Hi all, this post is being written from another install of Crunchbang Linux. Why is this worth mentioning? Well, it really isn’t worth mentioning, but I did anyway.
Recently I acquired a PC that belonged to a friend of mine. I offered $20 and, well, it has its limitations, but what do you want for 20 dollars, right? Right. Here’s the technical details: Shuttle XPC with an AMD64 Proc., DVD-ROM Optical Drive, 1GB of RAM, and a 20GB Hard disk. My intended purpose for this machine is to perform software experiments and testing. Nothing crazy mind you, so spending money to fix/improve it would be money wasted.
So, being a Linux enthusiast, I gave several Distros a test drive on this machine. Distros such as Mint (Debian, LXDE, Gnome), Crunchbang Linux, and Ubuntu (main Gnome 2/3, and Lubuntu), as these are my recent (and old) favorites. You can say I prefer the Debian Based Linux OS, but that’s a story for another blog post.
The results: (because surely a fair amount of those actually reading this blog are curious to learn what actually happened).
Linux Mint Results:
Mint 12 LXDE would not install, Mint 12 Debian Edition crashed mid-way thru installation, and Mint 11 GNOME was the winner in the Stable Mint environment for this machine.
Ubuntu Results:
Ubuntu 10.04.4 got most of the way through the install and crashed. Lubuntu 12.04 installed nicely, but had lots of crashing during web browser use, so bye-bye. Ubuntu 11.04 GNOME was ok. Ubuntu 12.04 GNOME not even a consideration based on inability to install a recent Linux Mint. My Ubuntu goal was to use a long-term-support release if possible.
Crunchbang Linux Results:
This particular machine has had Crunchbang installed on it several times over the last 2-3 months, for stability tests and Linux multi-boot (GRUB) experiments. I must say, each and every time the installation was a success, and the speed of the Openbox environment (which are the main reasons I use Crunchbang on my other Linux Desktop PC) performs superbly.
There’s just something about this machine I guess. With 1GB of Ram, and (seemingly) other hardware-related issues, Crunchbang fits right in with its low-resource footprint. Based on your hardware, the age and condition of said hardware, some software is just going to work better than others.
This is why I love Linux. When faced with a challenge, try, try again until you find what you want in terms of customization, efficiency of use, and last but not (by a longshot) least —stability. I cannot emphasize this enough.
The next article will discuss SugarCRM, and why it’s awesome to have an extra PC around.
Cheers!