Crux Linux is friggin hard

[reed9]

Alright, after all the positive comments on Crux I thought I would try it, but I think maybe not for me. As seems to be common, on first boot I got a good old kernel panic

Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(3,1)

I see Jayd512 had the same problem in this thread from a while ago. Though I stuck with the default lilo and he was using grub. I really haven't had to mess with either lilo or grub too much before so I'm not all that familiar with them, so perhaps it's just a configuration problem. I made sure ext3 support and sata drivers were compiled into the kernel but no luck.

Just the install process...I thought Arch didn't have much in the way of automated tools. If Techiemoe didn't like Arch because of that, he'd really hate Crux.

Sorry to say, I just don't think I have the time or energy to wrestle with Crux.

I'm impressed by all of you that use it happily though!

[oz]

It's been at least a couple of years since I last ran CRUX, but I liked it very much. It felt like the fastest Linux system I've ever used. The thing was that it was far too time consuming and was simply too much work, overall. Otherwise, I'd probably still be running it.

Arch, on the other hand, quickly proved to be just what I was looking for and it has served me well for about 5 years, now.

Thanks for your sharing your opinion on CRUX.

[reed9]

It's been at least a couple of years since I last ran CRUX, but I liked it very much. It felt like the fastest Linux system I've ever used. The thing was that it was far too time consuming and was simply too much work, overall. Otherwise, I'd probably still be running it.

Well, my first my first try out certainly leads me to agree with you there. As my shirt says, "Arch is best." Good ol' sartorial wisdom.

Arch is plenty fast for me. Mostly I wanted to try Crux from curiosity, and I will likely try again when I have more time someday. But I don't see that it can offer me anything that Arch can't, outside of, perhaps, some speed increase. (Though running openbox on a reasonably powered machine, I'm not sure how much I'd notice.) I've said it in comparison to Gentoo, in comparison to Slackware, and now in comparison to Crux, I find Arch to have all the advantages of those distros without all the hassles.

[Dapper Dan]

Hi reed9! So you gave it a go! As you know, it's always hard learning the ways of a new distro simply because of unfamiliarity. It's kind of like going from Windows to Linux all over again!

If you're using ext3 and you compiled support for it into the kernel then perhaps there is something amiss in you lilo.conf. Would it be worth it to you to post it here so we can have a look?

If I remember correctly, techieMoe has already done a "rant" on CRUX and hated it with a passion!

[jayd512]

Hi reed9! So you gave it a go! As you know, it's always hard learning the ways of a new distro simply because of unfamiliarity. It's kind of like going from Windows to Linux all over again!

If you're using ext3 and you compiled support for it into the kernel then perhaps there is something amiss in you lilo.conf. Would it be worth it to you to post it here so we can have a look?

If I remember correctly, techieMoe has already done a "rant" on CRUX and hated it with a passion!

You said it, Dan!

Moe hated it!
But as he said... it wasn't the right system for him!

Reed, you also need to look at the SATA drivers you are trying to build into the kernel. Depending on the system hardware you have on hand, you might be over lookin' something that you might think is insignificant. If you can et everything compiled correctly, though, you'll have a lightning infused system at your disposal!

[reed9]

I'm fairly certain I compiled both the sata drivers and ext support into the kernel, but it's possible I missed something.

At the moment I threw Arch back on that omputer. (Since at this point I've installed Arch so many times, I can do almost as quick as an Ubuntu install.) Playing with pekwm and jwm a little. So I don't have the lilo.conf handy. It was just the default with the devices changed to protect the innocent, er, to reflect the correct (I think) partitions. I had 3 partitions, /dev/hda1, /dev/hda5, and /dev/hda6, for root, swap, and home, respectively. Lilo was something like

install=text
boot=/dev/hda
image=/boot/vmlinuz
	label=CRUX
	root=/dev/hda1
	read-only

Maybe I'll try again this weekend. I think I'll try copying the arch linux kernel config file to use as a base.