Among optional packages you can choose during setup, the one called "ports" will provide a *BSD-style port tree for CRUX. This system allows the user to keep the packages up-to-date and install contributedports into the base distribution. The number of third-party applications available via the port system is at the moment not comparable with other mainstream distributions. Still you can find many common server and desktop software as apache, mysql, kde (3.1.4), Gnome (2.4.0), mplayer and so on.
More than this, creating a port is very easy and you can always use a personal collection of ports for the ones not present in the contributed collections.
The third-party utility prt-get (strongly recommended) is a very useful tool for installing ports and take care of dependencies. The following are just few snippets, just to show up typical commands you need to type for common maintenance actions:
# synchronize the port tree. ports -u # download, compile and install xfce4 and all its dependencies prt-get install `prt-get quickdep xfce4` # A new version of xfce4 is out? No problem prt-get update xfce4 # want to upgrade the entire system? prt-get sysup
To be more accurate, prt-get is an addon for the default package management system (pkgtools) and is a wrapper for the pkgmk and pkgadd commands, which have no dependency handling (remember the keep it simple idea?)
While the port system is not a new idea, I found it a lot easier to deal with (especially from the packager's point of view) than other solutions (*BSD, Gentoo) for the extreme simplicity of the build files. This someway sacrifices some customization (ie global USE flags in Gentoo), but it gives a "simple and clean" feeling to the entire port system.
The ports are updated regularly about the respective maintainers, I must say that I'm very satisfied by the frequency both of security updates (ie recent openssh vulnerabilities) and new releases of software in general (CRUX was one of the first distros to have Gnome 2.4 in the port tree if I remember well)
Configuration
There are no configuration tools in CRUX. Everything is handled by
you and your favorite editor. As I wrote in the introduction, CRUX
targets advanced users, yet I think it is a great solution for
anyone who would like to learn more about Linux.
I particularly appreciate the fact that ports comes with standard,
default configuration files. No modification is applied to packages,
and you get the applications as they are shipped by their
developers. (think of a default Gnome / KDE installation).
A big, relevant exception is documentation: package guidelines
for CRUX indicate to remove all documentation except
man pages: HTML documentation, info pages, etc. are removed from
the final package.
The general perception that source distributions and
optimized packages would dramatically improve system performance
is an exaggeration. I don't think a i586 package would perform
very differently from a i686 package, maybe with the exception of
applications that are very CPU intensive.
Still I found CRUX the fastest distribution I have tried so far;
I have the general feeling that everything runs faster. I don't
have performance tests to support my impressions, so you'll have
to accept them as a personal opinion, or try CRUX yourself.
I think I cannot say many things about stability of the system:
this is strictly related to how you manually configure your system
and has little to do with the distribution itself, since there is
no automatic setup or configuration.
In general, packages and ports available are the latest stable
release of the applications, and there are no experimental or testing
versions in the port tree.
I suppose the trimmed number of packages available plays in favor
of the general stability, since there is less possibility of
conflicting applications and libraries.
Hardware support could represent a problem during the installation
on some machines: if your basic hardware (i.e. hard disk or motherboard)
is not supported by the kernel on the bootable CD-Rom, you won't be able to
install CRUX.
Another missing feature of the installation CD is support for alternative
filesystems: reiserfs and ext2/3 are supported, while there is no way
at the current stage to install CRUX on a JFS or XFS partition
(though there's a contributed ISO image with XFS support).
Also, installing or updating large sets of packages would take a long time,
since as said before, CRUX is a source based distribution.
The dependency system is considered an "unofficial" addition,
and installing a long list of dependencies could sometimes require
some extra work. For example, there's no easy way to install the full
Gnome desktop with a single command.
Installing certain packages requires some manual intervention
with pre or post-install procedures, and you have to dig into a README
file provided with the port. Some of them are distributed with installation
scripts that could be automatically executed by prt-get.
I liked CRUX Linux from day one, and use it daily as my main distribution. If you want to learn a bit more about Linux go get the ISO and start to play with it. If you have some spare time, it could be an interesting experience.
Overall rating: Very Good.
CLC - Crux Linux Community - http://clc.berlios.de
CRUX ITALY (home of the PPC port): http://www.crux-it.org (Italian)
OSNews: Interview With the Creators of CRUX and ROOTLinux About the Author
I consider myself a pretty advanced user. I've been using personal computers for fun and work for about 15 years (and still find there are a lot of things to learn everyday). I study Ingegneria Informatica at Politecnico di Milano - ITALY and work as a developer in a small company I share with a couple of friends.
- "CRUX, Page 1"
- "CRUX, Page 2"
Technology White Papers
Official Apple statement on PRISM and privacy: "Regardless of the circumstances, our Legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities. In fact, from time to time when we see inconsistencies or inaccuracies in a request, we will refuse to fulfill it." This is basically Apple re-publishing their earlier statement in a more official manner. You either believe it, or you don't.
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The open source Contiki operating system and its commercial Thingsquare distribution are making strides towards the connected home. According to a Computerworld article, a new LED light bulb manufacturer is putting small computers into their light bulbs. Each computer runs the Contiki OS, which gives each bulb an IP address and allows them to be controlled with a smartphone application. To connect the bulbs to the application, the bulbs use both Wi-Fi and the much lower power IEEE 802.15.4 mesh technology.
"Google asked the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Tuesday to ease long-standing gag orders over data requests it makes, arguing that the company has a constitutional right to speak about information it's forced to give the government. The legal filing, which cites the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech, is the latest move by the California-based tech giant to protect its reputation in the aftermath of news reports about sweeping National Security Agency surveillance of Internet traffic." Draining the ditch after the cow has drowned in it."I can't find one person who has been using the Nexus 7 for an extended period of time, and hasn't seen a massive downgrade in performance. Just what kind of downgrade are we talking here? I cannot pick up my Nexus 7 without experiencing problems like a lag of ten seconds, or more, just to rotate the display; touches refusing to acknowledged; stuttering notification panel actions; and unresponsive apps." Fully and utterly agreed. My Nexus 7 was blazing-fast and awesome for a few months, and at some point, it just started sucking. Just like that. I've tried loads of ROMs, and nothing helps.A new release of the hobby operating system MenuetOS! The release notes are a bit non-descript, but you'll have to take what you can get: "updates and improvements (picview, httpc, ehci, ...)"."The Internet is one of the most transformative technologies of our lifetimes. But for 2 out of every 3 people on earth, a fast, affordable Internet connection is still out of reach. And this is far from being a solved problem. There are many terrestrial challenges to Internet connectivity - jungles, archipelagos, mountains. There are also major cost challenges. Right now, for example, in most of the countries in the southern hemisphere, the cost of an Internet connection is more than a month's income. Solving these problems isn't simply a question of time: it requires looking at the problem of access from new angles. So today we're unveiling our latest moonshot from Google[x]: balloon-powered Internet access." Insane.
"MineAssemble is a tiny bootable Minecraft clone written partly in x86 assembly. I made it first and foremost because a university assignment required me to implement a game in assembly for a computer systems course. Because I had never implemented anything more complex than a 'Hello World' bootloader before, I decided I wanted to learn about writing my own kernel code at the same time. Note that the goal of this project was not to write highly efficient hand-optimized assembly code, but rather to have fun and write code that balances readability and speed. This is primarily accomplished by proper commenting and consistent code structuring." Just cool.
Jon Rubinstein, former CEO of Palm: "Well, I'm not sure I would have sold the company to HP. That's for sure. Talk about a waste. Not that I had any choice because when you sell a company you don't get to decide that. Obviously, the board and shareholders decide that. If we had known they were just going to shut it down and never really give it a chance to flourish, what would have been the point of selling the company? I think the deal we had with Verizon really hurt us, but who knew that at the time? These things are all hindsight.""And so it is with Dell's Alienware X51 R2, a small form factor gaming PC in console digs. It's shaped similar to Microsoft's Xbox 360 Slim, and though it's slightly larger than either a 360 or PlayStation 3, the X51 R2 would be right at home in a living room setting nestled next to a large screen TV. Indeed, it's adept at running Steam's Big Picture mode, and if your primary objective is to play games in the living room, go ahead and consider the X51 R2 a hybrid game console." This is obviously not the only machine like this - still, these are very valid console alternatives even for those that don't like being hunched over with a cramped WASD-claw. Also, PC gamers among us: could you get away with the $699 model for gaming?
From Bloomberg: "Microsoft, the world's largest software company, provides intelligence agencies with information about bugs in its popular software before it publicly releases a fix, according to two people familiar with the process. That information can be used to protect government computers and to access the computers of terrorists or military foes." The lid has officially been blown off.