The official release of Zenwalk 6.0, based off of Slackware, was recently posted at the Zenwalk website, detailing the vastest of all changelogs in the entire history of the project including an upgrade to the latest and greatest Xfce release and an updated kernel.
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Member since:
2006-03-23
The first time I used ZenWalk was (I believe) when its 4.0 version came out (late 2006). It was the first time I'd really used XFCE (before that I had used fluxbox extensively). I was impressed by the use of XFCE and migrated most of my systems from fluxbox. The folks at ZenWalk have done a great job making the UI clean, minimal, and crisp.
While ZenWalk 6 touts XFCE 4.6, much under the hood hasn't changed in very disappointing ways.
The included kernel and all applications are still only available in 32-bit variety. While not really a problem, when 8GB of RAM is << $100 USD I expect 64-bit support. CPU performance doesn't really suffer, but it'd be nice to take advantage of modern hardware.
The installer leaves much to be desired; the framebuffer and text interface lacks a progress bar, does not allow for formatting disks with the less-recent-than-XFCE-4.6 ext4, and demands you install the archaic (and I thought dead) LILO. You do not get to control what packages are installed.
Once in graphical mode, ZenWalk 6 is true to their legacy of beautiful graphics and clean design. The menu system is well sorted and uncluttered, the fonts look good, but the mish-mash of software gives the system an unpolished and divided feel to it, but this is by no means unique to ZenWalk. To their credit they've stuck to GPLed software, with the (only?) exception being Adobe flash.
All in all, if you really want a XFCE based Linux distribution on your modern hardware, go with Xubuntu or the Fedora XFCE spin. If you're sporting an Athlon XP, Pentium 4, or other legacy hardware, ZenWalk might be a better fit for you, especially if you want a taste of Slackware.
Member since:2008-10-23
Ha ha ha, very funny.
Seriously, if you don't like XFCE and prefer GNOME but you still want to have XFCE installed and tuned to feel and act like GNOME, install Xubuntu.
Member since:2006-03-23
Member since:
2006-11-08
Member since:
2009-01-06
It's a shame that it doesn't work with VirtualBox.
There is a problem with the vesa driver and I've read that installing the guest additions can fix the problem, but that doesn't work either. Guess the latest kernel version isn't supported.
Edited 2009-03-11 11:31 UTC
Member since:
2005-07-14
Well...I must say that this the best Zenwalk release so far. I can tell right away that this baby runs a lot faaaaaaaastttttter than Fedora, Ubuntu or any other distro on my laptop.
There are several things that can be improved and they have been mentioned already in the Zenwalk forums.
XFCE works beautifully as always.
Fedora, Ubuntu, OpenSUSE are awesome distros too but are a heavier for me. If you are looking for something lighter, this is the one.
But overall, it is the fastest distro so far, boot up time takes about 20 seconds ony laptop instead of 45 sec, it is simple and snappier.
Honestly, for me, the best linux distro at this moment.
Member since:
2006-10-11
Member since:2009-03-11
Member since:2006-10-11
Member since:2005-08-18
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:
2006-06-28
Hi,
I've been using OpenSuse, because it worked with most HW out-of-the box, but Zenwalk works even better (and faster)!
Here is the new winner!
Install: works out of the box!
Web cam: works out of the box!
WLAN: works out of the box!
LAN: works out of the box!
Card reader: needs tinkering (look for wiki articles on Aspire One)