May 1st, 2012· SLiM replaces the deprecated GDM. Note, LightDM is under consideration for future builds, but at this point, it does not appear to offer any real advantages over SLiM.
· Chromium replaces Iceweasel. This change reflects my personal preference and recent browser usage statistics.
· Compton replaces xcompmgr and Cairo Composite Manager. Compton provides a stable compositing solution and for the first time, compositing is enabled by default.
· PulseAudio is now installed by default.
February 9th, 2012· The new images do not constitute a new release, at least not for anyone who is content with using the previous 20111125 images. However, due to some concerns which were expressed over the default use of backport packages, there are now 2 sets of images, "stable" and "backported".
· The stable images ship with Debian's stable kernel (2.6.32) and stable X.org (7.5), while the "backported" images ship with Linux 3.2 and X.org (7.6) and automatically track any packages that enter the Debian backport repository. Both sets of images use backported versions of Iceweasel (10) and Geany (0.20).
November 29th, 2011· Openbox 3.5 — the latest and greatest release. You might want to check the changelog on the Openbox website as a number of significant changes have been made.
· Iceweasel/Firefox 8 replaces Chromium 9 — CrunchBang seems to switch back-and-forth between default browsers, probably like a lot of users do. I do not think this is problem, but merely reflects the state of browser development and availability at the time. Having said that Firefox seems to be getting better with each release and the mozilla.debian.net team are doing a fantastic job of keeping up with the new release schedule. So, I have mirrored the mozilla.debian.net repository and will keep it in sync. Also, for any Google Chrome and/or Opera users, there is a new Openbox pipemenu for installing these browsers with minimal effort, and a menu item for setting the system’s default x-www-browser.
· Geany replaces gedit — I spend much of my day in my editor and until a few months ago that editor had always been gedit. Then someone suggested I take a look at Geany, so I did and it won me over. Geany is a fantastic editor, is highly configurable, has lots of great plugins and maybe just as importantly, is DE independent.
· Gigolo and Thunar for managing connections to remote filesystems — in the past, some reviewers have mentioned the fact that there has not been an easy way to mount and browse remote filesystems through the default file manager. I have addressed this by including Gigolo and configuring it to work out-of-the-box with Thunar. It is now super simple to connect to remote filesystems via SSH, Samba etc.
· Improved D-I preseeding — all packages related to the LiveCD are now completely purged during the installation process, resulting in a much cleaner system.
· Linux kernel 2.6.39 replaces 2.6.32 — this is the kernel from the Debian backports repository. Debian backports are enabled by default.
· LibreOffice replaces OpenOffice.org — actually, CrunchBang ships with AbiWord and Gnumeric, but many people choose to install a more feature rich office suite via the CrunchBang post installation script. The script has been changed to suggest LibreOffice.
· New repository locations — as part of my ongoing work to move domains from crunchbanglinux.org to crunchbang.org, the repositories for these builds have been moved. Also, a new website is being constructed, but is very much a work in progress. Apologies if this causes any inconvenience or confusion to anyone. I will write more about this at some point in the future.
· Many more minor and cosmetic changes.
January 7th, 2011· Google Chrome installed as the default browser.
· A new live-installer, as used by the LMDE project.
· Plymouth graphical boot loader enabled by default after installation.
· Improved font rendering.
Improved post-installation script, providing optional installs of:
· Liquorix/Zen kernel.
· Sun Java(TM) Runtime Environment and browser plugin.
· Back to black artwork.
· 100s of additional plugins and filters for GIMP via the ‘gimp-plugin-registry’ package.
· Updated Dropbox packages and Thunar Dropbox extensions installed by default.
· Pino replaced by Heybuddy, a micro blogging Indenti.ca client.
Various other minor fixes and improvements, including, but not limited to:
· Xfce menu fixed for applications requiring root privileges.
· Missing ‘wireless-tools’ package is now included.
· Viewnior image viewer rebuilt without the GNOME specific features.
· Updated Elementary icons.
June 26th, 2010· Bash completion has been fixed. Doh!
· A unified set of configuration files for both the Openbox and Xfce versions of CrunchBang.
· Java plugin support added to Iceweasel with the 'icedtea6-plugin' package.
· Inclusion of '/usr/sbin' & '/sbin' to the system $PATH variable - an old Ubuntuism?
· Customisable (colour & position) notify-osd notifications.
· Support added for hostname resolution via Multicast DNS.
· The choice of either Cairo Composite Manager or xcompmgr for compositing in Openbox.
· A new Openbox pipemenu has been created for easy installation and set-up of the Dropbox service.
A new optional post-installation script which provides:
· Optional installation of printer support (also available via a new Openbox pipemenu)
· Optional installation of OpenOffice.org (also available via a new Openbox pipemenu)
· On Openbox installations, provides the option of having an additional Xfce session, and vice-versa with Xfce installations.
· Optional, easy installation of LAMP stack.
· Optional, easy installation of common development tools.
· Additional firmware for improved support of Broadcom wireless network cards.
An improved installation experience:
· The Debian Installer has been tweaked so that it no longer requires the user to configure their networking devices prior to performing an installation. CrunchBang images are self-contained and do not need a working network connection for the installation.
· Patches have been applied so that installations can be performed with USB images created with the popular UNetbootin software.
· New default Openbox, Xfce and GTK+ themes based on Shiki-Colors, and a new complimentary icon theme created using the GNOME-Colors icon generator.
· Additional popular GTK+ themes and engines included.
· Conky with Lua scripting support.
· Fix for lockscreen bug/issue when running in a live session - now presents a dialog box, on first run, informing the user of the live session password.
· amd64 builds now include the 32bit Adobe Flash plugin - the 64bit plugin is currently not available due to security vulnerabilities.
March 20th, 2010· A completely new build process.
· Switched from Ubuntu to Debian sources.
· Now uses a customised Debian text installer, available from the LiveCD boot menu.
· Now available with either a default Openbox or Xfce4 session. The new Xfce offering has been designed to mimic the original CrunchBang Openbox experience, i.e. a minimal desktop with right-click system menu and predefined shortcut keys for popular applications and commands.
· Available for 32 bit and 64 bit architectures, with the 32 bit offering available in i486 and i686 optimised kernel flavours.
· Now includes a minimal set of pre-installed applications. The application line-up will be revised over future releases.
July 8th, 2009· Much improved boot performance with faster start-up times.
· Improved support for wireless cards.
· Ext4 filesystem support.
· The lightweight tint2 panel/taskbar replaces lxpanel.
· Transmission BitTorrent client replaces Deluge.
· A full Vim installation included by default.
· Pyroom fullscreen editor included by default.
Many other minor tweaks and fixes including:
· Improved documentation added to default configuration files.
· Openbox menu items added for commonly used configuration files.
· New and improved default Openbox and GTK themes.
· Additional Openbox and GTK+ themes installed, including the popular Dyne themes.
January 19th, 2009Features:
· PCMan File Manager replaces Thunar.
· Xfce4 integration/dependencies removed removed in favour of LXDE components.
· VLC returns to replace Totem as the default media player.
· Qt4 apps (VLC & Skype) are now styled with qgtkstyle, providing a unified look-and-feel to the desktop.
· A new Tango icon theme for Claws Mail.
· Leafpad included as an alternative editor to gedit.
· Gdebi installed by default.
· New system updater script installed and added to the main Openbox menu and assigned to a shortcut key.
· An additional shortcut key defined to Openbox's client list menu for easy management of virtual desktops.
· gPodder podcast catcher installed and included in the “Internet” menu.
· Xfburn replaces Brasero.
· OSMO, a handy personal organiser replaces Orage.
· A new Openbox pipemenu replaces the old “Places” menu.
· A new Openbox pipemenu replaces the old “Help” menu.
A new “Terminal Apps” menu added, includes the following applications:
· Vim - editor
· Midnight Commander - file manager
· rtorrent - BitTorrent client
· MoC - music player
· Newsbeuter - feed reader
· elinks - web browser
· MUTT - email client
· irssi - IRC client
· naim - chat client
· htop - system monitor
· Better support for Atheros based wireless cards via the ath5k module.
· ndiswrapper installed for non-supported wireless cards.
Bug Fixes:
· The following bugs reported in 8.10.01 have been squished...
· Printing/Broken CUPS.
· Default icons fixed in lxpanel's application launcher.
· Logout button fixed in lxpanel.
· Broken DVD playback in Totem - no longer an issue as DVD playback is now handled by VLC.
· Terminator terminal flickering.
· Terminator palette fixed.
· Conky restart script fixed.
· Default Openbox theme fixed.
· Sensible ALSA sound levels set on first boot.
November 27th, 2008· This is the third release of the distribution and as the version number suggests, it is based on Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex. As with previous releases, 8.10.01 has been built from scratch using the Ubuntu minimal CD. What's new? As well as being based on the latest version Ubuntu, this release sees a number of changes: a new darker theme; tablaunch has been removed; dmenu has been included; some additional default shortcut keys added, including main menu, logout and dmenu; OpenOffice.org replaced by AbiWord and Gnumeric; AcidRip removed; Twitux replaced by Gwibber; Mirage replaced by GPicView; VLC removed in favour of Totem, VLC is now a Qt 4 application; GNOME Power Manager enabled by default.
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