Ronnie Tucker

CrunchBang is an Ubuntu based distro, CrunchEEE is based on CrunchBang, but uses the OpenBox GUI and installs only several Internet applications, with the Array.org kernel. So how does CrunchEEE fair on the EEE out of the box?

CrunchEEE - the default look.

Very well actually. No, sorry. Perfectly in fact! Running the distro live, from a USB, everything worked. Wireless, sound, you name it. It worked. Time to install it and see how it feels.

Installing CrunchEEE was just the same as installing any other Ubuntu based distro. Seven steps, and you’re done. What was nice about CrunchEEE though, was that the fonts had been shrunken, so the install windows fitted nicely to the EEE screen. No annoying ALT+move, or having to turn off Compiz to be allowed to ALT+move!

CrunchEEE opens with a black background with Conky superimposed over the top right, giving basic information such as CPU percentage, memory used then a list of hot keys. Very handy.

PCman 0.5 - reminds me of Xfce

The default file manager is PCman 0.5, something I’d not used before, but it reminded me of the Xfce file manager. The desktop menu is OpenBox, so no Gnome/KDE button is visible, you right click on the desktop to get the main menu, and from there you can either choose to run an application, start an application by clicking it (such as ‘Media Player’ for VLC) or by pausing over the ‘Internet’ item, which opens out to reveal more applications such as Firefox, Gwibber etc.

OpenBox - a right click on the desktop gives you access to the main menu

Let’s cut to the chase, does wireless work? Doesn’t matter which distro you install on the EEE these days, the vast majority need patches, or new kernels, installed.

See? Told you wireless worked out of the box!

I’m delighted to say that CrunchEEE comes with the Array.org kernel by default so, like I said, everything works out of the box.

Through the magic of Skype we can see the webcam working.

The Array.org kernel is a modified Ubuntu kernel which has all the necessary EEE patches installed, so that’s a great time saver right there!

CrunchEEE comes with well over a dozen themes

The default theme in CrunchEEE is quite bland though, it’s a black background with white text on conky, and the window decoration is black and grey. But fear not! CrunchEEE comes with quite a few themes installed. A few clicks later, and a change of wallpaper, and CrunchEEE is looking pretty sexy…

A quick example of OpenBox composite effects with transparency and drop-shadows.

But it doesn’t end there. OpenBox also has some nice built in compositing effects. No, it’s not quite up there with Compiz Fusion, but if you have a high spec EEE then these will keep you happy for now.

Application wise, CrunchEEE has pretty much everything you’ll need. From the CrunchEEE release page:

Here is a list of features/installed software:

• Array.org repository enabled with 2.6.27-8-eeepc-lean Kernel installed by default.
• Modified default theme with smaller fonts.
• Terminator terminal.
• Firefox web browser.
• PCMan File Manager with HAL automounting enabled.
• Leafpad text editor.
• VLC media player.
• Claws Mail email client.
• Liferea feed reader.
• gFTP file tranfer client.
• Transmission BitTorrent client.
• Skype VoIP client.
• XChat Internet Relay Chat client.
• gPodder podcast catcher.
• Pidgin instant messenger.
• Gwibber microblogging client.
• Various tools and utilities, such File Roller, Evince PDF viewer, etc.

As you can see, quite a list for a small(ish) 450mb ISO. Although I doubt the need for gPodder. gFTP and Liferea, but even then, removing them would probably not make much of a dent in the 450mb ISO. One thing it should have though is a decent screen capture utility. PrtScr key works in most cases, but not when I needed to capture menus and such like.

The main thing is: does it work? Yes. Is it fast? Yes. Not once did I see it using more than about 25% of my 4Gb EEE 701’s resources. Does it take up much space? No. It uses just over 1Gb of my 4Gb drive, compared to nearly 2Gb for plain Ubuntu. Is it worth keeping? Definitely! CrunchEEE will be staying on my EEE until someone can come up with something smaller, and faster.