Popular Distribution 'Crunchbang' (#!) Stops Development

by
in linux on (#2WY9)
It seems that the Debian based distribution's time has finally come. Crunchbang (#!) Linux has decided to end the project. The project's developer Philip Newborough writes:
I have decided to stop developing CrunchBang. This has not been an easy decision to make and I've been putting it off for months. It's hard to let go of something you love.
He goes on to reason that:
I'm leaving it behind because I honestly believe that it no longer holds any value, and whilst I could hold on to it for sentimental reasons, I don't believe that would be in the best interest of its users, who would benefit from using vanilla Debian.
With friends using this on their main machines, and as an old #! user myself with the distribution sitting on a couple of old laptops, I'm personally sad to see it go. It will be interesting to see what comes out of this announcement.
Reply 9 comments

I don't know.... (Score: 2, Informative)

by tanuki64@pipedot.org on 2015-02-07 11:50 (#2WYB)

....how I should say it without sounding like a troll... but the Popular Distribution 'Crunchbang'is so popular that I never even heard the name before.

Re: I don't know.... (Score: 1)

by elijah@pipedot.org on 2015-02-07 16:18 (#2WYE)

No that's fair point, although I wouldn't use yourself as a metric. I'm sure there's a ton, not just limited to distributions that I don't know about, but that doesn't mean there isn't a substantial community surrounding it. Especially with so many unique communities widespread, I wouldn't be surprised if I was completely unaware of some of the most favored distributions altogether. I was assuming when I wrote the title that since #! had been featured on /. several times previously, Hacker News, and a few other notable sites that it was better known.

Re: I don't know.... (Score: 2, Informative)

by tanuki64@pipedot.org on 2015-02-07 18:05 (#2WYJ)

There are certainly many Linux distributions, which I don't know. Even though I use Linux since Kernel 0.9x. However, to call a Linux distribution "popular" I'd require at least some coverage in the media.

These are popular distributions:
http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major

Though I don't know what BSD is doing in a list of popular Linux distributions. :-D

Distrowatch Page Ranking:
http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=popularity

No mention of #!. Last 12 month... 286 Distros, but no #!.

It does no mean that #! is not good. Does not mean there isn't a substantial (what counts as substantial?) community. It just means, this distribution is widely unknown, which IMHO contradicts "popular".

Re: I don't know.... (Score: 1)

by elijah@pipedot.org on 2015-02-07 19:26 (#2WYK)

Yeah, you're making a good point, I just would have used that as your first comment. As far as coverage in the media, just concerning the announcement, articles have come from all over including IT World, Phoronix, and Liliputing. These may not be in your 'top-ten' sites, but there is some buzz out there about the closing, enough to get most of the sites like this one to post a blurb about the story.

'Popular' may not be fully justified, but there's little I can do now to change it anyway. I guess I can try to keep a better look out in the future.

Re: I don't know.... (Score: 3, Informative)

by stove@pipedot.org on 2015-02-09 03:38 (#2WZJ)

Crunchbang was removed from the rankings (including historically) when it was marked as 'discontinued'. Here's what it looked like in January: http://web.archive.org/web/20150107170132/http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=popularity

While it's been gradually declining in popularity it's still ranked 20th over the last 12 months, appearing higher than distros like Xubuntu, Slackware, Gentoo, and a stack of others. I'd guess the decline is due to the 18-month gap since the most recent release.

The message to take from this is: Crunchbang was a fairly popular niche distro, and Distrowatch cannot be relied on for accurate historical rankings.

Re: I don't know.... (Score: 1)

by survivorz@pipedot.org on 2015-02-16 14:32 (#36WV)

Holy fuck! It's over two times more popular than my second favorite distribution Gentoo! and far more popular than the one I have running on all my boxes: Funtoo!

Re: I don't know.... (Score: 2, Funny)

by Anonymous Coward on 2015-02-09 10:41 (#2WZM)

I'm sorry for your loss.

Systemd (Score: -1, Flamebait)

by Anonymous Coward on 2015-02-07 14:43 (#2WYD)

Is this another victim of systemd?

What is #!? (Score: 5, Informative)

by kwerle@pipedot.org on 2015-02-07 20:38 (#2WYQ)

http://crunchbang.org/about/
CrunchBang is a Debian GNU/Linux based distribution offering a great blend of speed, style and substance. Using the nimble Openbox window manager, it is highly customisable and provides a modern, full-featured GNU/Linux system without sacrificing performance.

The primary aim of the CrunchBang project is to produce a stable distribution offering the best possible out-of-the-box Openbox experience. To achieve this goal, CrunchBang pulls many base packages directly from Debian's repositories, which are well-known for providing stable and secure software. Packages from CrunchBang's own repositories are then customised and pinned to the system to produce what is known as the CrunchBang distro.