polarbear20000

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Hello! Am looking for opinions on similarities between Slackware and Zenwalk from longtime Slackers. I've installed Zenwalk on my media server and like it pretty well. However, I've not really used it enough to know just how similar it really is to 'the' Slackware. Is it basically Slackware with a new face or does it have new features that I probably haven't stumbled upon?

And, was conflicted about whether or not to post this in the Zenwalk forum instead - hopefully this one is ok. If not, then "ooooops!"

Any opinions, or for that matter, things I should watch out for while operating my little media server?

Woodsman

Different philosophies.

The Slackware maintainer provides a base operating system but does not intend or presume to know how the customer wants to customize that system. The Zenwalk maintainers add some presumptions, such as:

1. The Zenwalk maintainers have created several GUI system maintenance tools. Slackware comes with no customized GUI tools other than what is packaged upstream with the desktops and window managers.

2. The Slackware package management tool provides no dependency checking. The Zenwalk package management tool does.

3. The Zenwalk maintainers try to be bleeding edge. Slackware is current and modern but not bleeding edge.

4. The Zenwalk maintainers stick zealously to a one-package rule for the stock installation. Slackware often provides several tools.

Slackware packages both KDE and Xfce. Zenwalk is an Xfce system although KDE is available from the repositories. Customers will find a more robust Xfce desktop with Zenwalk because more GTK packages are supported than the stock Slackware. Slackware customers can build their own GTK apps to improve Xfce, but many people do not want to build software, they only want to use software.

Basic build scripts are different. Slackware packages are supposed to be compatible with Zenwalk, but not necessarily vice-versa.

There has been some debate that the Zenwalk maintainers are in violation of the GPL because source code is not provided.

Customers in both camps tend to be zealous and protective of their choice.

In the end, try both and use what suits you best. With software, there is no right or wrong, only what provides happiness for each end-user.

syg00

A well reasoned response - as would be expected from Woodsman.
I recently had a look at the zenwalk liveCD on an old piece of junk I have on my desk. Quite impressed - I'll do a full install for a look tomorrow after I can clear some disk space.

Caveat: I haven't tried slack for a while, so hardly qualify as a slacker (for this discussion ... )

lstamm

I needed to re-partition and upgrade my laptop recently, so I decided to give ZenWalk a try in the process. I just installed ZenWalk core, and then added what I needed for preferred software. Everything installed easily enough, and the laptop functioned OK. I could even install some of my previous self-made slackware packages, and they ran fine.

But, like Woodsman states, the ZenWalk developers try to be bleeding edge and do dependency checking, and I found that adding software from the ZenWalk repositories was pulling in some unwanted dependency packages, and there were some wierd glitches and freezes, as well as APIC errors. So I decided to compile a different kernel custom for my laptop. Lo and behold, neither menuconfig nor xconfig would start up to configure the new kernel.

I didn't try to figure out what the problem was, but put Slackware back on the laptop. I don't think ZenWalk lasted a week on it before I decided it wasn't for me. So I guess I feel if you want something like Slackware, then just use Slackware. It's less trouble in the end.

brianL

I haven't tried it since 4.4, but it seemed OK for anyone looking for a lightweight distro with plenty of programming stuff out of the box.

tommcd

In Zenwalk, I believe you can turn off dependency checking if you want to by editing the /etc/netpkg.conf file. At least that was possible the last time I used Zenwalk, which was version 5.0.
Zenwalk does run very light and fast. It is ideal for old computers. Unfortunately, Zenwalk 5.0 and 5.2 will not run on my Acer 3680 laptop unless I boot with acpi=off. Zenwalk 4.X did not have this problem. I think it is due to something in the kernel config, but I never did figure out what it was.

dugan

If you turn dependency tracking off to get around it, then won't you get in trouble once you turn it back on?

polarbear20000

I do see where many of the points that Woodsman made come from, between my Slackware install and my Zenwalk install. My wife likes it for her computer, since she is not quite as technical as I am, and the little media server doesn't choke on it (or have a DVD drive for my Slackware DVD.)

The other points and comments by everyone else are appreciated, too. Please keep 'em coming if anyone thinks of anything else.

tommcd

That is a good question. I honestly don't know, since I never tried turning off dependency checking in Zenwalk. I don't think Zenwalk's netpkg package manager is as fussy about broken dependencies as Debian's APT is. I'm not sure if you would get errors about broken dependencies or not.

H_TeXMeX_H

Woodsman summed up the differences. I personally think Zenwalk philosophy is seriously flawed, but it's still a reasonable distro.

shadowsnipes

I've played around with Zenwalk and VectorLinux, but I definitely prefer Slackware. As was previously stated Slackware makes no assumptions about how the user intends on using the distro while the others do. I personally like the vanilla approach better, but if a person wants something with some extra minimal tools, while retaining flexibility, I'd say VectorLinux is a more comfortable transition for the seasoned Slacker. I found Zenwalk's one package per use a little annoying since quite often the one package they has was not what I wanted.