Crunchy New Year!

I started 2012 by installing a new operating system! My tired, old, economy laptop was not up to running the latest eye candy, so I looked around for a lighter weight distribution and discovered CrunchBang (or #! for short).  I guess it started out as a fork of Ubuntu, but using OpenBox for a window manager. Ubuntu has the annoying habit of renaming its distributions after its window managers (Ubuntu with KDE is Kubuntu,  Ubuntu with Xfce is Xubuntu, &c.), so I guess CrunchBang would have become Oubuntu. But it was refactored to  derive directly from Debian, so there is none of that nonsense. Instead, they have their own nonsense! Each release is named after a muppet...the latest is Statler.

Anyway, it installed without a hitch! Yup, really. Worked perfectly without a single modification. Even the wireless.

I couldn't figure out how to get some of my preferences from OpenBox. I had to resort to X Windows solutions to make the mouse left-handed and to swap the caps lock and ctrl keys

$ cat >> .Xmodmap
!
! Make mouse left-handed
!
pointer = 3 2 1 4 5

!
! Swap Caps_Lock and Control_L
!
remove Lock = Caps_Lock
remove Control = Control_L
keysym Control_L = Caps_Lock
keysym Caps_Lock = Control_L
add Lock = Caps_Lock
add Control = Control_L
^D
$ xmodmap .Xmodmap

I was able to convince OpenBox to make the focus follow the mouse

  Settings -> Openbox -> GUI Config Tool
    Mouse
      Focus windows when the mouse pointer moves over them

Next, I couldn't find any sign of Emacs in CrunchBang, but that's okay; I want the Emacs 24 pre-release anyway

$ wget -q -O - http://emacs.naquadah.org/key.gpg | sudo apt-key add -
$ sudo geany /etc/apt/sources.list
    deb http://emacs.naquadah.org/ stable/
    deb-src http://emacs.naquadah.org/ stable/
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install emacs-snapshot

Oops, Emacs keeps beeping at me! Back to X to turn off the bell

$ xset -b

We're not in too bad of shape as far as scripting languages go

$ perl -v | grep ^This
This is perl, v5.10.1 (*) built for x86_64-linux-gnu-thread-multi
$ python -V
Python 2.6.6
$ ruby -v
bash: ruby: command not found

but I tend to ignore the system versions and install my own anyway. First, install perlbrew

$ curl -kL http://install.perlbrew.pl | bash
$ . $HOME/perl5/perlbrew/etc/bashrc
$ perlbrew install-cpanm

and use it to install Modern Perl

$ perlbrew install perl-5.14.2
$ perlbrew switch perl-5.14.2
$ cpanm Task::Kensho

Similarly, install pythonbrew for Python

$ curl -kL http://github.com/utahta/pythonbrew/raw/master/pythonbrew-install | bash
$ . $HOME/.pythonbrew/etc/bashrc

and RVM for Ruby

$ curl https://rvm.beginrescueend.com/install/rvm | bash
$ . $HOME/.rvm/scripts/rvm

I couldn't find anything on CoffeeScript in CrunchBang either, but that's okay too. Both node.js and npm seem to be changing too quickly to keep up with anyway. We'll just install them the long way. First, install node.js

$ cd downloads
$ wget http://nodejs.org/dist/v0.6.6/node-v0.6.6.tar.gz
$ tar xzf node-v0.6.6.tar.gz 
$ cd node-v0.6.6/
$ ./configure
$ make
$ make test
$ sudo make install

Next, install npm

$ git clone https://github.com/isaacs/npm.git
$ cd npm
$ make
$ make test
$ sudo make install

Finally, install CoffeeScript

$ sudo npm install -g coffee-script

So, not bad...first day, and I'm already right at home in CrunchBang!

Comments

[Matt Diesel]

That's a good configuration... If you wanted to stop me doing anything on your computer :P I don't think I'd be able to use that at all.

[oylenshpeegul]

And yet, this configuration has me working more efficiently than ever! This tired, old laptop is my new favorite machine again!