 Visitor Reviews |
|
Reader supplied reviews for CRUX
Average rating
8.4 from 7 review(s)
Version: 3.8
Rating: 10
Date: 2026-01-08
Votes: 5
|
I would give it an 11, but DIstrowatch won't let me.
It runs faster than CachyOS, and has a lot of up to date packages. Since you're installing software from source, every package you can think of can be built from the ground up. It's also a lot faster to install and set up compared to Gentoo.
It isn't a rolling release, but since you can build all the software you download, getting the latest kernel and desktop environments isn't a big issue.
If you like Arch Linux and want something more challenging, give CRUX a shot.
|
Version: 3.8
Rating: 9
Date: 2025-08-27
Votes: 0
|
It has a very low ram usage, plus it gives you the kernel to compile without installing anything, thats great. And its a source based distro, wich is better too, but i give it a 9 because Xorg was not working at least for me, but the distro is still really good, and the logo is cool too, but the repositories are not that much big, thats an issue too, but still a great distro, because is so simple to just do what the documentation says and works with no issues, just type the documentation and you can get a really minimal sistem. In general for minimal ram usage and low end usages.
|
Version: 3.8
Rating: 10
Date: 2025-08-15
Votes: 3
|
TL;DR This is a GNU/Linux system with not much else, and that's exactly what I want from it.
I've been using primarily Arch Linux since 2019. I've used Artix for a while to see what a non systemd Linux distro is like, but I was disappointed by what felt to me like a glaring lack of cohesion.
I've installed Gentoo a few times, and while I do love Gentoo, I felt a little bit overwhelmed by the immense amount of micromanagement it allows for. I wanted to manually set and inset every available use flag, which was probably not a great idea. I also realised around that I find the filesystem on basically all Linux distros to be kind of messy, and I preferred the more structured approach of the various BSDs.
In the back of my head I've always though, I'm going to switch to Gentoo for good, but I've never followed through for the above reasons.
However, I've recently come across Crux, and to put it quite simply, it's exactly what I've been looking for; a very clean, minimal source based distro.
In some ways I think it's simpler to use than Gentoo. Scratch that, in basically every way it's simpler to use than Gentoo, because everything is just generic GNU/Linux. No surprises. Now, that does mean it's quite finecky, but if I didn't want finecky I wouldn't be using a custom built desktop computer running Arch in the first place.
The Pkgfile Syntax is very simple to understand, although I have yet to write one that just works first try, usually because I guess the name of a folder incorrectly, but still, it feels a fair deal more painless than Gentoo.
The packages available in the ports, both official and 3rd party, leave a lot to be desired in terms of breadth of packages, so coming from Arch and having experience with Gentoo, it's a bit of getting used to, but it honestly doesn't feel to uncomfortable. I have my own ports folder for custom Pkgfiles so everything is installed through the package manager. I just need to copy and paste a few lines of commands into a Pkgfile and I'm installing all of the software I'm used to on Arch.
It hasn't been a very long time since I first installed Crux, but unless something majorly changes, I think it's going to find a permanent home on one of my computers.
|
Version: 3.7
Rating: 2
Date: 2023-08-02
Votes: 0
|
Slackware does everything CRUX does but much better.
CRUX is bare-bones to the point of being almost completely useless. There is no task in CRUX that can't be done better in any other Linux system. If you really want something bare-bones and UNIX-like, Slackware is a much better experience. CRUX has no options built in for a desktop environment. If you want to use anything other than a standalone window manager like openbox or twm, your only option is to use a community-maintained repository. These are very hard to use and many of them are missing parts. I was *barely* able to cobble MATE together. It took hours and I had to install multiple dependencies manually from source because the port versions weren't recognized for some reason. Most packages had to be manually installed by force because of a footprint mismatch. Once MATE was finally ready, it barely worked. Most of the menus didn't work and many components were missing.
Even if you don't want a desktop environment, installing basically any software is a horrible experience. Although the same could be said for Slackware, its SlackBuild system, while annoying to use, is at least functional. Plus, Slackware, in spite of its narrow repositories, has enough available in its default installation for most use cases. CRUX has basically nothing.
|
Version: 3.7
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-07-21
Votes: 21
|
I came across this distro very recently after having been on Artix for many years, before that on Arch, before that Manjaro, before that Debian, before that Mint, before that Ubuntu, before that Red Hat.
So I kind of went gradually from the more abstract to the most simple (perhaps KISS is even simpler).
What I have to say about CRUX is, I love it!
Everything is open and out of your way, it makes understanding the system extremely easy, the community is very friendly, no Code of Conduct (which is very rare to see these days, but a lack of a COC is a clear sign of a project being aimed at responsible grown ups), just due to the nature of source-based distro's, it takes forever to get my system ready for daily use, but I think it's worth it in the end.
I also love the choice of a simple BSD-style init script system, because it really makes you understand how an init system works under the hood, and if you really need your own equivelant of "systemctl ACTION PROGRAM", you can always make a 1 line shell script (or 2 lines if you count the "/bin/sh" header), put it in /usr/bin, and use it.
Making ports is super easy and funnily enough it's front and center of their documentation, so much so that besides the base installation process, documentation doesn't talk about much else, but that's simply because there's no need for it.
Everything apart from the ports system and init system is just a raw Linux experience, so whatever you've learned in other distributions can be applied in CRUX very easily.
In many ways, CRUX feels like what Arch could have been if they'd stick to their philosophy.
I also feel like CRUX is much cleaner too, because in Arch when you install from the AUR, it quickly starts to feel like you're running software compiled by mutually incompatible maintainers with each their own opinion on how to do things, but in CRUX there are a certain set of rules for making ports to keep things as clean as possible, even if you enable ports from many different users.
At the same time it also feels like a freer (as in freedom), smaller, and more standardized version of Gentoo.
Before trying CRUX, I viewed compiling literally everything from source as a meme, but now I really love it.
Works great on laptops and desktops, but if you're looking for a server that's just as KISS as CRUX, consider OpenBSD instead.
|
Version: 3.6.1
Rating: 8
Date: 2021-12-12
Votes: 11
|
This linux distro is really great, it has the customization of gentoo with the freedom of slack and the installation is arch-like (probably because arch formed from crux's philosophy), But i'll have to say that this distro is not for the beginner nor for the intermediate, as many issues that you'll encounter is not very easy to fix.
For example: some of the processes were a pain, even though i followed the documentation I still encountered issues with some of the commands needed missing in the installation medium, so, if you have a problem, then you are on your own when it comes to fixing issues during and after the installation.
Sadly, for those who want Freedom, this distro doesn't offer a Libre-kernel, but with some hard work you can get a Libre-kernel working after the installation.
Finally. If you are dedicated to the crux cause, you should make a custom repository for software, keep on K.I.S.S-ing!
|
Version: 3.6.1
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-05-27
Votes: 18
|
Very enjoyable old school source distribution, clean, lightweight and fast!
With a good documentation and simple packages building process.
Have good compilation time!
|
|
Latest Reviews
Project: CRUX
Version: 3.8
Rating: 10
Date: 2026-01-08
Votes: 5
|
I would give it an 11, but DIstrowatch won't let me.
It runs faster than CachyOS, and has a lot of up to date packages. Since you're installing software from source, every package you can think of can be built from the ground up. It's also a lot faster to install and set up compared to Gentoo.
It isn't a rolling release, but since you can build all the software you download, getting the latest kernel and desktop environments isn't a big issue.
If you like Arch Linux and want something more challenging, give CRUX a shot.
|
Project: CRUX
Version: 3.8
Rating: 9
Date: 2025-08-27
Votes: 0
|
It has a very low ram usage, plus it gives you the kernel to compile without installing anything, thats great. And its a source based distro, wich is better too, but i give it a 9 because Xorg was not working at least for me, but the distro is still really good, and the logo is cool too, but the repositories are not that much big, thats an issue too, but still a great distro, because is so simple to just do what the documentation says and works with no issues, just type the documentation and you can get a really minimal sistem. In general for minimal ram usage and low end usages.
|
Project: CRUX
Version: 3.8
Rating: 10
Date: 2025-08-15
Votes: 3
|
TL;DR This is a GNU/Linux system with not much else, and that's exactly what I want from it.
I've been using primarily Arch Linux since 2019. I've used Artix for a while to see what a non systemd Linux distro is like, but I was disappointed by what felt to me like a glaring lack of cohesion.
I've installed Gentoo a few times, and while I do love Gentoo, I felt a little bit overwhelmed by the immense amount of micromanagement it allows for. I wanted to manually set and inset every available use flag, which was probably not a great idea. I also realised around that I find the filesystem on basically all Linux distros to be kind of messy, and I preferred the more structured approach of the various BSDs.
In the back of my head I've always though, I'm going to switch to Gentoo for good, but I've never followed through for the above reasons.
However, I've recently come across Crux, and to put it quite simply, it's exactly what I've been looking for; a very clean, minimal source based distro.
In some ways I think it's simpler to use than Gentoo. Scratch that, in basically every way it's simpler to use than Gentoo, because everything is just generic GNU/Linux. No surprises. Now, that does mean it's quite finecky, but if I didn't want finecky I wouldn't be using a custom built desktop computer running Arch in the first place.
The Pkgfile Syntax is very simple to understand, although I have yet to write one that just works first try, usually because I guess the name of a folder incorrectly, but still, it feels a fair deal more painless than Gentoo.
The packages available in the ports, both official and 3rd party, leave a lot to be desired in terms of breadth of packages, so coming from Arch and having experience with Gentoo, it's a bit of getting used to, but it honestly doesn't feel to uncomfortable. I have my own ports folder for custom Pkgfiles so everything is installed through the package manager. I just need to copy and paste a few lines of commands into a Pkgfile and I'm installing all of the software I'm used to on Arch.
It hasn't been a very long time since I first installed Crux, but unless something majorly changes, I think it's going to find a permanent home on one of my computers.
|
Project: CRUX
Version: 3.7
Rating: 2
Date: 2023-08-02
Votes: 0
|
Slackware does everything CRUX does but much better.
CRUX is bare-bones to the point of being almost completely useless. There is no task in CRUX that can't be done better in any other Linux system. If you really want something bare-bones and UNIX-like, Slackware is a much better experience. CRUX has no options built in for a desktop environment. If you want to use anything other than a standalone window manager like openbox or twm, your only option is to use a community-maintained repository. These are very hard to use and many of them are missing parts. I was *barely* able to cobble MATE together. It took hours and I had to install multiple dependencies manually from source because the port versions weren't recognized for some reason. Most packages had to be manually installed by force because of a footprint mismatch. Once MATE was finally ready, it barely worked. Most of the menus didn't work and many components were missing.
Even if you don't want a desktop environment, installing basically any software is a horrible experience. Although the same could be said for Slackware, its SlackBuild system, while annoying to use, is at least functional. Plus, Slackware, in spite of its narrow repositories, has enough available in its default installation for most use cases. CRUX has basically nothing.
|
Project: CRUX
Version: 3.7
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-07-21
Votes: 21
|
I came across this distro very recently after having been on Artix for many years, before that on Arch, before that Manjaro, before that Debian, before that Mint, before that Ubuntu, before that Red Hat.
So I kind of went gradually from the more abstract to the most simple (perhaps KISS is even simpler).
What I have to say about CRUX is, I love it!
Everything is open and out of your way, it makes understanding the system extremely easy, the community is very friendly, no Code of Conduct (which is very rare to see these days, but a lack of a COC is a clear sign of a project being aimed at responsible grown ups), just due to the nature of source-based distro's, it takes forever to get my system ready for daily use, but I think it's worth it in the end.
I also love the choice of a simple BSD-style init script system, because it really makes you understand how an init system works under the hood, and if you really need your own equivelant of "systemctl ACTION PROGRAM", you can always make a 1 line shell script (or 2 lines if you count the "/bin/sh" header), put it in /usr/bin, and use it.
Making ports is super easy and funnily enough it's front and center of their documentation, so much so that besides the base installation process, documentation doesn't talk about much else, but that's simply because there's no need for it.
Everything apart from the ports system and init system is just a raw Linux experience, so whatever you've learned in other distributions can be applied in CRUX very easily.
In many ways, CRUX feels like what Arch could have been if they'd stick to their philosophy.
I also feel like CRUX is much cleaner too, because in Arch when you install from the AUR, it quickly starts to feel like you're running software compiled by mutually incompatible maintainers with each their own opinion on how to do things, but in CRUX there are a certain set of rules for making ports to keep things as clean as possible, even if you enable ports from many different users.
At the same time it also feels like a freer (as in freedom), smaller, and more standardized version of Gentoo.
Before trying CRUX, I viewed compiling literally everything from source as a meme, but now I really love it.
Works great on laptops and desktops, but if you're looking for a server that's just as KISS as CRUX, consider OpenBSD instead.
|
Project: CRUX
Version: 3.6.1
Rating: 8
Date: 2021-12-12
Votes: 11
|
This linux distro is really great, it has the customization of gentoo with the freedom of slack and the installation is arch-like (probably because arch formed from crux's philosophy), But i'll have to say that this distro is not for the beginner nor for the intermediate, as many issues that you'll encounter is not very easy to fix.
For example: some of the processes were a pain, even though i followed the documentation I still encountered issues with some of the commands needed missing in the installation medium, so, if you have a problem, then you are on your own when it comes to fixing issues during and after the installation.
Sadly, for those who want Freedom, this distro doesn't offer a Libre-kernel, but with some hard work you can get a Libre-kernel working after the installation.
Finally. If you are dedicated to the crux cause, you should make a custom repository for software, keep on K.I.S.S-ing!
|
Project: CRUX
Version: 3.6.1
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-05-27
Votes: 18
|
Very enjoyable old school source distribution, clean, lightweight and fast!
With a good documentation and simple packages building process.
Have good compilation time!
|
|
|
| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
|
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
|
|
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
bc1qxes3k2wq3uqzr074tkwwjmwfe63z70gwzfu4lx 
lnurl1dp68gurn8ghj7ampd3kx2ar0veekzar0wd5xjtnrdakj7tnhv4kxctttdehhwm30d3h82unvwqhhxarpw3jkc7tzw4ex6cfexyfua2nr 
86fA3qPTeQtNb2k1vLwEQaAp3XxkvvvXt69gSG5LGunXXikK9koPWZaRQgfFPBPWhMgXjPjccy9LA9xRFchPWQAnPvxh5Le