tensixtyone

Over the last week or so I’ve become quite involved in the CrunchBang Linux project, I got picked up as a forum moderator and it has spiralled out of control since. I’m now a forum moderator, IRC channel operator, and a administrator on the CrunchBang Launchpad groups.

Crunchbang is quite an interesting project. A small distribution created by one man, Phillip Newborough, which gained almost overnight fame and is now ranked quite highly on Distrowatch. The speed of the success of CrunchBang is a massive achievement, especially when you take in the “youth” of the project. While i’m not the official biographer of the project I can see a few key stages that helped it gain such a strong following in a short time.

In the recent history of the project, fabsh, also known as Fabian Scherschel of Linux Outlaws fame, decided to give the distribution a go. It seems he instantly fell in love with it and recommended it to everyone via his identi.ca feed. During the next episode of Linux Outlaws, Fabian mentioned the distribution and how he has been trying it out. The result was a large spike in people downloading the install image and signing up to the forums, this was the time where I toddled along and discovered it myself.

Fast forward two weeks or so, and Distrowatch adds CrunchBang to their listing, a minor but important win in the expansion of the distribution, the DistroWatch listing brings in more and more people over time. Just after Christmas the 8.10.02 release was let lose and Distrowatch was one of the first sites to get the news out there. As the release was done over the relative quiet time of Christmas, the release note spent a good few days on the front page of Distrowatch. Over the Christmas period the forums saw a large boost in signups, which are usually a good indicator of how many people have downloaded the distribution.

So, the combination of a major Linux podcaster and reputable distribution news source gave Crunchbang it’s push into the limelight. What the last few weeks prove is that a few key figures could boost the popularity of a good product and take it from small time to the big time in a matter of weeks.

So, how is this applied to other projects?

First of all I think the key success on CrunchBang’s part is the product itself, a lightweight desktop environment, based on Openbox, designed for the power user crowd. A few people had mentioned that this was the type of area that Arch excelled in, but now the user had the convenience of Ubuntu to their Openbox desktop.

Second, the recommendation of trusted peers can only boost the popularity. With the “social media” that exists today a few trusted people could push a project from a bedroom to the stage, so to speak. With tools like identi.ca and Twitter, people have rapid methods of posting their thoughts. The social media can be a double edge sword, as quickly as your software is recommended it could be bashed and ridiculed just as easy. So, in my opinion, this can make or break your project.

Third and final item is the existing “web media”. Blogs and sites like Distrowatch, Slashdot, Engadget and other tech sites allow, again, for trusted people to review and make judgement of the project, a good recommendation will boost your users and a major site such as Slashdot will kill your server if your not careful.

So how does this all relate to the big bang? It doesn’t really; I thought the title would be snappy.