Next, Next, Next, Next, Next, Next etc

The other day I decided I needed a single USB thumbdrive for those times I can't use my own install of Linux, or even someone else's, or even worse, a Windows install with IE as the owners choice of web browser and no ability or authority to install a proper web browser. For this I decided to make a Crunchbang install with a Portable Apps partition.

The plan is for a single thumbdrive that I can take with me and either reboot with the drive plugged in, in the hopes of seeing the grub menu, or at least being able to flick the BIOS to see it, or as a fallback position that I at least have my own Firefox and Thunderbird instances.

While the Crunchbang Linux install was pretty straightforward the Portable Apps part yet again reminded me of just how poor the Windows platform is in terms of simplicity.

When Crunchbang first runs it has a welcome script which you can skip any stage or all of it, and run it another time. At first I thought this was rather annoying, but after thinking about it, and what it was offering to do for you I reconsidered, it's a great idea. It offers to set up things either too large to come on the CD or legally it can't distribute on the CD.

Want OpenOffice instead of the lighter Abiword and Gnumeric? Want printer support? Want Samba support? All of these are part of the script, along with a new alternate kernel better optimised for desktops and a refreshing and updating of the existing software.

While this is a tad time consuming as it interrupts at each of the 15 stages to ask you and wait for your response, it does at least package the proper dependencies into one response ie if you say yes to OpenOffice, it also includes the GTK extras for the themes to make it fit in.

By comparison setting up the Portable Apps partition was incredibly attention sapping. Since this thumbdrive is designed to be a digital toolkit that I don't use all that often but always have with me to do a particular job when it's needed. For that I need a reasonably wide variety of apps  handy even though I may never use them. I installed 30+ apps, actually I think it was 32; each one of them I had to click a few times to download manually one at a time, then click through 3, 4 or 5 times for each wizard to install them all one at a time.

Average those 30 apps with a 3 click wizard and that's 90 clicks. Yes, NINETY clicks, every time waiting for you to click before it can continue. Crunchbang was time consuming in the 15 stage script, but that was mostly in download time. Over that whole process it would have been maybe 25 to 30 clicks where it needs your attention.

This is 2011 and we still have to download apps one at a time, then install them one at a time?

Keep in mind the purpose of this thumbdrive is to be used occasionally, it will easily go for months without being required, then twice or three times in a few days. How easy will both be to keep updated? I figure a weekend routine will be fine, boot into Crunchbang with a quick "sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade" and the final "y" to confirm will keep Crunchbang up to date.

Portable Apps; like the entire Windows ecosphere relies on lots of individual clicks, even to check for updates you have to actually run every application, then find it's update check; or keep an eye on the version numbers of the ones you have installed, then check each page of the site, download one at a time and click through the wizards one at a time for each new version.

It puts me in mind of a video game, where the apps require the users attention to continue. Video games are mostly fun, and more importantly they're designed to entertain people and help them pass the time. A game that plays itself wouldn't sell. Installing and updating applications should not be designed with the video game mindset.

Yes there is an RSS feed for Portable Apps which at least lets you know when a new version of an app is released but it does nothing to avoid the next, next, next, next, next, next next pattern. Someone badly needs to develop a package manager / repository system for Portable Apps where you can plug your thumbdrive into either a Windows, Linux or Mac PC, and it scans the versions of what you have installed, and offers a list of new versions, letting you untick those you don't want, and a simple "yes" to have it download and install them all with no other user input.

The package manager / repository model is just one of the usability killer features of Linux. The ability to check for updates and update your entire system in one swoop means you can choose to use your time better, doing other stuff. Imagine the ability to have your weekly update while you eat your dinner, knowing it's not going to need your input; move to Linux and you can live that dream. Even Apple have figured that one out, they call it an App Store.

Partitions and filesystems were trial and error too, but I divided my 16GB drive into a 2GB FAT32 partition at the start, then EXT4 for the rest, with Grub installed to the root of the drive. I mounted the entire / onto a single partition which is something I don't normally do. I usually have a separate /home but for this it was overkill and unnecessarily complex. I also set my /swap to be used when running.

Some distros take up more space than others, they also take up different amounts of RAM when running. Since the aim is for a multi-tool to run on a wide variety of hardware, it's beneficial to be as light as possible. Crunchbang is very nice in that regard; it idles at under 100mb and fully installs in around 4GB including all my extra tools like Bluefish, Geany and Inkscape. It's also very snappy running from the thumbdrive, and that's on my netbook which is also limited in resources.

After all of that, what's Crunchbang Linux like? Well, this is only a throwaway paragraph and not a review but I'd say this much; if you haven't tried it before, or not in a while, check it out. I'm very impressed. I haven't spent much time in it yet but so far I'm liking it a lot.

The only flaw I have spotted is a long term one with Crunchbang and it's a personal thing rather than a flaw. The default font size is tiny. There's small and there's tiny; Crunchbang tend to prefer the ant's piss font size for some reason. Being Openbox it needs a few clicks to increase that in various places, which makes it impractical as a live CD, given that the live CD is read only and it resets to the defaults on reboot.

It feels very refined and more polished than the last time I tried it with the last of the Ubuntu base 9.04.1. The Debian Squeeze base of the new one seems to fit in well here, my desktop and netbook are both Debian Squeeze too. After this experience, I am very tempted to switch my regular netbook install from Debian Squeeze with XFCE to Crunchbang with Openbox.