The Linux Link
“Zenwalk: Slackware Without the Slack”
by Gary M. Witscher

Hardly a day goes by that a new Linux distribution doesn't get announced. I don't know about most people, but I don't like to switch my OS every day, or every week—or even every month. Even every year or two is undesirable. So, I ignore most of these announcements, mostly because the distribution that I'm using does what I need it to do. The grass may always be greener on the other side, but that doesn't necessarily make it worth the walk. There has to be something extraordinary to lure me from the comfort of my easy chair.

Zenwalk is an exception to this rule. It's an offshoot of the not-so-popular Slackware distribution, but with a very popular twist. It's faster than light, slicker than oil, and chock-full of blockbuster, cutting-edge applications. The main site entices you with this header: "Ever tried Zen computing?"

My honest answer was, "No, and I'm not sure that I want to." On the other hand, I had to ask myself, "What does a dolphin (the logo for Zenwalk) have in common with Zen, and what is a Zen walk? Some new charity event? A path to enlightenment?" I gave at the office, and I'm not in search of a new religion, yet I was intrigued. As it turns out, I never did find out what any of that meant. I lost interest as I began to realize that I had stumbled onto an atypical Linux. This distribution packs a powerful punch in a very tight package.

Powerful Punch

First of all, Zenwalk doesn't use Gnome or KDE by default. XFCE serves as your desktop environment—the absolute latest release of XFCE. This desktop has come a long way in the last few years. It presents the user with a very familiar desktop environment, including icons for launching applications and a comprehensive root menu. XFCE has its own kind of "Start button," as well, offering menus and monitors. In addition, you will find that it's easy to personalize XFCE—far easier than any other Linux desktop environment. If you must have Gnome or KDE, however, these features are available.

Zenwalk gives you e-mail, a browser and a word processor ready to use after the quickest install I've ever experienced. On my PIII 800MHz laptop, Zenwalk was fully installed and booted within 15 minutes! There was nothing left to do but use it. Although the Zenwalk people don't necessarily recommend it, I installed it on an old PI 200MHz laptop, and within an hour I had a fully functional desktop. Granted, the PI desktop is considerably slower than the PIII, but it's still very usable.

I was skeptical at first, especially after the slick installation. Surely, I thought, this must be a barebones version. I was certain that I'd have to spend a couple of hours installing and configuring additional software. I've been a Debian user for many years, and as such, I'm used to having thousands of packages available. This translates to limitless choices, meaning little or no assumptions.

The Zenwalk home page states, "Out of the box, you will be able to browse, mail, chat, listen to music, program in C, Perl, Python, Ruby . . . watch videos in various formats, write documents, print, scan, burn CDs and DVDs, connect your camera, and edit your photographs, without adding anything." I must admit, I didn't believe it.

You'll be happy to know that it's true: On my PIII laptop, everything simply worked. On my PI laptop, the Zenwalk promise was not fulfilled—neither video nor sound worked out of the box. But to be fair, this computer doesn't meet the minimum recommended requirements as set forth by the Zenwalk team (Pentium III class processor, 128MB RAM, 2GB hard drive).

Fast and Easy to Use

Zenwalk does use the latest Linux kernel. However, the kernel modules are trimmed to support only recent hardware. If your computer uses older ISA technology, you'll have to install an alternate kernel to get support for sound and video.

The good news is, although Zenwalk is a distribution in its own right, it's also Slackware. You can install any current Slackware package, including the kernel. So, if you just can't get by without that favorite editor, and it's not in the Zenwalk archives, get it from the Slackware archives. It'll work just the same.

Zenwalk comes with its own graphical applications manager called Netpkg, which also has a terminal UI available. It's not the Space Shuttle incarnate, but like most of Zenwalk, it works flawlessly, and it's easy to use. There are many more tools that the Zenwalk team has graciously provided to help you customize your installation. Networking, locale, keyboard, services, and mounting are just a few. Full documentation that is maintained to reflect the current release is available on the Zenwalk site.

As of this writing, Zenwalk 3.0 is the current release. The download is a mere 410MB. If you've never burned an installation CD before, the online documentation will teach you how. If you don't have faster-than-light Internet, you can buy a Zenwalk CD from On-Disk.com for a mere $10.

Zenwalk is, without a doubt, the fastest, easiest-to-use, most current Linux ever. If you've never tried Zen computing, perhaps now is the time.

Comments and Letter about The Linux Link
“Zenwalk: Slackware Without the Slack”
by Gary M. Witscher

Zenwalk

[This letter is in regard to the November 3 entitled, "Zenwalk: Slackware Without the Slack," by Gary M. Witscher.]

I've installed and spent time with Xandros, Red Hat, Fedora, SUSE and Ubuntu.
I found Xandros to be much easier to install/use than SUSE, [the runner-up]. Red Hat was best at one time, but since the open version became Fedora, it's fallen off.

I wonder if [the author] compared Zenwalk to these distros?

—Steve

Not Another Linux Distribution!

[This letter is in regard to the November 3 "Zenwalk: Slackware Without the Slack," by Gary M. Witscher.]

OK, so it may be "faster than light, slicker than oil, and chock-full of blockbuster, cutting-edge applications." It may even wash my car, do the dishes and feed the dog. But, darn it, I have spent hours on end configuring, learning, setting up, and tweaking my OS (CentOS), and believe me, I am not changing.

I've invested far too much in time, frustration, and documentation to start over again with another Linux distribution.

I'm sure everyone must say their disto is the best distro, but when I say it, I'm telling the truth. CentOS "is an Enterprise-class Linux distribution derived from sources freely provided to the public by a prominent North American Enterprise Linux vendor," i.e., Red Hat Enterprise Linux. It is rock solid, very powerful (what distro isn't?), and just might do my dishes, if I can get it to talk to my automatic dishwasher.

We're very happy, CentOS and I. Just try to get me to switch distros—go ahead, try!

—Pete, Roy, Utah

Thanks

Thanks

JP —JP, France

Zenwalk

[This letter is in regard to Gary M. Witscher's November 3 "Zenwalk: Slackware Without the Slack."]

Well, I couldn't agree more. You said it all! Zenwalk is light, fast and simple!

—Akuna, France

Zenwalk

[[This letter is in regard to the November 3 "Zenwalk: Slackware Without the Slack," by Gary M. Witscher.]

I "discovered" Zenwalk a few months ago. Having used Slackware in the past, I was interested, but also having Ubuntu 5.10 up and running, I wasn't that interested. In the end, more out of boredom than anything else, I installed it onto some spare space on my laptop. I've booted Ubuntu only two or three times since. I've also replaced the copy of Ubuntu on one of my desktop machines.

Not only is the distribution wonderfully well put together, the support provided by the Zenwalk community is second to none.

A good review of a great distribution.

—Paul Marwick, Oxford, UK