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As some already said, customizing ubuntu to make it more crunchbang-like will cost you lots of efforts and research.
...

Yea, I realize that now. Also I don't really have the time to check out how long it would take me ;)

@Digit:
You should get a blog, yes :)
I didn't question the sense or legality of free software in general. But we have to admit that not everything that is legal is also useful. Some things in this world are just completely needless, e.g. american beer, russian chocolate or fancy nordic walking outfits :P

As some already said, customizing ubuntu to make it more crunchbang-like will cost you lots of efforts and research.

Crunchbang is not only replacing gnome by openbox, some other stuff is customized (pulseaudio removed or something like that).

Finally after some months spent playing around with distros installs and customizations, I join the idea of omns:

The fact of the matter is, if you install all the programs #! has on Ubuntu you still won't have #! There is alot more than just programs on a kernal. Just to be able to shutdown from the menu without using the terminal took me 2 hours to get how I wanted it (though to be fair #! uses GDM [I think] and I use WDM). Likewise it wust have took a fair bit of work getting the menu right, Corenominal had to decide what to add to it, what not to, and how to format it. I didn't have the patience for that approach, I used the menu package (that autobuilds the menu) and just added my config files to it and let wbar handle the applications for me. This is MUCH messier looking than #! so Really corenominal did quite a bit of work.

To that point, #! is actually rather user friendly and that is pretty hard to achieve, especially in a setup that is really made for power users. It also doesn't resort to what I call "messy-ness" for example my Wbar makes a full path call to SeaMonkey 2.0.2, since it isn't a proper package (therefore not uninstallable with synaptic or dpkg) that is messy, #! is not.

I have alot of respect for corenominal's accomplishment, he deserves it. I couldn't imagine how much time it took him to tweak the config files and ensure they were compatible, My hat is off to him. I know I wouldn't be patient enough to do things like write a conky config that works on all computers (it took me a few minutes to realize why conky didn't work in my remastersys backup live CD until I realized that my dektop has three CPUs and my laptop only has one).

I say keep up the good work, hopefully #! 10.04 (or whatever) works on my primary desktop (I still have no clue why 9.04 doesn't it works flawlessly on everything else just not my primary desktop).

hi everybody!

I heard (actually read) about crunchbang just yesterday and I have to admit - I like it! I like its style, its colors and the fact that it's not using resource-wasting desktop environments like KDE or gnome.
I consider checking out #! on my business laptop (which is a netbook) - but there are still things I don't understand about crunchbang and other ubuntu derivatives. What is their right to exist? (I don't mean to offend anybody with this question, I am asking because I really am interested in the answer).
Would it be much different if I set up an ubuntu and added openbox and just used it? Is #! only about the wallpaper, colors and fonts? Or are there deeper customizations which would justify its use?

Looking forward to your opinions!

Cheers,
Klaus

good question.  though i never trust someone who talks of opinions anymore.  (a few unpleasant experiences).

"What is their right to exist?'

seriously though, really good question.   perfect opportunity to do a big song and dance about GNU, and the GPL, and the history of... blah blah blah.

really, the simple of it is, i could copy #!'s ISO, leave everything as it is, except take all the bits that say "CRUNCHBANG" and call them "JuniperPunch" instead, and release my own ISO, and call it SummerDrinksLinux9.32, and it'd b perfectly legal.
(i think, the proprietary bits are just codecs n all that which are given out for free too, so no problems there as far as i can tell.).

its free software, free to use, free to copy, free to share, free to poke your nose under the hood to see what it's actually doing, free to redistribute, even free to rebrand, and in some cases, that's not only prefered, it's the only legal recourse you'd have, otherwise, you'd be using someone else's name as your own, and they might not like that.  lol.   quite the different spin on proprietary software.  you try that with windows or mac...   "Hi, I, Digit, and my associate here, CentaClaus, are here to present to you the new opperating system, we've called it MagicDigitbox $entaCLOS, and it is 100% identical except the branding, to M$ windows 7!, and the CLOS stands for Complete Load Of.... Substandardness.  ... geddit, play on our names, the "dontknowwhatsinsideit"blackboxpuzzle, the santaclaus [money]sent a complete load of shit...  and that's how we're marketting it too"... ~ back in the real world though, that'd never happen because we'd have the sense to realise that M$ windoze's "license" is too restrictuve to ever allow something like that to happen, and if we were too stupid to realise what that meant, we'd either end up dead, killed off by M$ goons ((i dont actually know thats what they do, but they're certainly ruthless in other ways)), or we'd end up being squished like tiny bugs by giant herds of lawyers.

free software has lawyers give us the legal right to copy this software, through various liscences, mostly the GPL is featured, but also Apache, BSD, and loadsa others too.  (i recently was reminded of the WTFPL)

so with ubuntu, and #! they can exist, and so can all their progeny.  :D  you can breed your own.   crunchbang is quite possibly the BEST place to start, and its worth checking out a few others to realise that.  ^_^

PS...  i totally need to get it all out in a blog.  lol
PPS, and yeah, crunchbang changed my life.   it's the little touches.  the keyboard shortcuts in conky?  ! Genius!
  /me leaves to make drunken fool of himself elsewhere on the net.

Aside from Xubuntu, I haven't heard much to recommend Karmic anything.

Karmic won't run on my main system even as Xubuntu. (But neither will anything else with a kernel version later than 2.6.29, not even Slackware.)

As a member of distro-hoppers anonymous, my head still can't get around the concept that there is someone who finds doing a fresh install to be trouble. There must be people who don't get excited to see what's going to happen, to make the new system dance on the computer, to see what this distro's repository might have in it, or how that package might run in this environment...

Why, there must be people who don't actually have to talk themselves out of installing a different distro when they get bored with the Internet. How can this be?

Corenominal is reportedly looking at both Ubuntu and Debian for the next #!, and several people here have been working on versions built on Arch and other distros.

Aside from Xubuntu, I haven't heard much to recommend Karmic anything.

So far, so good - what are the plans for lucid? ;)

@anonymous: Didn't have the courage to try that one on a karmic system ....

@klanger and snowpine: Thanks, I see your points...
But still: wouldn't it be easier to write a tutorial of how to get something like #! out from ubuntu in 10 minutes? This would be more attractive for many people already running ubuntu or Mint - they wouldn't have to install a new OS from scratch.
Or: just add somthing like crunchbang-desktop into the ubuntu repos (like e.g. lubuntu-desktop).
I guess I'm still missing a point somewhere...

A faster way than using the installer script is to just add the CrunchBang repo to Ubuntu (jaunty):

http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/post/36337/#p36337

Then refresh your sources and install either "crunchbang-desktop" or "crunchbang-desktop-lite".

The way I see it, it would be a challenge for me to remove everything that i no longer need or want that ubuntu installed. It would be more time efficient to just save the home folder and spent 10-20min on a fresh install. Then i'd have no concerns. As snowpine mentioned, the alternate install script works too.
And if you do it from ontop of a full ubuntu install, you can have two seperate sessions, one with your regular ubuntu, one with #! if you really like.

Anyhow, with regards as to why some people prefer to use it over Ubuntu, I guess it is mainly an exercise in saving time. As you pointed out, it could be possible to reproduce the CrunchBang experience yourself in a short while, but if you then had to reproduce the steps taken to do this on a thousand other machines, would you not then consider creating a custom install disk?

Also, please do not misunderstand what CrunchBang is about. It is not about taking Ubuntu and trying to re-brand it into something else and pretend it is not Ubuntu. I have always stated that CrunchBang is effectively Ubuntu, but with added customisations. :)

Anyhow, good luck if you decide to give it a go. I would love to get some feedback postinstall! ;)

@pvsage:
I think gnome's bloat is no problem if all the gnome stuff isn't loaded (into RAM).
But you're still right, it's always better to install an OS from scratch.