They say nothing lasts forever, and sadly that statement seems to have been proven true again. Yesterday, Philip Newborough (aka corenominal) announced that he would no longer be developing CrunchBang Linux.
In his post, Philip stated that he felt that it “…no longer holds any value…,” and that “… it would be in the best interest of its users, who would benefit from using vanilla Debian.” I couldn’t disagree more Philip. For those of us who were trying to escape the trappings of increasingly bloated distributions like Ubuntu, Fedora, Mint, and their ilk, CrunchBang, with its light-weight Openbox window manager, was an asylum. A minimalist distribution; designed to be efficient and customizable, CrunchBang struck the right balance between speed and functionality. I still think there is a demand for such a distribution.
I can’t tell you how profoundly sad I am about this news. I of course wish Philip the very best in whatever the future may bring. He should be very proud of his creation, and he should know that CrunchBang Linux will always hold a special place in my heart.