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Review: CRUX 3.8
Quoting: DistroWatch.com: Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD. —
CRUX is exactly what it says on the label (or website): "CRUX is a lightweight Linux distribution for the x86-64 architecture targeted at experienced Linux users. The primary focus of this distribution is keep it simple, which is reflected in a straightforward tar.gz-based package system, BSD-style initscripts, and a relatively small collection of trimmed packages"
The result is a fairly small, super fast distribution. One which boots and shuts down quickly, almost instantly, and can compile additional software from a ports collection. But this is about where the benefits stop.
DistroWatch has been covering CRUX since 2001 (though Wikipedia, for some reason, claims the project's initial release didn't happen until 2002). Yet, after over 20 years, there is still very little in terms of pre-built packages, friendly tools, or even (oddly enough) documentation. The handbook and wiki do briefly cover how to install the distribution and how to work with ports, and that's about it. There is nothing like the Arch wiki which covers configuration, setting up desktops, working with services, managing networking, etc. CRUX just dumps a bare bones system on us and expects us to figure out how to deal with it.
Twenty-some years ago, when CRUX was young, this sort of minimal set up where almost nothing was installed for us and we had to build our own kernel, could make sense in some situations - such as when hardware was unusually low-end. If a person only had access to 128MB of RAM, using about 60MB for the operating system would be a welcome, minimal change compared to more mainstream distributions. These days though, there isn't a practical benefit to building a kernel from source, even on low-end equipment, and the lack of binary packages means CRUX isn't really practical in most desktop or server settings.
These days we have other, similarly minimal distributions (such as Alpine, Arch Linux, and Void) which can run in lightweight environments, such which also provide binary packages, easier configuration, and lots of documentation. They can be installed and loaded with the software we need in a matter of minutes while CRUX would still be compiling its kernel.
CRUX is a project which made sense in some scenarios 25 years ago, but these days I don't think it has any practical benefit over other keep-it-simple distributions and it has several drawbacks, especially if we want modern features like Flatpak, binary packages, easy to install desktop environments, and quick install process. The project continues to exist, but it does not seem to have evolved at all to keep up with other KIS projects. Running CRUX feels more like visiting a museum than running a modern KIS distribution.