Statler development

I am currently working towards putting together another CrunchBang Statler release. The last release was on June 25th, which was over 5 months ago. I guess 5 months might seem like a long time between development releases, but to be honest, not much has changed since June.

Naturally, there have been many package updates coming from the Debian Squeeze repositories, but there has not been anything that has broken the last CrunchBang Alpha release. In fact, I have been running the same “Alpha” release for the past six months and in my opinion, it has been more stable than any of the Ubuntu releases I used to run. This is more a testament to the great work of the Debian developers, rather than anything I have done.

Anyhow, I have decided that for the next release it would be a good idea to drop the “Alpha/Beta/RC” tags and opt to use a build date instead. I think this is a good idea because many people have commented that the last release was not really an alpha release, as it was too stable. For the most part, I agree with this. Obviously, the release still proved problematic for some people, but no more than any other release by any other distro.

So, what can people expect to see in the new release? More of the same. The new release will not feature any newfangled shells or anything like that. It will feature the same tried and trusted Openbox window manager and a selection of applications which Just Work(TM).

Expect the new release when it is ready. :)

Tagged with: crunchbang linux

26 responses to “Statler development”

  • Dominik Dominik on,
    Nov 28, 2010 (about 1 year ago)

    good news! sounds like it’s going to be a rolling release model?

    keep up the good work!

  • Gutterslob Gutterslob on,
    Nov 28, 2010 (about 1 year ago)

    Am I the only one that noticed this announcement? … was expecting this comments section to be flooded with “Yay” and “Huzzah!!” type posts.

    Great news to all CrunchBangers, I’m sure. :)

    When you said “no newfangled shell” I initially thought your were referring to the Unix Shell (as in Bash, ZSH, KSH…etc). Was half-hoping you’d adopt ZSH. :-/

    Anyhows, it’s still awesome news. Impeccable timing, I must say. I recently managed to halk-bork my current Statler partition, thanks to my half-past-six attempts at upgrading Nvidia drivers. Was planning a fresh install, but I’ll hold out till this new version is ready.

    You’re a saint, you know that!!

    P.S: Just noticed we get a cute little Space-Invader type avatar when we post here. Wheeeee!! :D

  • Unia Unia on,
    Nov 28, 2010 (about 1 year ago)

    Thats some awesome news!

  • Andreas Andreas on,
    Nov 28, 2010 (about 1 year ago)

    Space Invader avatar? I have to try that out!

    Anyway, thanks for the news update, I’m not ‘looking forward’ for Statler is already good enough for me. I’m definitely kind of excited.

  • sohesado sohesado on,
    Nov 29, 2010 (about 1 year ago)

    great news. I’m seeing forward for the statler’s update

  • stocc stocc on,
    Nov 29, 2010 (about 1 year ago)

    Hello Philip. Thanks for all your efforts. Will there be an XFCE version of the new Statler release, or will it be Openbox only?

  • anonymous anonymous on,
    Nov 29, 2010 (about 1 year ago)

    Hey corenominal is anything in the “Alpha 2 Known Issues” thread now fixed? What about the GTK themes?

  • corenominal corenominal on,
    Nov 29, 2010 (about 1 year ago)

    @stocc, yes, there probably will be an Xfce version, but the main focus is on the Openbox version.

    @anonymous, most of the items on that list were completed for the second alpha. The list is kind of out of date, which is my fault. Regarding the GTK themes, what would you like to know?

  • anonymous anonymous on,
    Nov 29, 2010 (about 1 year ago)

    Mainly points #2 and #4 though it would be nice to hear your feedback for all points:

    http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/post/74465/#p74465

  • paolo paolo on,
    Nov 29, 2010 (about 1 year ago)

    Wow !!! I’m happy for this great news !!! Please can you add scim or iBus for the CJK writing ?

  • HilltopYodeler HilltopYodeler on,
    Nov 29, 2010 (about 1 year ago)

    Yay!!! Huzzah!!!

    I’ve been using #! since the day that the first release came out. Love it. Super happy with the switch to Debian testing. Other than for the known issue associated with the Keyboard layout/language selection not being honored (which can really mess with someone who uses special characters in their password during installation… - source: http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/topic/8392/alpha-2-known-issues/), I’ve really not had any other problems with Alpha2. In addition to being a work-horse, it’s elegant, simple, ultra-customizable, and is everything that I want in an OS.

    P.S. - I really like the addition of the cb-welcome script that assists the user with setting up various services on the machine! Thank you! I’m looking forward to the next release!

  • corenominal corenominal on,
    Nov 30, 2010 (about 1 year ago)
  • anonymous anonymous on,
    Nov 30, 2010 (about 1 year ago)

    Thank you for answering.

  • jargon jargon on,
    Dec 1, 2010 (about 1 year ago)

    Fantastic news. Keep up all the great work! :-)

  • frogdos frogdos on,
    Dec 1, 2010 (about 1 year ago)

    Corenominal, thank you again for all your hard graft.

  • caieng caieng on,
    Dec 1, 2010 (about 1 year ago)

    Corenominal wrote:

    @stocc, yes, there probably will be an Xfce version, but the main focus is on the Openbox version.

    My reason for preferring the XFCE version, is simple: I do not know how to configure the OpenBox version for automatic login.

    I am sure there must be a method available, and maybe that method is even childishly simple. I am not so confident though, that this method will be transparent to those not intimately familiar with Linux.

    Using the XFCE variant of Statler (haha, I am so senile, I am still using the alpha 1), I just need two or three mouse clicks to enable that critical feature. Even better (for those with decreased mentation, and increased nocturia,) in my opinion, would be an option, during installation, which inquired whether or not the user would prefer to enable autologin!

  • neocat neocat on,
    Dec 1, 2010 (about 1 year ago)

    Alpha release too stable? That´s no sin, in fact a testimony how great this distro is! Debian and openbox is a cool combo. I look fwd to the day Statler surpasses #! 9.04 in terms of polish. Many many thanks!

  • corenominal corenominal on,
    Dec 1, 2010 (about 1 year ago)

    caieng wrote:

    My reason for preferring the XFCE version, is simple: I do not know how to configure the OpenBox version for automatic login.

    I believe the command is gksudo gdmsetup :)

  • richs-lxh richs-lxh on,
    Dec 1, 2010 (about 1 year ago)

    Great news, moving closer to the final release. I’m all for the pure Debian #!

    What will happen to the Ubuntu isos and documentation? Will they be removed or just marked deprecated?

    There’s still quite a mixed image out there of what Crunchbang is based on, even though we plug Statler like hell on identica as Debian.

    Anyhoo, looking forward to the next dist-upgrade.

  • corenominal corenominal on,
    Dec 1, 2010 (about 1 year ago)

    @richs-lxh, I am hoping the new website design will help with the identity crisis. :)

  • arpinux arpinux on,
    Dec 2, 2010 (about 1 year ago)

    WoW!!! YEAHHHHH!!! that’s a kind of news i like. agree with the idea of a build date release, agree with OB, agree with what Just Work :D thx again for your work, can’t wait for the new #! :)

  • Sector11 Sector11 on,
    Dec 3, 2010 (about 1 year ago)

    Expect the new release when it is ready.

    That’s so #! it’s perfect!

    Don’t think I’d want it before it was ready anyway, it might go CRUNCH BANG … although I doubt that. Too “solid” now!

  • grumblz grumblz on,
    Dec 4, 2010 (about 1 year ago)

    I’m currently working on piecing yet another computer together from spare parts. Looks like this might be just in time! Thanks for all your work!

  • Viaurl Viaurl on,
    Dec 4, 2010 (about 1 year ago)

    This sounds great I’m so stoaked for a pure DEB#!, and sorry to burst any bubbles but you should be proud to have made an alpha so stable, that just goes to show how great our fearless leader is ;), keep up the good work core; keep us posted!

  • merelyjim merelyjim on,
    Dec 7, 2010 (about 1 year ago)

    The latest Alpha has been so rock-solid for so long, it didn’t occur to me that it’s been out for so long. That’s pretty impressive, in and of itself…

  • Ruslan Ruslan on,
    Feb 6, 2011 (about 1 year ago)

    I love #!, exactly what I was looking for. the only thing I would change if I could is name thunar(I think it’s not very reasonable). I would name it nautilus or explorer or whatever, just not paigan mithology.

Add your comment

Use the form below to add your comment. Markdown syntax is available. Note, all comments are moderated.