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I really like Slackware, but am stillin the mode of discovering what distro I would want for long term use. I happened upon the Zenwalk Project page. This looks like a interesting little distro that might be worth using for an older system. It got me wondering if anyone is making use of Zenwalk for their day to day computing uses. Since there isn't a Zenwalk forum, I figured I'd ask here. I'm curious if this is mainly for slower or older computers, or if it's maximized for speed. Based on the project page, it appears to be a fully functional distro, but with a single program for each use of the system.
I had a look at Zenwalk (installed the latest version), but I think that it is quite unstable. Had several problems with Firefox and I do not like the default settings for KDE 3.5.
I am currently giving Zenwalk a spin on one of my laptops. I am thouroughly impressed with its package management system. Zenwalk actually has two fully compatible package management systems. It has Slackware's "pkgtool" as well as it's own "net-pkg". The one labled "net-pkg" is the one that I'm most impressed with. I haven't used it long enough for it to fail yet so I'm pretty optimistic and wish that Slackware would incorporate it. If your unfamilar with "net-pkg", I highly recommend you giving Zenwalk a spin. Net-pkg is a no-brainer to use, quick, nimble and all you would want from package management. It seems to have no dependency checking, but that's how Slackers like it anyway. It's all good
As far as stability is concerned, the only package that I am having trouble with is "Anjunta". Everytime I use "Anjunta" in Zenwalk, the app crashes after I write 5 or 6 lines of code in a C++ source file. That is disappointing. For now I am just coding in a terminal or using "Abiword" to write the text.
My other disappointments are no compiled version of Bzflag (is a must for any Distro. :}), or 3D enabling drivers for ATI video cards (My Dell C600 Laptop has one). More contributed packages would be nice. Also the I want to find another console text app other that VIM. I didn't fins Emacs, Pico, Nano or Elvis yet in their package repositories.
Other than that it's quite cool. Setting up X11 and internet connections was a breeze. I love the post installation configuration app. Other than SuSE no other distro properly configured all three of my laptop's mice correctly from the start. It is a very peppy (speedwise) distro, very unbloated. It's as quick as Gentoo without all the Bullsh** compiling, configuring, recompiling and reconfiguring...
All in all, my gripes are minor and it may be that I just need to look a little harder, except for the "Anjunta" crashing problem. This is a young distro and has it's minor quirks but looks to be very, very promising.
I'm using Zenwalk 1.3, until now I am very pleased with the 1 app of each work and since I use it in my older computer I don't wan't any special software to do something.
I downloaded zenwalk-core 2.0.1 and want to add my gui apps alone, it kinda gives me some power as a user for creating my system.
Ofcourse it's not LFS (I can't afford the time and I think that my mind would explode).
I think this upcoming distro will come up to be aknowledged in the linux community if they continue like current.
I hate to seem biased (Zenwalk Team Member), but it is a lightning fast and stable distro offering the best of what is needed and really used, not just offering every unmaintaned package under the sun. We are doing our best to provided the world with something truly amazing. I like it so much I joined the team
Please report bugs for Zenwalk at our site so that we know about them and hence can fix them right away.
My only concern is the help from other users. I posted a message on the Zenwalk forums 2 days ago and there have been almost 40 reads of it, but nobody has answered. It's kind of disturbing since I'm used to Slackware users jumping right on the questions as soon as they are asked. It could be the smaller user base, but if that's the case, I'd have expected a moderator or a regular to respond.
My only concern is the help from other users. I posted a message on the Zenwalk forums 2 days ago and there have been almost 40 reads of it, but nobody has answered. It's kind of disturbing since I'm used to Slackware users jumping right on the questions as soon as they are asked. It could be the smaller user base, but if that's the case, I'd have expected a moderator or a regular to respond.
Ok, I did my best to answer your questions.
It's very odd that you got no response within 5 minutes.
It's very odd that you got no response within 5 minutes.
I really didn't mean for you to jump right on that. I figured that there probably isn't that big a user base and that was the reason there wasn't an answer.
I really didn't mean for you to jump right on that. I figured that there probably isn't that big a user base and that was the reason there wasn't an answer.
Anyway, thanks for the response.
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