PClinuxOS and Zenwalk comparison - Need your help

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I am interested in using PClinux or Zenwalk, but short of using livecds (which in my opinion do not offer a "realistic" experience of the OS) I do not have experience with either of these Distros.

Can someone give me a comparison of the following features between the two OSs?

1. Performance
2. Multimedia support - if it is not included by default, how difficult is it to get it?
3. Package Management
4. Learning - How much more would I learn about linux and how my system works
5. Hardware support on a macbook 4,1
6. Quality of support - Compare this to the Ubuntu forums please

Thanks for any assistance.

[cardinals_fan]

I am interested in using PClinux or Zenwalk, but short of using livecds (which in my opinion do not offer a "realistic" experience of the OS) I do not have experience with either of these Distros.

Can someone give me a comparison of the following features between the two OSs?

1. Performance
2. Multimedia support - if it is not included by default, how difficult is it to get it?
3. Package Management
4. Learning - How much more would I learn about linux and how my system works
5. Hardware support on a macbook 4,1
6. Quality of support - Compare this to the Ubuntu forums please

Thanks for any assistance.
1. Zenwalk uses Xfce and is reasonably light for a decent machine, so I give it the edge here. TinyMe (a PCLinuxOS remaster) is fast as well.

2. Both include lots of multimedia stuff by default. Zenwalk has everything except libdvdcss, which can be installed from the repos. I think PCLinuxOS may have everything.

3. PCLinuxOS has more packages, but I prefer Zenwalk's netpkg package manager.

4. I think you'd learn more with Zenwalk. It is a reasonably pure Slackware system at heart, while PCLinuxOS... is Mandriva at heart. Nothing wrong with that, but Slack is more vanilla and more manually oriented.

5. I don't know. I think Zenwalk can have some issues on that machine, but my memory could be off.

6. The Zenwalk Forums are very good. I don't know about PCLinuxOS on this one.

[gjoellee]

I am interested in using PClinux or Zenwalk, but short of using livecds (which in my opinion do not offer a "realistic" experience of the OS) I do not have experience with either of these Distros.

Can someone give me a comparison of the following features between the two OSs?

1. Performance
2. Multimedia support - if it is not included by default, how difficult is it to get it?
3. Package Management
4. Learning - How much more would I learn about linux and how my system works
5. Hardware support on a macbook 4,1
6. Quality of support - Compare this to the Ubuntu forums please

Thanks for any assistance.

Zenwalk:
1. From a scale from 1-10 it hits 6to7 (Ubuntu with Ext4 hits 3)
2. I don't think it will be any major problem
3. I think Zenwalk has it's own package manager
4. (Not much, thay have made it really simple i think)
5. Zenwalk is based on Slackware which supports the hardware it's kernel does. I think a macbook should run fine (check it with a live CD)
6. Compared to Ubuntuforums which is HUGE the Zanwalk support is like nothing, but you will find a lot with a little help form Google. Or post in Other OS Talk here in Ubuntuforums

PCLinuxOS:
1. It is quite fast. It uses KDE 3. Form a scale from 1-10 it hits 5
2. Media is out-of-the-box (pre installed)
3. APT which you find in Ubuntu as well
4. PCLinuxOS is very easy to use. If you are migrating from Windows, this can be a good try.
5. PCLinuxOS is not very up to date, and therefore it does not have the best hardware support. If you have hardware that is older then 2 years PCLinuxOS 2007 should work fine. PCLinuxOS 2009 is in the making supports much more hardware.
6. PCLinuxOS has pretty good support. In their own forums, as well as Mandriva forums should be fine.

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Linux Mint:
1. It actually installs slightly faster because of a few packages difference, it also runs slightly faster. From a scale from 1-10 Linux Mint hits 4


Oops, did I Linux Mint? Sorry, I meant PClinuxOS. My apologies.

[Twitch6000]

I am interested in using PClinux or Zenwalk, but short of using livecds (which in my opinion do not offer a "realistic" experience of the OS) I do not have experience with either of these Distros.

Can someone give me a comparison of the following features between the two OSs?

1. Performance
2. Multimedia support - if it is not included by default, how difficult is it to get it?
3. Package Management
4. Learning - How much more would I learn about linux and how my system works
5. Hardware support on a macbook 4,1
6. Quality of support - Compare this to the Ubuntu forums please

Thanks for any assistance.

I have only tried PClinuxOS out of those two so this is about PClinuxOS.

1. I say it runs well on a med range machine.However if you have a lowend machine I suggest PCfluxboxOS or one of the other spinoffs.

2. PClinuxOS has anything you need to do the basics, however I think libdvdcss is not installed by default.

3. If you know ubuntu's package management then PClinuxOS will be simple.As it has synaptic,apt-get,and all that. Odd thing is it uses .rpm's <.<.

4. Not much Not much.. however if you have not tried anything using .rpm's that will be new to you.

5. I have never had a macbook so I wouldn't know.

6. PClinuxOS forums have decent support,but the admins are sometimes a bit power hungry...

[wolfen69]

i don't know much about zenwalk, but if you like pclinuxos, try Tinyflux (http://pcfluxboxos.wikidot.com/tinyflux). it is based on pclinuxos but uses fluxbox. it is very fast and does everything OOTB.

[Hallvor]

I am interested in using PClinux or Zenwalk, but short of using livecds (which in my opinion do not offer a "realistic" experience of the OS) I do not have experience with either of these Distros.

Can someone give me a comparison of the following features between the two OSs?

1. Performance
2. Multimedia support - if it is not included by default, how difficult is it to get it?
3. Package Management
4. Learning - How much more would I learn about linux and how my system works
5. Hardware support on a macbook 4,1
6. Quality of support - Compare this to the Ubuntu forums please

Thanks for any assistance.

Don`t know much about Zenwalk, but PCLinuxOS is my main system.

1. It is a *very* good implementation of KDE and uses very little memory if you use KDE applications. On a clean install it should be about as fast as Sidux.

2. I think codecs, flash and java is included by default, but you have to install libdvdcss2 from the repository.

3. You use Synaptic. Apt-get install anything you like. It is rpm-based but I don`t think it is any worse than deb. Haven`t had any problems with any of them.

4. In my opinion it is easier than Ubuntu and very similar to Mandriva. There is a GUI for almost everything.

5. I have no idea.

6. It is a much smaller forum than this, but I really didn`t need it much.