• 13860
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  • Registered: 2010-07-20
  • Posts: 2

Topic: Crunchbang worked when nothing else did!

Ok, I have an HP w/ AMD Athlon64 3300 processor
512MB RAM (1 GIG Coming) 160gb HD
And sadly a SIS graphics card I think SIS 760

I wanted linux on my system as windows is a dog,
here is my journey I installed (or tried) in somewhat order

1.OpenSUSE 11.2 (failed to get past config screen & and other problems)

2.Ubuntu (Failed much like OpenSuse)

3.Fedora (could not get past its loading bar)

(w/the three above- on each one In order to run the livecd I had to disable ACPI/ on each system listed, I tried many methods of installing like
safemode /apic disabled and again with acpi off, text mode and others I tried installing each system many times with different install settings but all failed)

4. CrunchBang ran great from live CD, So I installed it, It was great I installed XFCE then Wine , everything else all worked great and extremely fast
(I own an Intel Core 2 duo and this runs like it has that).

I became greedy and thought If #! worked their must be more popular OS's that work

5.Sabayon w/LXDE (ran blazing fast from live cd however many install problems)

6.Mandriva which lists SIS cards are supported, It didnt work the install kept getting errors then going back

7.PCLinuxOS which should work on every system right? failed It loaded great at first but hit many errors during install

8.Arch Again failed as others

9. MEPIS this was funny it was somewhat fast, ran great from live cd and everything installed nice, but then mouse would not work
I tried the method they describe to enable the mouse, some mask command - but then ran into other errors usb not working
and other stuff.

10.I believe I tried MINT long ago but am to tired to try anything now

11.CrunchBang again where everything worked with no errors and what I am using now to write this,
I do love #!, I just wanted and still want a popular distro.

Very weird I'm sure one of these could work on my system however I could not get them to work when I tried to install them
and again I didnt just throw the cd in and wait for it to work I tried many options and commands and tricks on each one to get them to work

so any ideas why crunchbang works when even Ubuntu what #! is based on didn't even work (I think that was one of the worst installs).

  • From: California, USA
  • Registered: 2008-11-29
  • Posts: 8,647

Re: Crunchbang worked when nothing else did!

First I must say welcome to the forums 13860 smile

Now as for your question: which version of Ubuntu did you try? CrunchBang is based on Ubuntu 9.04, so if that particular version of Ubuntu doesn't work but CrunchBang does, then something weird is going on. If Ubuntu 9.04 does work, then maybe it just has to do with newer packages on other distros.

Note: ** Please read before posting **

BTW if you wish to contact me, send me an e-mail instead of a PM.
  • 13860
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  • Registered: 2010-07-20
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Re: Crunchbang worked when nothing else did!

I tried Ubuntu 10.04 so maybe 9.04 would have worked, I just thought the newer Ubuntu would contain the same drivers as the old Ubuntu,
As for the version of the other Linux OS's basically the newest version of all- Fedora 13, Mandriva 2010.1, Sabayon 5.3, OpenSUSE 11.2 now 11.3, etc...

  • From: Scotland
  • Registered: 2009-12-29
  • Posts: 330

Re: Crunchbang worked when nothing else did!

He may as well installed statler, not 9.04.1? smile

  • Registered: 2010-06-23
  • Posts: 2

Re: Crunchbang worked when nothing else did!

Had similar problems myself. Inherited two old HP/Compaq laptops from work. Being a newbie to Linux, thought I would play around with several live distros. Dreamlinux is very attractive, but hit some unrecognised hardware  problems. Went through several other Debian based distros which mostly worked but were slow to boot with odd hardware errors from time to time. Ubuntu works ok, but only up to 9.04/9.10 and Mint 8.
10.04 and Mint 9 I've given up on!! Crunchbang (9.04) just works and has given me no problems up to now. It may not be the prettiest distro around, but Crunchbang gets the job done and suits me.
ps. If anyone has problems finding a suitable usb wireless adaptor for Linux, try the TP-Link TL-WN321G available on E-bay & Amazon. It's cheap and needs no additional drivers.
Cheers.