CrunchBang Linux was a distribution created by Philip Newborough. It was based on Debian GNU/Linux and used the Openbox window manager and GTK applications.

This distribution was designed to offer an excellent balance between speed and functionality, it was as stable as Debian itself, in addition to incorporating by default a minimalist and modern interface that could be customized to the extreme, which made this distribution perfect for productivity and to install on computers with few hardware resources.

On February 6, 2015, Newborough announced his withdrawal from the project, leaving it in the hands of the community, but those who picked up the baton did not uphold principles such as minimalism, lightness, and attention to detail. This article derives from the latter.

Continue reading ArtBangGNU: Installing and configuring Debian CrunchBang style

The Linux Unified Key Setup or LUKS is a disk-encryption specification created by Clemens Fruhwirth and originally intended for GNU/Linux. While most disk encryption software implements different and incompatible, undocumented formats, LUKS specifies a platform-independent standard on-disk format for use in various tools. This facilitates compatibility and interoperability amongst different programs.

The reference implementation for LUKS operates on GNU/Linux and is based on an enhanced version of cryptsetup, using dm-crypt as the disk encryption backend. Under Microsoft Windows, LUKS-encrypted disks can be used with FreeOTFE (discontinued) or DoxBox.

Continue reading How to encrypt a USB storage device with ‘Linux Unified Key Setup’ (LUKS)

Plymouth is an application that runs very early in the boot process (even before the root filesystem is mounted!) that provides a graphical boot animation while the boot process happens in the background.

It is designed to work on systems with Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) modesetting drivers. The idea is that early on in the boot process the native mode for the computer is set, plymouth uses that mode, and that mode stays throughout the entire boot process up to and after X starts. Ideally, the goal is to get rid of all flicker during startup.

For systems that don’t have DRM mode settings drivers, plymouth falls back to text mode.

Continue reading How to install Plymouth in Debian, a graphical boot animation while the boot (and shutdown) process happens in the background