out everything there, and finally stopping with the Ubuntu base on Openbox, which stayed with me for quite a while. I also have Arch with OB. I was using some of the #! scripts on them, some adapted for systemd. I am not a coder, but I used commonsense. Then, I heard of the demise of #!, but I was not that keen to jump back. Later, when I joined, I found how jumpy the mods/devs over there. Oh, Hudson would tell more about that. Joined the Bunsen forum for fun, and I'm glad I did so, as I found Snap, who directed me here. Better late than never.
I've also a Debian Sid on OB. I really like OB, but here I'm going to learn FB here. First I'd read the forums, then only I'll start asking questions. I'm already downloading Vsido 64 bit. Hello to all the guys here!
Hello ostrolek.
Enjoy the forums
Hey there ostrolek and welcome to VSIDO and the community...
I think if you give Fluxbox half a chance, you will come to enjoy it...
We are damned glad to have you
Hey ostrolek, good to have you aboard! Pretty sure if you give the old Fluxbox a try you'll love it! VSIDO also rocks. VastOne has created a masterpiece!!! ;D
Hey guys, thanks for the warm welcome!
I have already downloaded Vsido, and would give it a whirl. Check FB and start learning.
Hey ostrolek!
Good to see you over here as well!
Ozi
Hey, ostrolek. Nice to see you around.
Fluxbox has a somewhat steep learning curve. But it totally worths the effort. Read the manuals and find anything PackRat posted about FB configs and tips. I bet you'll love it. If you need some help don't hesitate to ask here. The Ratman will help you for sure (and I'll try to do my best too, though that's not very helpful :P )
Thanks, Snap for pointing to this site.