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bonzodog
June 28th, 2006, 06:48 PM
Just to say, I have switched to Zenwalk Linux now, as I missed the Slackware way of doing things.
It uses Xfce 4.3.9 Beta for it's desktop, and is based on Slackware 10.2. It comes with a lot less software than Xubuntu, and only has a tiny repo, so most progs are compile from scratch, but I find that in Slackware and it's derivatives, this is very painless, and gives you an app uniquely tuned to to your system.
It has a package system, called netpkg, and uses the traditional .tgz binary packages that slack does. I tend to find that most slack packages work on Zen, and there is a very good site for them called Linuxpackages.net.
It is very good and I think, much faster than Xubuntu, as it uses the BSD init, and is a lighter distro, weighing in at just 400MB for the ISO.
If you ever feel like trying something else, have a look at this.

http://www.zenwalk.org/

rai4shu2
June 29th, 2006, 06:10 AM
Zenwalk is great. I set that up on a notebook computer, and it works nicely. I really like how incredibly light it is.

tseliot
June 29th, 2006, 02:16 PM
Do you find it faster than Arch Linux?

K.Mandla
June 29th, 2006, 03:54 PM
Do you find it faster than Arch Linux?
I thought Arch faster than Zenwalk. I didn't keep Zenwalk around for long, just because it couldn't find my NIC and I didn't have the patience to figure out why.

Arch is the fastest I've found yet, but I haven't taken the time to try Gentoo or SourceMage, which I hear are even speedier.

FredB
July 6th, 2006, 08:38 AM
There is a new zenwalk version available, the 2.6 one. I will try it as a live CD, in order to see if the slack feeling is still there !

bonzodog
July 6th, 2006, 06:36 PM
Actually 2.8 will be out soon, according to JD (the main developer). It contains a number of updates, but be careful of the gdm package- it's malfunctioning and missing ALL it's themes.

FredB
July 6th, 2006, 07:02 PM
Actually 2.8 will be out soon, according to JD (the main developer). It contains a number of updates, but be careful of the gdm package- it's malfunctioning and missing ALL it's themes.

What ? 2.6 was out a few days ago. Faster than light, so ;)

RAV TUX
August 7th, 2006, 11:29 AM
I have decided to start a series of threads specifically for technical help for other Distros...the Distro is listed in the thread title. This is primarily for Ubuntu users who test or use other distros and feel most comfortable seeking help in our own community. In no way does this superceed the help you should also be getting from the perspective Distro., in fact I encourage you to be as active in their forums as you are here and post ideas, knowledge and solutions here to provide a reference point to share, reference links are encouraged.

***Zenwalk Tech Talk***

Threads merged:

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=205480
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=231269

DJiNN
August 23rd, 2006, 02:09 AM
I've just installed the latest version of Zenwalk (2.8 i believe) on a spare machine, and it's "Wicked Fast!"..... this is an old PIII Celeron 1000 with 192 meg of standard PC100 Ram & a Matrox 20gb HD.....

Previously i was running Xubuntu, which i really loved, but had some probs due to duff memory (I think) lost the whole install, tried to install again & the Xubuntu install just crashed everytime from then on (& not just the Xubuntu one either... Dapper refused to install as well)

Anyway, after much mucking about & trying to get a distro on that was similar to Xubuntu (Lean & fast) i decided to try Zenwalk..... & i'm glad that i did..... it's REALLY VERY GOOD. It's just soooo quick i can't believe it. (Can you tell that i'm impressed?) :)

Hopefully this will give me a chance to step outside of the Debian camp (Which i love) & start to learn a little about the "Slack" way of doing things......

Anyway, thanks for reading & if anyone's thinking of giving Zen a try..... go for it! :)

DJiNN
:biggrin:

slimdog360
August 23rd, 2006, 03:00 PM
Ive just started using zenwalk, I really like it so far but I have one problem. I cant seem to get the plugins for Abiword, the plugins are not in the repos and I cant find a source package for them. Can anyone help?

bonzodog
August 24th, 2006, 02:06 PM
hrm...the plugins are all there on mine.

Go to tools --> plugins, and it shouldlist a whole load of them. From your post on the Zenwalk forums (http://support.zenwalk.org), you should be looking at using the LaTex Exporter.

slimdog360
August 25th, 2006, 04:24 AM
thanks, I still dont have the latex exporter working but I havent had the time to try and get it to work. I think I'll just use a latex editor untill I get the time.

But besides that, Ive been using it for a few days now and I must say that Im impressed. Its very fast and the repositories have pretty much everything I like. So Ive only had to compile a few things from source.
Im thinking after this semester at uni is over Im going to change my laptop over from Ubutnu to Zenwalk.

thijs
August 26th, 2006, 08:54 PM
nice xfce?:KS

slimdog360
September 9th, 2006, 03:59 AM
In case anyone hasn't yet heard, Zenwalk 3.0 has just been realesed. I havent used it yet but have read it comes with the all the latest gear. Sounds like a winner.

arox
September 10th, 2006, 07:56 PM
Does Zenwalk support JFS file system?

Neo40
September 10th, 2006, 11:26 PM
Hi,
I installed zw 3.0 into my second hdd and I must say I love it. However, the fonts are not so perfect.My xubuntu system looks much better.
Maybe someone has some tips to increase it in zenwalk?

case1976
September 11th, 2006, 10:34 AM
Zenwalk seems very cool and fast, however i couldn't make the layout switcher for keyboard there.
In gnome-ubuntu it's very easy to do, in xubuntu dapper a bit harder but undoable. In zenwalk i failed to make it.

DJiNN
September 11th, 2006, 08:04 PM
Does Zenwalk support JFS file system?

It most certainly doesn't. (As far as i know) :( I'm using it on an old PIII 700Mhz using XFS & it's really fast. V3 is well worth a look if you want a really strong OS that is fast, stable & a pleasure to use. :)

DJiNN
September 11th, 2006, 08:07 PM
Hey, case1976 & Neo40, i'd love to answer your questions but i'm quite new to Zenwalk myself. However, i am sure that if you ask those questions in the Zenwalk forums, someone there will be able to help you. It's a growing place....... :)

kazuya
September 14th, 2006, 08:33 PM
How do you compare Zenwalk with Vector Dynamite or VL Soho 5.1. This is of now the fastest I have used for an Old machine that still has a bunch of SOho items. It is slackware based and pretty much on par with Zenwalk. What I prefer in Vector linux over Zenwalk is the VASM, and GSLAPT, the gui front-end similar to synaptic in debian-based distros.

It grants you the option to enable sources like in mepis, ubuntu, debian and then do search on what you seek, and then install all from the gui.

Zenwalk has something like that as well, but not as easy to find your packages or search for them. However, Zenwalk might be more compatible with slack-current.

My Vector experience has been great though and I find VL dynamite like its name, really dynamite. It is lightening fast in my experience compared to Zenwalk 2.8.

I would advice folks to wait until Vector 6 fully gets released. Zenwalk has grown alot though.

Donshyoku
September 15th, 2006, 05:39 PM
I am actually DLing Zenwalk 3.0 now. I tried it not too long back, a few months ago, but didn't see much of particular interest. However, I since have learned the benefits of and how to install from tarballs. So, hopefully, I will make it out better this time.

I am glad to know that it is compatible with Slack 10.2 packages. Linuxpackages.net has a package for everything I can imagine!

Minyaliel
September 24th, 2006, 04:14 PM
I'm on ZenLive right now... I don't like it, even though it's fast... the DE freaks me out :P

Necro768
September 25th, 2006, 02:55 AM
I recently switched over to Zenwalk 3.0 and Ive got to say it is fast. I dont know why I never tried Slackware or Zenwalk before. So far, other than the ALSA problem I had for a few hours, I have had no other problems. It is really stable. Its a lot smaller than Ubuntu in terms of programs it initially comes with, but it supported restricted/propriety multimedia formats right out of teh box and comes with all the dev tools necessary, which is a blessing for a dial-up user. The only thing I miss would be Banshee Media Player, but Audacious has filled in that gap....for now.

I suggest everyone to give Zenwalk a try. It might make you switch over. It might not. But it is still worth a try.

arox
September 25th, 2006, 10:50 AM
I'm using Zenwalk for few weeks (switched from Ubuntu) and I recommend it.
It's faster, more stable, less bloated and I don't have those small annoying problems from Ubuntu (no sound in mplayer and flash sometimes etc)

missmoondog
September 25th, 2006, 11:00 AM
i just installed the new 3.0 on 1 machine yesterday. was so impressed with the speed of it, i put it on another machine. man, do those machines fly. not going to switch all my machines over to it, but it definitely worth checking out.

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=264069

anybody know why the same 28 updates keep showing up when checking for them in zenwalk? doesn't matter if i change the mirrors or not, in the current package section, that is.

edit:
i lied. have installed zenwalk on all 7 of the computers in the house now. mom & dads, brothers and my own 5. zenwalk just flat out blows the doors off ubuntu with xfce!! haven't had a single issue with video cards eithe on any of the 7 systems. ranging from intel i810 to i845 to ati (whatever it is) and a couple old nvidia cards up to a new gforce card!

kazuya
September 28th, 2006, 07:24 PM
I am slightly hooked on Zenwalk now, especially with the addition of gslapt. If you guys only use netpkg, from Zenwalk, seek out gslapt and install it and slapt-get from netpkg., this is going to become the main pkg handler in Zenwalk as it has been for a year plus on Vector Linux. I have tested it, and it is very awesome. A lot more robust than netpkg in my opinion.

Zenwalk is one of the best implementation of XFCE, I have seen thus far.

I still have some issue with getting gnome 2.16 fully installed on it, but alas it is awesome and fast to boot. And sometimes faster to install packages on there.

TecnoVM64
September 29th, 2006, 05:45 AM
Same here, been using it for 2 weeks, and I completely love it, I can't get rid of it, I love the speed of this distro, plus it's beautiful.

DJiNN
October 1st, 2006, 10:41 PM
Same here, been using it for 2 weeks, and I completely love it, I can't get rid of it, I love the speed of this distro, plus it's beautiful.

I agree, great distro & wicked fast! I started using it a few months ago, but stopped using it so much recently, mainly due to NetPkg issues & problems etc. But now that they have added Slapt-get i think i'll fire it up again & give it another go.

If you really want to see it fly, put Fluxbox on it & watch it go..... it's amazing! :)

kazuya
October 5th, 2006, 10:20 PM
My issues with gnome 2.16 were due to the industrial theme which I removed with a console command, and I am now working fine with kde, xfce, kde, and flux.

Here is the fix:
try removing the Industrial Engine included with Zenwalk

Code:
rm -r /usr/share/themes/Industrial
Its amazing how much that theme screws with GNOME.



I do not know which to go to. Xfce is ridiculously fast and beautiful to use. I had to fix the fonts in kde 3.5.4, and gnome 2.16 by default was cool. Now I am about to try slack version of e17 on it. I got the instructions on howto install slacke17. It seems very easy to do.

I am pushing the envelope. DOing update all everytime from gslapt {gui front-end to slapt-get on a slack system is impressive. It takes getting used to for the minimalistic nature of the OS, but I am getting superly used to it now.

Lord Illidan
October 5th, 2006, 10:25 PM
I used Zenwalk once, switched back because of netpkg.. nice to see that they are including Gslapt this time, will probably, no, certainly try it out...I wonder what it will make of a Dual Core Pentium D :)

whiterabbit
October 12th, 2006, 12:26 AM
I've had Zenwalk on my Thinkpad for a few days now. Takes some getting used to but I like it.

basketcase
October 16th, 2006, 12:50 AM
I just installed it on a shuttle XPC I had sitting here. BIG surprise. I like it.

I can't say I liked the installer, wish there was more in the repositories, but it's nice and fast even on this 2400+. I just like apt-get too much.

Is definitely at the top of my list though...

DJiNN
October 17th, 2006, 12:40 PM
I just installed it on a shuttle XPC I had sitting here. BIG surprise. I like it.

I can't say I liked the installer, wish there was more in the repositories, but it's nice and fast even on this 2400+. I just like apt-get too much.

Is definitely at the top of my list though...

Are you using "slapt-get" in Zenwalk yet (Instead of Netpkg)? If you D/L & install that, it's apt-get for Slack, and works pretty much the same. It's heaps better than Netpkg (Which was awful IMHO).

Zenwalk is a great distro. I shall be installing it again once i have my new systems up & running in a few weeks..... can't wait. :)

basketcase
October 17th, 2006, 04:12 PM
No I was using Netpkg, honestly I didn't think it was that bad really. I've seen worse package managers.

missmoondog
October 18th, 2006, 01:15 PM
Are you using "slapt-get" in Zenwalk yet (Instead of Netpkg)? If you D/L & install that, it's apt-get for Slack, and works pretty much the same. It's heaps better than Netpkg (Which was awful IMHO).

Zenwalk is a great distro. I shall be installing it again once i have my new systems up & running in a few weeks..... can't wait. :)


Just started a thread either at zenwalk support or linuxquestions.com about this very thing. gslapt IS the newer tool, correct? netpkg is supposed to be the one going away? the reason i was wondering was because on the machine i was on yesterday, just for the heck of it, i ran gslapt to check for updates (didn't install) then ran netpkg. netpkg had 4 updates while gslapt had 2.

the 4 updates were udev, udevtools, ndiswrapper and lame. gslapt only showed udev and lame.

i then checked this out on another machine and had the same results. i updated that machine via this method,
netpkg netpkg
netpkg upgrade-new
netpkg upgrade-config, and it grabbed all 4 updates.

so, i guess i'm just wondering what the scoop is between the 2?

kazuya
October 18th, 2006, 02:47 PM
Zenwalk is cool. I use both gslapt and netpkg as gslapt is still being developed newly. Gslapt is easier to use, but netpkg is way more reliable right now for everything. It also has more repo sources, but this may be changing soon. Look for them to do with gslapt what vector linux has done to gslapt.

Very speedy distro.

fuscia
October 18th, 2006, 03:23 PM
i'm asking this from an end user perspective, so maybe i'd be well advised to just take xubuntu and run. (i have ubuntu installed and just added 'xubuntu-desktop'.) i'm guessing that zenwalk is faster, but in what way? do the apps just load faster, or do they operate more quickly, as well? other than speed, what's the advantage? (only the default look of dreamlinux beats the default look of the current xubuntu.) aren't things easier in xubuntu (which might be why some of you prefer zenwalk. typical geeks.:rolleyes: )?

DJiNN
October 18th, 2006, 05:29 PM
Just started a thread either at zenwalk support or linuxquestions.com about this very thing. gslapt IS the newer tool, correct? netpkg is supposed to be the one going away? the reason i was wondering was because on the machine i was on yesterday, just for the heck of it, i ran gslapt to check for updates (didn't install) then ran netpkg. netpkg had 4 updates while gslapt had 2.

the 4 updates were udev, udevtools, ndiswrapper and lame. gslapt only showed udev and lame.

i then checked this out on another machine and had the same results. i updated that machine via this method,
netpkg netpkg
netpkg upgrade-new
netpkg upgrade-config, and it grabbed all 4 updates.

so, i guess i'm just wondering what the scoop is between the 2?

I think (But i'm not sure) that gslapt leaves out 2 of the updates/upgrades, by default, in case of possible conflicts. If you decide that you want them i guess that you just "install them manually" :)

I did see the thread that you mention. They were talking about possibly doing away with Netpkg? Personally, i have never quite got to grips with Netpkg the way i have with apt-get. But that's probably more because of my lack of understanding about how Netpkg works than any fault of the program. The GUI in Netpkg is pretty awful though, and that's one of the major benefits with Synaptic IMHO.

I just seem to get so many problems whenever i do an upgrade etc using Netpkg, mainly with config files..... i'm never sure just what to replace & what NOT to replace..... & i invariably choose the wrong ones somewhere along the way & "CRASH!".... :)

Zenwalk is a really nice distro though. Nice & fast even on old machines. :)

whiterabbit
October 18th, 2006, 05:33 PM
I had no idea about gslapt. Thanks for the info.

arox
October 18th, 2006, 08:48 PM
Zenwalk is something what I was looking for - stable and simple as Slackware but more user friendly. Also I have fully functional desktop without tons of crap installed by typical "easy" desktop distros
And is not Debian based


Enough for me to be my favourite

(and of course its fast and small - about 400MB ISO)

Anonii
October 18th, 2006, 08:49 PM
Zenwalk is something what I was looking for - stable and simple as Slackware but more user friendly. Also I have fully functional desktop without tons of crap installed by typical "easy" desktop distros
And is not Debian based


Enough for me to be my favourite
What didnt you like about Debian based distros?
APT?

arox
October 18th, 2006, 08:54 PM
What didnt you like about Debian based distros?
APT?

Dependencies and installing lot of crap (why Azureus depends on Mozilla when I can use it normally without having it? Same for superkaramba and xmms).
Debian has big repositories but most of software is outdated so I must compile by myself. And compiling on Debian is hell (tons of missing dependencies etc)

basketcase
October 18th, 2006, 11:50 PM
I thought Zenwalk was quicker, applications loading faster, more responsive, and browsing the internet quicker.

I like apt-get though...I heard about slapt-get though, and if it is as good as apt-get, then things could get interesting.

RAV TUX
October 19th, 2006, 05:19 AM
ZenWalk is very nice but it has it's limitations also, I haven't tried Xubuntu recently enough to do a comparision/contrast evaluation.

I will say I was very impressed overall with ZenWalk, very clean, fast distro; all though page rendering time did appear to hang a bit in the Firefox browser...but not long enough to make a fuss about.

I had Zenwalk installed for about a week but then returned to Knoppix Gnome on my hard drive...

I will say that if you like Zenwalk and want a equally as impressive debian based distro try Aquamorph (Morphix>Knoppix>Debian based)

I haven't been as excited about a distro as I am with Aquamorph since Dreamlinux and Sabayon first made it's debut.

At the very least you will find Aquamorph as impressive and fast as ZenWalk.

For a Aquamorph Screenshot installation tour (http://cafelinux.org/forums/index.php/topic,554.msg4412.html#msg4412) go here:
http://cafelinux.org/forums/index.php/topic,554.0.html

here are some Aquamorph links:

http://aquariusoft.org/forum/

http://aquariusoft.org/page/linux/

MP4 plugins
http://aquariusoft.org/page/linux/mp4plugin/

http://aquariusoft.org/page/linux/livecd_howto/

http://aquariusoft.org/page/linux/aquamorph/

Download page for Aquamorph

http://aquariusoft.org/page/linux/aquamorph/#download

tseliot
October 19th, 2006, 09:33 AM
Zenwalk is as fast as Xubuntu on my old laptop. It's a nice distro but its repositories are smaller than Xubuntu's. That's my main problem with Zenwalk.

Sef
October 19th, 2006, 09:38 AM
For some reason, zenwalk did not pick up my ethernic card. It is an older one (about 5 1/2 years old) on my laptop. Will have to work on that one day.

bonzodog
October 21st, 2006, 06:32 PM
I prefer the slackware way of doing things. It's a much faster and lighter distro than xubuntu would be, and comes with dev tools out of the box. Also, it's as up-to-date as any of the ubuntu-dev distros would be;

Zen 3.0 (current) is running kernel 2.6.17.11, xfce 4.4RC2, Firefox 1.5.0.7....

One of the biggest appeals about it for me it's it's near-vanilla state- this, I think gives it an edge, especially if you like to build the odd program, which I do, and most progs do not need a vast amount of options passing to configure just to get them to build.

It is undergoing a change of package manager at the moment, from netpkg, which was written by it's main developer, to Slapt-get/GSlapt, which matches Synaptic in operability, and actually looks very similar- one of the key advantages of OSS is that you can copy someone elses GUI design and use it yourself.
Slapt-get, like apt, handles full dependency management.

The repos are considerably lighter than Ubuntu, but that is made up for by the fact that being basically slackware on drugs means it can use slackware packages as well, and there is alot of those out there on the web. not all programs are in the repos, as slack packages are easier to build than debian ones, which means the community database on forums, etc is huge.

The Zen community is expanding at the moment, and we have an IRC channel on Freenode - #zenwalk.

Zenwalk only comes with about half the amount of software that Xubuntu does on default install - enough for one program per task. It actually has no IRC client installed by default, but Xchat is in the repos

It is a fast and light distro, and would appeal to those that want to step up the linux path from Ubuntu, and don't mind the CLI for the odd task.

Community links:

http://www.zenwalk.org -- the main site.
http://forums.zenwalk.org -- The community forums
http://users.zenwalk.org -- The Community Zenwalk Packages page

IRC: #Zenwalk on freenode.net

arox
October 21st, 2006, 07:05 PM
It actually has no IRC client installed by default, but Xchat is in the repos
There is Gaim

mahy
October 22nd, 2006, 07:25 PM
The package management of Slack-based distros is not as easy-to-use as Debian's, but at least you don't have to install Mozilla to use Azureus and/or Eclipse. Do you hear me, Ubuntu package maintainers!?

Yes its repo is tiny compared to Ubuntu's, but for just about any software you can find a dedicated Zenwalk package after a bit of googling. Alternately you can install a Slackware package.

bodhi.zazen
October 23rd, 2006, 05:51 AM
Zenwalk is a great distro.

It runs faster then xubuntu and has the basics for most desktop Linux users.

You are best off with the distro "as is" and using the Zenwalk repositories.

Compatibility with Slackware is becoming more problematic over time, which is too bad IMO.

If you add applications from Slackware or outside of the Zenwalk repositories the system can become unstable.

Zenwalk has been on a rapid release cycle which has advantages and disadvantages.

mahy
October 23rd, 2006, 03:35 PM
Anybody set up Gaim-OTR in Zenwalk? i downloaded, compiled and installed both gaim-otr and libotr, but the OTR plugin still doesn't show up in the gaim preferences... I wonder what went wrong..

arox
October 24th, 2006, 08:24 PM
New netpkg gui:

http://img431.imageshack.us/img431/5366/200610242125081024x768scrotib8.th.png (http://img431.imageshack.us/my.php?image=200610242125081024x768scrotib8.png)


Who needs gslapt now?

SlugO
October 31st, 2006, 05:06 PM
Is Zenwalk really much faster/lighter than Xubuntu?

I tried the Zenlive cd on both my newer and older computer. It did seem faster on the newer one.

But on the older one, where I do need more speed (800mhz/128mb), it was pretty slow. The XFCE menu wouldn't start and neither would all apps. Also top showed that there was only a couple of megabytes of free RAM, just like on Xubuntu. And that's probably the biggest bottleneck.

But to be fair the transfer times from cd don't seem all that great on that computer atleast when you try to copy a dvd full of stuff :P I'm suspecting that it'd be much faster when installed. I'd just like to know if it fills the RAM like Xubuntu does. Cos if it does then I'm not sure it's worth installing there.

One big question is also whether the USB-WiFi will work on Zen. The live user didn't have a password so I couldn't use admin tools and like I said not all the apps started.

So please inform me on these things if you have experience on Zen :)

SunnyRabbiera
October 31st, 2006, 07:37 PM
Zenwalk is fair but definately not for me as I do want more recent apps and slackware is not as adaptive to newer hardware or software.
But for my older machine Zen was pretty sweet.

missmoondog
November 1st, 2006, 03:01 PM
Is Zenwalk really much faster/lighter than Xubuntu?

I tried the Zenlive cd on both my newer and older computer. It did seem faster on the newer one.

But on the older one, where I do need more speed (800mhz/128mb), it was pretty slow. The XFCE menu wouldn't start and neither would all apps. Also top showed that there was only a couple of megabytes of free RAM, just like on Xubuntu. And that's probably the biggest bottleneck.

But to be fair the transfer times from cd don't seem all that great on that computer atleast when you try to copy a dvd full of stuff :P I'm suspecting that it'd be much faster when installed. I'd just like to know if it fills the RAM like Xubuntu does. Cos if it does then I'm not sure it's worth installing there.

One big question is also whether the USB-WiFi will work on Zen. The live user didn't have a password so I couldn't use admin tools and like I said not all the apps started.

So please inform me on these things if you have experience on Zen :)

i have 3 systems similar to yours (600/933mhz) except all have 384mb's memory. zenwalk smokes on these machines compared to any ubuntu variation. have installed zenwalk on all 7 machines in the house now! have neer had a problem with memory or system resources being hogged up. don't know about the usb wi-fi.

bonzodog
November 1st, 2006, 04:17 PM
Zenwalk is fair but definately not for me as I do want more recent apps and slackware is not as adaptive to newer hardware or software.
But for my older machine Zen was pretty sweet.

um..Zenwalk happens to be a 'bleeding edge' distro. Most of the apps used in it are newer than those in Edgy. Also, Zen 3.2 (Codename: Cosmic Rabbit) is out very soon, and the big push to Xorg 7.1 is being made. Zen 3.0, which I run has FF 2.0, Thunderbird 1.5.0.7, kernel 2.6.17.11....

jinx099
November 3rd, 2006, 04:40 AM
I tried zenwalk 3.0 on my laptop and it did seem pretty quick. However, it did not detect the wireless card, so back to edgy for it. I might have to try it on my girlfriend's laptop as it is lacking in RAM unlike my laptop. Is there a live version of zenwalk 3.0?

mahy
November 3rd, 2006, 08:24 AM
IIs there a live version of zenwalk 3.0?

Yes, there is. http://www.zenlive.tuxfamily.org/

kazuya
November 3rd, 2006, 03:15 PM
Yes there is Live version, but it is only a livecd, you cannot install with it. You need the zenwalk 3 iso.

It works plenty good for me.

SlugO
November 6th, 2006, 09:47 PM
I understand that Zenwalk uses LILO bootloader. Would that create problems on a triple boot computer that had Ubuntu, Zenwalk and Windows since Ubuntu uses GRUB? Or should I just put LILO on a floppy disk?

I'm interested in trying Zenwalk but I have no idea if my Buffalo USB-WiFi is gonna work on it so I don't wanna remove the working Xubuntu installation.

chaosgeisterchen
November 6th, 2006, 10:01 PM
Can anyone tell me why they are using LILO over grub with no real known advantages LILO has over grub?

Burgresso
November 15th, 2006, 02:10 AM
I'm considering trying this distro sometime, but do to the small repos, it has been mentioned that you can 'compile from scratch.'

How do you do that, generally speaking? :P

burgresso

arox
November 15th, 2006, 08:29 AM
configure
make
checkinstall

kazuya
November 15th, 2006, 04:07 PM
some folks prefer lilo over grub. Since Zenwalk is slack-based and slackware as well as all other slack-based distros like Vectorlinux, etc, tend to prefer to use lilo.

For some lilo is easier to work in than grub. In a slack system say I upgraded the kernel from 2.6.17 to 2.6.18, just by doing lilo -v from commandline, it would update my kernel info within my lilo or boot configuration. This is what I gather thus far.

Xandros a debian-based distro and pclinuos normally use lilo.

All of them work fine if you ask me.

Burgresso
November 15th, 2006, 08:58 PM
thanks arox!

so let's say I have app named fakeapp -

do you do this?:

configure fakeapp
make fakeapp
checkinstall fakeapp

thanks,

burgresso

bonzodog
November 15th, 2006, 10:44 PM
I take it you have never ever compiled from source before?

my god, the first time I did that in Linux was nearly 10 yrs ago.

no, you get the source code as a tar.gz file or tar.bz2 file.

So first you make sure the app is in a directory where you are comfortable building it.

first off, issue:

$tar -xvzf myapp.tar.gz
if the app is a .tar.bz2, you change the z in the set of switches to a j, so it becomes:

tar -xvjf myapp.tar.gz

next you cd into the actual directory that will create. look for a file called 'configure'.

When you know you have that, first read any README or INSTALL files in the dir. This will give you basic instructions and possibly a list of any dependencies you might need.

so we next issue:

$./configure

This will run a whole load of output past the screen, and if you quickly read it, you will see it checking for the presence of certain files and programs in your system that it needs.

If it is successful, and there are no errors, the next thing to do is build the app.

Just run:

$make

This will also reel a whole load of complicated output as it actually builds the program.

For the next stage, you need root access. Zenwalk and most other distros will normally install self built progs in /usr/local.

In Ubuntu, you issue:

$sudo make install
It will ask for your password, which you then issue.

In zenwalk, slack and a lot of other distros, you do:

$su
Enter your password at this stage, then:

$make install.

It will then install the program you just built, but more than likely will not make a menu entry for it, so you will need to run the program from the command line.

As an alternative, instead of that last stage, you can issue 'checkinstall' instead. This will then build the program as a distro binary package AND install it on your system. This can make it a lot easier to remove at a later stage.

Burgresso
November 16th, 2006, 03:04 AM
Great post and many many thanks, bonzodog. I've bookmarked your answer. Thank you.

One question - does it matter where or what directory it should be built in?

regards,

burgresso

arox
November 16th, 2006, 08:56 AM
Great post and many many thanks, bonzodog. I've bookmarked your answer. Thank you.

One question - does it matter where or what directory it should be built in?

regards,

burgresso

No

kazuya
November 17th, 2006, 03:13 PM
I agree with all the posts here. Zenwalk is really fast. And fully functional. Not to mention, very easy to recover or get going should I intentionally break something. The dependency tracking of installed apps, etc, is getting near flawless. Netpkg is still the defacto, and it has been overhauled to be better.

An interesting thing I discovered is that I could install packages from vector linux repo on my zenwalk box. This means I can cross install apps not only from slackware, but from frugalware, vector, etc on my zenwalk and vice versa. The packages follow or are built similarly.

I still find that although, Ubuntu is slightly slower depending on PC, it is still slightly easier for a newbie to get going and to access packages and get updates.

I would recommend Zenwalk for many folks especially those looking for speed, functionality, and control over system, and the just works mentality while being simple to manage, while Ubuntu is for almost the same sort of people.

If I had a very new PC, it may be a close match b/w the two. Ubuntu does have more apps in its repo readily available, while zenwalk's is still growing, but you can access external packages from linuxpackages.net, and many other places over the web.

In other cases, if you request the packages from the distro forum, they would normally create it for you {it may take more than 4 days though.}

ahaslam
November 20th, 2006, 09:22 AM
I'm going to resize my partitions later to give it the space it deserves ;)

See the release announcement: http://www.zenwalk.org/modules/news/article.php?storyid=21

Your comments...

Tony.

daller
November 20th, 2006, 09:36 AM
I think i'll stick with Kubuntu!

arox
November 20th, 2006, 12:23 PM
I'm staying with Zen 3.0 for now

I'm too lazy ATM to reinstall or solve eventual upgrade problems

RAV TUX
November 20th, 2006, 01:18 PM
I'm going to resize my partitions later to give it the space it deserves ;)

See the release announcement: http://www.zenwalk.org/modules/news/article.php?storyid=21

Your comments...

Tony.

Great news Zenwalk is another awesome OS!;)

downloading now.

kazuya
November 20th, 2006, 03:11 PM
I am going to try upgrading from Zenwalk 3.0 and 4.0. I tried linumint over the weekend. It was impressive, but, although edgy, it was still slow to launch things like firefox, youtube videos, etc..

I would recommend linuxmint as it is in essence Ubuntu with flash and media settings pre-done.

Zen just feels and works much faster for me, and this is on the same drive PC, differnt partition.

I would not recommend anyone with Zenwalk 3 going to Zenwalk 4 right away without examining the howto.

It should be straight-forward. I would try with my box and give my result. So far, they have recommende getting a new ZW4.0 iso and installing it over your root partition. This assumes ofcourse that your home directory and useful datas are on a separate partition.

ahaslam
November 20th, 2006, 10:36 PM
Fast & pretty ;)

19705

Tony ;)

RAV TUX
November 21st, 2006, 01:37 AM
Fast & pretty ;)

19705

Tony ;)

Looks simply awesome!

manmower
November 21st, 2006, 12:54 PM
Fast & pretty ;)

19705

Tony ;)

Do you have a link for that Noble M15 wallpaper? ;)

Thanks.

raublekick
November 21st, 2006, 06:26 PM
i tried Zenwalk 3.0 a few weeks ago, seemed cool but no wireless + low resolution - time to work on it = not good for me right now. i wanna give 4.0 a try asap, as Xubuntu is a bit lacking.

bonzodog
November 21st, 2006, 08:52 PM
PLEASE - you need to do a clean install of Zenwalk 4.0.

Please read the forum posting by hyperion, he explains that there is a high probability of you screwing up your system if you try to upgrade as there are far too many major things being upgraded, and they all need new config files.

The upgrades include xorg to 7.1, kernel 2.6.18.1, and gtk 2.10

RAV TUX
November 22nd, 2006, 03:32 AM
I tried it,....nice OS overall but I am liking rpath too much to switch. The new Puppy is also nice great package management (pup-get), the best next to Emerge.

ahaslam
November 22nd, 2006, 10:47 PM
Do you have a link for that Noble M15 wallpaper? ;)

Thanks.

1982319824

Enjoy ;)

ahaslam
November 23rd, 2006, 10:30 PM
Everything's going smoothly, there's been no stability worries.

Its multimedia capability otb is fantastic & the installed packages don't leave you wanting. There's one package for each task & their choice usually goes down to simplicity, which keeps everything fast & uncluttered.

It's only downside is that it doesn't setup your hardware quite as comprehensively as Dapper. My ethernet & graphics were easy enough to sort out but processor scaling is requiring a little effort (my laptop doesn't last too long on battery atm).

I have no doubt that this is the best XFCE distro out there. I highly recommend it if you want to speed up your PC, or want to learn more about Linux in general.

Finally, another screenie for you:

19881

Tony ;)

chaosgeisterchen
November 27th, 2006, 10:41 PM
I have Zenwalk 4.0 installed but I have no chance to build the necessary wireless drivers I would have needed in order to go online.

It kinda confuses me, this ZenWalk, the GUI-administration-approach is nice but not entirely well done. But the distribution is very slick and stable so far (compared to Edgy..).

In the end I would look forward towards getting my wireless card to work. Cable ethernet won't be available.

kazuya
November 28th, 2006, 03:32 PM
I have Zenwalk 4.0 installed but I have no chance to build the necessary wireless drivers I would have needed in order to go online.

It kinda confuses me, this ZenWalk, the GUI-administration-approach is nice but not entirely well done. But the distribution is very slick and stable so far (compared to Edgy..).

In the end I would look forward towards getting my wireless card to work. Cable ethernet won't be available.

Hey chaosgeisterchen, you could try their forum page and ask under problems. They are speedy to help you out.
I just type: Zenwalk Support from firefox and it takes me there. They may most likely be able to solve it for you easily. You just have to ask: Give them your wireless card or search on their forum for howto configure the wireless card..

Good luck. If you are getting nowhere ask me and I shall try to route your issue to another expert. I am a newbie by the way and have yet to use wireless.

Zenwalk 4 is awesome. I would recommend getting gslapt through netpkg and using that Haslem. You would be very impressed. I know I was.

omns
November 29th, 2006, 10:05 AM
.

bonzodog
November 29th, 2006, 05:58 PM
Yes, folks Zenwalk 4.0 is out!

Zenwalk 4.0 is a significant step up from 3.0.

It has Kernel 2.6.18.1, gtk2+ 2.10, Xfce 4.4 RC2, and Xorg 7.1

chaosgeisterchen
November 30th, 2006, 08:00 AM
I already intended to ask at their forums, in fact I am registered and lurking around there every now and then.

Well, Zenwalk is so impressive to me that I already picked it as a topic for the latest English homework here at school ;)

kazuya
November 30th, 2006, 05:16 PM
Cool chaosgeisterchen

ahaslam
November 30th, 2006, 06:53 PM
I've sorted the scaling problem. :)
I just had to compile an architecture specific kernel, add the powernow-k8 module & install cpufreq-utils.

Tony ;)

PS. Chaosgeisterchen I've seen similar posts on their forum, you shouldn't have to submit a new post. The biggest thing to get used to is the different ways of doing things. It's similar to going from Windows to Ubuntu.

Lord Illidan
November 30th, 2006, 07:00 PM
I love this distro. Will definitely try it out in the christmas holidays. My fav distro next to Ubuntu. Just cannot help admiring its small size, and way of packaging XFCE.

dakini
November 30th, 2006, 08:33 PM
I have to agree. This is a beautiful distro. Light, fast, and beautiful to look at. Pretty much my favorite so far.

tommcd
December 3rd, 2006, 12:09 PM
I just installed zenwalk 4.0 on an old E-machines computer. Nothing else on it. This computer ran ubuntu breezy and dapper just fine. I had a problem with websites that use java script freezing firefox (and seamonkey). This happened even after I installed Java from netpkg. Disabling java-script in firefox or seamonkey "fixed" the problem. But this makes many websites function poorly. Ther was some mention of this on the zenwalk forums. I did not see anyone offer a satisfactory solution.
Anyone else run into this? or have a solution?

tommcd
December 3rd, 2006, 12:14 PM
I just installed zenwalk 4.0 on an old E-machines computer. Nothing else on it. This computer ran ubuntu breezy and dapper just fine. I had a problem with websites that use java script freezing firefox (and seamonkey). This happened even after I installed Java from netpkg. Disabling java-script in firefox or seamonkey "fixed" the problem. But this makes many websites function poorly. Ther was some mention of this on the zenwalk forums. I did not see anyone offer a satisfactory solution.
Anyone else run into this? or have a solution?

celsofaf
December 4th, 2006, 03:20 AM
I'm trying Zenwalk 4.0 on my PC as well, on other partition. I loved it! Fast, clean, simple (KISS, baby!) and it's also a good learning experience, since yes it has GUIs for configuring the system, but not as much as in Ubuntu, so many things I had to do by hand. And the (very) small repository means another way to learn installing stuff!

The only problem so far is that I couldn't get my keyboard to work properly on it yet. Yes, this is part of the learning, right? ;)

kazuya
December 8th, 2006, 03:39 PM
give me a sample website so I can test it out. None of those issues has happened to me. Yesterday I got beryl working great on my Zen 4 PC. It runs ilike a champ.

I want to see the website and try to replicate your error. Perhaps even send a snapshot of the pictures. What is your username on Zenwalk or the title or link to your post. I can follow up for you through that.

Things not looking right may be a font issue rather than java per say.

tommcd
December 9th, 2006, 04:30 AM
Kazuya,
Thanks for the interest. Here is a link to my thread:
http://support.zenwalk.org/index.php/topic,4710.0.html
It does not seem to be a problem with fonts, as near as I can tell. Fonts look ok. Yahoo mail crashes when I try to login. I could not telst it on too many sites cause FF was locking up so much. Also, I can't download anything (even the zenwalk manual) without FF crashing. Could this be related to the fact that I use PPPoE to connect to the net? The only way I could connect to the net was by doing this:
http://beranger.org/index.php?article=1384
Even after this, I have to do: /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1 restart, and pppoe-start (both as root) in order to connect to the net every time I boot up the PC. Any help appreciated, as Zenwalk seems like a pretty cool distro.

kazuya
December 11th, 2006, 05:54 PM
glad you are up and running now. Wish I knew how you really solved it. I shall test it from home. i.e the website.

Aurora
December 12th, 2006, 12:02 PM
Hello,

Maybe you can help me get Xubuntu and Zenwalk to co-exist, though I fear it's too late. I had a nice Ubuntu Dapper and Debian 64 Studio dual-boot. I tried to add Zenwalk, and could not figure out how to make a new partition.

I am not nearly as handy with Zenwalk's partitioner as I am with Dapper's. It does not warn you when it's about to write to your disk. Before I knew it, it was installing, I knew not where. I think it overwrote Dapper, with all my data. The partitioner on the Dapper CD shows an xfs partition where I had an ext 3 containing Dapper. I would like to recover any data that might be recoverable, but I'm not optimistic.

I told the Zenwalk installer not to install LILO, thinking GRUB would be able to boot everything.

I now can't boot anything. I can't mount the drive when I run a live CD, either. I started this thread in Linux Questions: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?t=509550

If you can help, would you be willing to join that discussion? Many people frown upon cross-posting, plus it's difficult to check multiple forums when using a live CD, because it doesn't save bookmarks when you turn of the computer.

Thanks,
Paul in Seattle

kazuya
December 12th, 2006, 04:04 PM
Hello Paul aka Aurora. Did you post this at the Zenwalk forum? It would get more attention there than here. I am sorry about your experience. I think the issue maybe that Zenwalk being slack-based uses lilo as compared to Grub which Ubuntu and debian uses by default normally.

Moreover, when installing, you have to ensure that for example hda1 for Ubuntu is not where you install your Zenwalk on. you would mount that drive by /mnt/hda1 and select "do not format" .

The drive you want to install on, you would mount / --> make sure you know what drive this is, like /mnt/hda3 for example...

As for the datas, they may be lost totally if you installed on them or placed home or formated them. Sometimes, you have to go to the /etc/fstab and change that folder from the wrong xfs back to ext3..

Also type : df
in terminal and see if that drive shows up as maybe 35% used or something like that. That would help you know whether the datas were overwritten or not..

Aurora
December 12th, 2006, 09:14 PM
Hi,

I'm not sure how to interpret this:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ df
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
unionfs 1137572 654300 483272 58% /
varrun 501284 76 501208 1% /var/run
varlock 501284 4 501280 1% /var/lock
udev 501284 92 501192 1% /dev
devshm 501284 0 501284 0% /dev/shm
lrm 501284 9000 492284 2% /lib/modules/2.6.15-26-386/volatile
tmpfs 501284 12 501272 1% /tmp

I have a 40-something gig and a 10 gig partition, plus swap. The rest of the drive was free. I tried to install Zenwalk onto the free space but cfdisk said it was an "unusable partition" I didn't realise it was installing onto /dev/sda1 until it was too late. I wasn't even planning to run the install, I was just checking the disk and got caught up in the moment.

I will go looking for that Zenwalk forum.

kazuya
December 13th, 2006, 12:02 AM
Really sorry about that. Try this link to get to the forum:

http://support.zenwalk.org/index.php

Just copy and paste these results here and your questions as compared to retyping it all. But the more info you present the better somebody may be able to help. Getting those datas back would be tough without some special softwares that recover datas. Look for an open source one before you go coughing the money. It ofcourse depends on how bad you want the data..

Best of luck Aurora..

tommcd
December 13th, 2006, 06:15 AM
Aurora,
If you still can't boot anything, and you are running from an ubuntu live CD, you can reinstall grub from the live CD like this:
http://users.bigpond.net.au/hermanzone/p15.htm#Re-install_Grub_with_Live_CD
Hope this helps.

wykedengel
December 13th, 2006, 06:12 PM
I like zenwalk, but it version 3, it seemed that the distro would break every time i tried to update it. Also, there were some stability issues (at list with my Thinkpad) that caused me to look elsewhere.

RAV TUX
December 14th, 2006, 12:53 AM
moving to slackware (and derivatives) forum

ahaslam
December 14th, 2006, 08:32 AM
Cheers Rav, I only noticed that forum after posting ;)

Tony.

tommcd
December 14th, 2006, 10:00 AM
Another zenwalk problem. PLease see this thread on zenwalk forums:
http://support.zenwalk.org/index.php/topic,4904.0.html

Here it is:
"I can't mount CDs at all, either from the CLI or mountpoints manager.
I have searched all over for a solution to this. I worked my way through this thread:
http://support.zenwalk.org/index.php/topic,3326.0.html
uwd is running. My /etc/rc.d/rc.M looks just like reply #5 from that thread.
The weird thing is, I can mount my Zenwalk 4.0 CD. I can also mount my Debian-Etch CD. If I try to mount an audio CD or a data CD that I burned in Ubuntu with the mountpoints manager the system freezes, and I have to restart the GUI (ctr+alt+backspace).
Here is my /etc/fstab

tom[rc.d]$ cat /etc/fstab
/dev/hda2 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/hda1 / xfs defaults,noatime 1 1
/dev/hda5 /home xfs defaults,noatime 1 2
/dev/hdc /mnt/dvd iso9660 noauto,user,ro 0 0
/dev/hdd /mnt/cdrom iso9660 noauto,user,ro 0 0
/dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy auto noauto,user 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0

If I try to mount an audio CD with the CLI I get:

tom[rc.d]$ mount /dev/hdc
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/hdc,
missing codepage or other error
In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
dmesg | tail or so

here is dmesg | tail:

tom[rc.d]$ dmesg | tail
hdc: command error: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hdc: command error: error=0x54 { AbortedCommand LastFailedSense=0x05 }
ide: failed opcode was: unknown
ATAPI device hdc:
Error: Illegal request -- (Sense key=0x05)
Illegal mode for this track or incompatible medium -- (asc=0x64, ascq=0x00)
The failed "Read 10" packet command was:
"28 00 00 00 00 10 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 "
end_request: I/O error, dev hdc, sector 64
isofs_fill_super: bread failed, dev=hdc, iso_blknum=16, block=16

Any advice greatly appreciated, as I have looked all over and can't find a solution, thanks!!"

Any of you zen masters got any ideas? Any advice appreciated!

bonzodog
December 14th, 2006, 08:18 PM
First off, you should never need to mount an Audio CD - it will be read without mounting. Also, try to mount Data CD's using the mountpoint from the CLI. i.e for me it is

$mount /mnt/dvd
I don't trust the mountpoints manager at the moment.

Also, come onto freenode IRC and type in:

/join #zenwalk.

Hyperion and Zequadious are both to be found in there on a regular basis, and they are the key developers of Zenwalk.

Aurora
December 15th, 2006, 07:47 AM
I found out what happened, mostly.

I had too many primary partitions: two bootable Linux partitions, and two swap. the partitioner wouldn't let me create another. I tried to install it on a partition that didn't exist, and the installer defaulted to the first partition, overwriting Dapper.

I found this out by trying to install Dapper on the free space after my 4 primary partitions. Of course it wouldn't let me, but Gparted was a little more informative than cfdisk, The error message said I could only have four primary partitions and would have to have an extended partition containing other partitions in order to total more than four. Aha! I at least had something to Google. In the meantime, I got rid of one of the swap partitions and created a partition for Dapper, installing GRUB in the process, so now I can boot all three distros.

Zenwalk does not connect to the Internet yet. I am going to download the manual to see if I can configure the networking.


--PD

missmoondog
December 28th, 2006, 10:07 AM
edited:
wrong forum

steven8
January 3rd, 2007, 04:06 PM
I don't feel like registering for another forum right now. Does one have to have the ZenLive CD, or can the regular Zenwalk CD be used as a liveCD?

bodhi.zazen
January 3rd, 2007, 04:16 PM
The Zenwalk CD will not run live .... Installs only.

steven8
January 3rd, 2007, 04:23 PM
Terrific. Then I am not wasting my time downloading the ZenliveCD right now!! :-)

Thanks!

dakini
January 6th, 2007, 09:06 PM
Zenwalk 4.2 has just been released and is available for download.

fuscia
January 9th, 2007, 07:35 PM
....

manicka
January 10th, 2007, 02:58 AM
Zenwalk is a smashing OS and has me quite fascinated at the moment. \\:D/

Extreme Coder
January 11th, 2007, 12:58 AM
I really like Zenwalk, but you see its weakest point when you try to update to a newer version. I have Zenwalk 4.0 installed along Ubuntu, and when I noticed 4.2 has been released, I had no idea how to get the newest version. I asked at the forums, and they told me 'upgrade all the packages you have and remove the unneeded ones as in the changelog'. I think they have a major problem to fix ;)

manicka
January 11th, 2007, 02:59 AM
I really like Zenwalk, but you see its weakest point when you try to update to a newer version. I have Zenwalk 4.0 installed along Ubuntu, and when I noticed 4.2 has been released, I had no idea how to get the newest version. I asked at the forums, and they told me 'upgrade all the packages you have and remove the unneeded ones as in the changelog'. I think they have a major problem to fix ;)
The upgrade is a fairly painless process. Delete 2 packages and replace them with new ones, run 'netpkg upgrade' and your done. I don't see a major problem there at all.

Zenwalk is just different, not difficult

tommcd
January 11th, 2007, 09:37 AM
The upgrade is a fairly painless process. Delete 2 packages and replace them with new ones, run 'netpkg upgrade' and your done. I don't see a major problem there at all.

Zenwalk is just different, no difficult
Which 2 packages do you delete? Could you please be specific about the exact process please.
The (only) problem I have had with zenwalk is with upgrades. You update netpkg, then upgrade everything else, then run netpkg dotnew, and you are supposed to know what configuration files to update and which to leave alone. How do you know what to update?

I have only used zenwalk on a very limited basis (just to try it out). It is impressive, but I found the update process a bit confusing. Some specif guides on updating zenwalk would be welcome.

manicka
January 11th, 2007, 12:58 PM
Which 2 packages do you delete? Could you please be specific about the exact process please.
The (only) problem I have had with zenwalk is with upgrades. You update netpkg, then upgrade everything else, then run netpkg dotnew, and you are supposed to know what configuration files to update and which to leave alone. How do you know what to update?

This is what the Current changelog (http://www.zenwalk.org/modules/news/article.php?storyid=27) is for. Everything you need to know is in there.

tommcd
January 12th, 2007, 06:07 AM
Thanks, but after reading through all that I still would not know what to delete. All I see in the changelog is the changes made from zen 4.0 to zen 4.2
Also, how about netpkg dotnew. Can you give advice on how to know what configuration files to update and what to leave alone?

bonzodog
January 12th, 2007, 04:49 PM
Stop the fam daemon and remove it using the X version of netpkg.

Also remove python-xdg, but if you have performed the 4.2 upgrade to Python 2.5, you will find that its already been removed.

With netpkg dotnew, it kinda relies on your knowledge of the files in question, and their functionality within the distro (see, this is where Zenwalk requires that little bit more experience of Linux). If you recognise any of those files as having been ones that you manually altered for some reason, then they are best left alone, with your settings, otherwise, it should be safe to replace with the new configs.

tommcd
January 13th, 2007, 10:34 AM
Ok, thanks Bonzodog. That is perhaps the best, and certainly the most succinct explaination of netpkg dotnew I have come across anywhere.
I agree that zenwalk requires more knowledge of linux. It certainly requires more knowledge than ubuntu IMO. If it were not for the knowledge I have gained from using ubuntu I would have been totally lost with zenwalk. I kind of expected that with it's slackware roots. It is an impressive distro that I will keep my eye on.

Lord Illidan
January 26th, 2007, 04:06 PM
I am using Zenwalk right now..Impressive fast little distro...

This thing beats Xubuntu, imho....and I am on a dual core 2.8 ghz system..

tommcd
January 27th, 2007, 09:29 AM
The only (minor) problem I have with zenwalk is the relative paucity of software available in their repos. You can't deny the advantage of having access to the vast debian repos. I guess there is a trade off here. Do you want a light, fast, and very up to date distro with a smaller software catalog? Or do you want a not-so-up-to-date distro that has a vast repository of software?
Granted, you got slackware repos available:
http://www.slacky.it/http://www.linuxpackages.net/
http://www.slacky.it/
I think ubuntu has the best of both worlds. It is almost as up to date as zenwalk, yet it has a huge software base like debian.

bonzodog
January 27th, 2007, 07:19 PM
hrm..i found Ubuntu somehow slower on my system, in start up and general program starts. Ubuntu felt...bulky.

I don't like the System V init. I'm a system file editor type user, and like to work with the command line on a frequent basis, and the BSD init is a godsend
I found a lot of Ubuntu's packages broken, or badly built/maintained, and resorted to buiding the progs from source code, which, because of the way in which ubuntu ships often required extensive hacking of the configure files, and nearly always had missing dev libs.
Also, Zenwalk ships with a nearly Vanilla kernel (just one patch), and it makes compiling drivers and libs against it much easier.

I also love the minimalism of Zenwalk, and still go around removing stuff after install!

tommcd
January 28th, 2007, 06:47 AM
Yeah, zenwalk does run lighter and faster than ubuntu, no question. I have not had a problem with broken packages in ubuntu though, exept for the mlayer firefox plugin.
I can only get that to work with .wmv files, and 2 mplayer plugin links are broken. I have to use the FF extension media plyer connectivity for anything else.
I also like the way zenwalk comes with most multimedia codecs already installed.

Lord Illidan
January 28th, 2007, 10:50 AM
The only (minor) problem I have with zenwalk is the relative paucity of software available in their repos. You can't deny the advantage of having access to the vast debian repos. I guess there is a trade off here. Do you want a light, fast, and very up to date distro with a smaller software catalog? Or do you want a not-so-up-to-date distro that has a vast repository of software?
Granted, you got slackware repos available:
http://www.slacky.it/http://www.linuxpackages.net/
http://www.slacky.it/
I think ubuntu has the best of both worlds. It is almost as up to date as zenwalk, yet it has a huge software base like debian.

I use linuxpackages.net. Anything else I compile from source.. I got amarok compiled from source already and battle for wesnoth. It is not hard to do, and the system is flying!

kazuya
January 30th, 2007, 07:54 PM
anyone's got superkaramba or adesklet going for zenwalk 4.2. I have been fighting with python 2.5 to get this going. In all it seems easy, but I have been mixing snapshot with current repo there. Now, I am merely looking for compatible superkaramba or adesklet package to run and how to run it on my zenwalk install. This is the only thing not working for me in Zenwalk since after Zenwalk 3.2.. Any ideas?

I do agree though that, Zenwalk simply flies. It is very very fast. How capable is it? I have it running and allowing me to watch DVD on a 64 MB laptop Pentium 3.

Lord Illidan
January 31st, 2007, 02:38 AM
anyone's got superkaramba or adesklet going for zenwalk 4.2. I have been fighting with python 2.5 to get this going. In all it seems easy, but I have been mixing snapshot with current repo there. Now, I am merely looking for compatible superkaramba or adesklet package to run and how to run it on my zenwalk install. This is the only thing not working for me in Zenwalk since after Zenwalk 3.2.. Any ideas?

I do agree though that, Zenwalk simply flies. It is very very fast. How capable is it? I have it running and allowing me to watch DVD on a 64 MB laptop Pentium 3.

I got adesklets working fine. Check on the Zenwalk forums they have exellent howtos.

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/lotrlordillidan/Screenshots/photo#5025944401116339042

kazuya
February 1st, 2007, 12:11 AM
I followed them and I was still lost. I installed adesklet 0.6.1 by borromini using installpkg, but I still cannot launch it. How do you launch it? How do you know it is installed?

Lord Illidan
February 1st, 2007, 07:45 PM
I followed them and I was still lost. I installed adesklet 0.6.1 by borromini using installpkg, but I still cannot launch it. How do you launch it? How do you know it is installed?

Please ask on their forums..

To launch it.

adesklets --xfce4 from the terminal

kazuya
February 1st, 2007, 08:10 PM
Hello Lord Illidan. I did. Just look up posts by Kazuya. You would see that there has been many a post. At the end, no result. I have even tried that command as well from xfce4 and from gnome. With no luck. I have given up on asking at the forums. Some of their members really made a good effort, but it just never worked. I do not know if it has something to do with python or xorg configuration.

EDIT: Take it back what I said.Forum is pretty responsive. In the end, I should have kept my posts or started my posts rather than hijacking someone else's post for my issues. They are seriously bound to really further improve the system. kde 3.5.6 is almost complete as is gnome 2.16 rewritten to be even better. I am now even beginning to prefer the distro, not for the speed & stability, but also for the eye-candiness along with speed.

Lord Illidan
February 2nd, 2007, 08:33 PM
Hello Lord Illidan. I did. Just look up posts by Kazuya. You would see that there has been many a post. At the end, no result. I have even tried that command as well from xfce4 and from gnome. With no luck. I have given up on asking at the forums. Some of their members really made a good effort, but it just never worked. I do not know if it has something to do with python or xorg configuration.

Ah, ok. But did you download any applets to use with adesklets??

Brunellus
February 2nd, 2007, 10:45 PM
I'll go ahead and post on this thread. I've been considering zenwalk for some time now. I have a couple of concerns:

1) How does lilo work compared to grub? Of all the things I've loved about Linux since migrating, grub is one of them--and I have never had to use lilo. All the documentation I've read about lilo has been pretty intimidating. Are there any 'gotchas' to keep in mind, especially as regards kernel updates?

2) How would you rate netpkg as a package manager? I actually went to Ubuntu precisely because it used apt and .deb, so I'd like a bit of reassurance.

3) I understand Zenwalk uses XFS by default rather than ReiserFS or ext3. What benefits would XFS give me if I don't intend to read/write large files on my hard disk?

I'm mainly considering zenwalk as the OS for my old IBM thinkpad 570e. I'm running ubuntu on it now, but I'm disposed to try something new, especially if it can run faster on old(er) equipment. I had been considering slackware, since I was so impressed with SLAX, but I'm still put off by slackware's package management.

bodhi.zazen
February 2nd, 2007, 11:45 PM
I'll go ahead and post on this thread. I've been considering zenwalk for some time now. I have a couple of concerns:

Hi Brunellus :)

I'll take a crack at some of you issues. I like Zenwalk and my wife uses it as her priimary OS.


1) How does lilo work compared to grub? Of all the things I've loved about Linux since migrating, grub is one of them--and I have never had to use lilo. All the documentation I've read about lilo has been pretty intimidating. Are there any 'gotchas' to keep in mind, especially as regards kernel updates?

I boot Zenwalk with grub. Install LILO into your Zenwalk partition and modify menu.lst. If you remove Ubuntu, you can install grub into Zenwalk with the Ubutnu desktop CD ;)

Otherwise, to answer your question, LILO works just fine with Zenwalk if you install it to your MBR.


2) How would you rate netpkg as a package manager? I actually went to Ubuntu precisely because it used apt and .deb, so I'd like a bit of reassurance.

netpkg keeps changing it's appearance, but it will resolve dependencies.


3) I understand Zenwalk uses XFS by default rather than ReiserFS or ext3. What benefits would XFS give me if I don't intend to read/write large files on my hard disk?

Well we all know this is a matter of opinion. With XFS you will need a /boot partition if you go with grub.

IMO I use ext3, call me old fashioned.


I'm mainly considering zenwalk as the OS for my old IBM thinkpad 570e. I'm running ubuntu on it now, but I'm disposed to try something new, especially if it can run faster on old(er) equipment. I had been considering slackware, since I was so impressed with SLAX, but I'm still put off by slackware's package management.

I would advise you look at the live CD. If you like, install (Unlike Ubuntu you acn not HD install from the live CD).

Zenwalk is quite fast and a fine distro.

IMO the "downsides" are:
The repository is not as large as Ubuntu.
It is easy to break Zenwalk. Not everything in the slackware repositories (official Salckware or linux packages) is compatible with Zenwalk. Thus I have broken Zenwalk adding applications outside of the Zenwalk repos.
Yes, for some applications outside of the Zenwalk repositories you will need to compile or download and resolve dependencies manually.
Zenwalk is under heavy development with a fast pace of new releases. The pace can seem a little too fast at times as there can be major changes and I have not had universal success upgrading ... Also this means it is hard to keep up with documentation as IMO development out paces the documentation team.
In the end, IMO Zenwalk is very much an "as is" distro with a lot to offer.

HTH

Lord Illidan
February 3rd, 2007, 01:22 AM
Hi Brunellus :)


IMO the "downsides" are:
The repository is not as large as Ubuntu.
It is easy to break Zenwalk. Not everything in the slackware repositories (official Salckware or linux packages) is compatible with Zenwalk. Thus I have broken Zenwalk adding applications outside of the Zenwalk repos.
Yes, for some applications outside of the Zenwalk repositories you will need to compile or download and resolve dependencies manually.
Zenwalk is under heavy development with a fast pace of new releases. The pace can seem a little too fast at times as there can be major changes and I have not had universal success upgrading ... Also this means it is hard to keep up with documentation as IMO development out paces the documentation team.
In the end, IMO Zenwalk is very much an "as is" distro with a lot to offer.HTH

I agree with all of the above, having just broken my system...luckily I can back up files to ubuntu partition :), though I am now reinstalling everything on Zenwalk.

I like the distro. I use grub and ext3, btw. It is fast, and the community is pretty good. What it really really needs is some good repositories. When you're trawling the net looking for libraries here and there because your freshly downloaded app won't pass ./configure, you'll start missing Ubuntu, as I did. But with some perseverance, it gets better.

Can it compete with Ubuntu?

Well...

Out of the Box - they both detected my hardware equally.

Installation - easier on Ubuntu, but faster on Zenwalk.

Codecs, etc - provided out of the box in Zenwalk.

Speed - Zenwalk flies along. And this shows even between Xubuntu and Zenwalk.

Bootup time : Zenwalk wins again.

Artwork : I like them both. Zenwalk has a very relaxing theme, while Ubuntu's gnome theme does look good.

Installation of Programs : Ubuntu wins by a very wide margin. But the situation is expected (hopefully) to improve in Zenwalk.

Community: Hmm, hard choice. While I do like the Ubuntu Forums, I somehow get the sense that we're getting too big to cater for everyone. Also, the friction between mods and members is also a negative. Zenwalk Forums are smaller, and the members are quite helpful. Also, you get to know people more.

I'd give Zenwalk an 8 on 10...and Ubuntu a 9.
So why do I use Zenwalk?

1 : I want to learn more about Linux. Ubuntu helped me get into Linux. But I don't want to learn everything the Debian way. It's very well to pass out apt-get commands like there was no tomorrow, but if I was on a Red Hat, Suse, mandriva, Slackware, or anyother system, what would I do? Diversification is always a plus.

2 : Some fresh air :)

3 : It's fast.

bonzodog
February 3rd, 2007, 05:48 PM
XFS is not default for Zenwalk, but it's recommended by the 3 or so devs we have. I use ReiserFS myself.

Unlike, ubuntu, development is done by a very small voluntary team, based in France mainly (alhough one is in New York). They are all often to be seen in the IRC channel on Freenode - #zenwalk.

Yes, the repo's aren't as large, but I haven't broken the system installing Slackware packages yet, and also, I can fix the system without a re-install if it does change something.

I find the programs tend to build faster and cleaner on Zenwalk, and I find the overall system feels faster.

kazuya
February 7th, 2007, 07:28 PM
Zenwalk is so capable that right now, and for a while now, it has been hard to use any other OS on my machines, old and new. It seems easiest and fastest to manage while still being on the bleeding edge. This is what I like about it over most other distros.

The developers work their butt off too to innovate their product. Having used Zenwalk for six months plus now, it is very very difficult to go to any other OS. This distro has really spoilt me.

I feel sorry for the devs as they have a real pesterer in me sometimes. I know this too.

Lord Illidan
February 7th, 2007, 10:03 PM
Zenwalk is so capable that right now, and for a while now, it has been hard to use any other OS on my machines, old and new. It seems easiest and fastest to manage while still being on the bleeding edge. This is what I like about it over most other distros.

The developers work their butt off too to innovate their product. Having used Zenwalk for six months plus now, it is very very difficult to go to any other OS. This distro has really spoilt me.

I feel sorry for the devs as they have a real pesterer in me sometimes. I know this too.

Lol, I know what you mean...personally I am not waiting for Feisty anymore...I think Zenwalk has won me over.

bodhi.zazen
February 7th, 2007, 11:11 PM
Unlike, ubuntu, development is done by a very small voluntary team, based in France mainly (alhough one is in New York). They are all often to be seen in the IRC channel on Freenode - #zenwalk.

And an outstanding one at that, I can not keep up with them :p

energiya
February 9th, 2007, 10:41 PM
I find the programs tend to build faster and cleaner on Zenwalk, and I find the overall system feels faster.

A weird thing. I've managed to compile and run out-of-the-box a lot of programs, as they seem to run faster than the binary download. When I was running Ubuntu I only searched for .deb, now I'm going for source and only if I can't resolve dependencies I download the binary (even rmp if I can find anything else and make it tgz with rpm2tgz).

The system is faster, and I think it has a lot to do with the way the kernel is set. Look at the default settings using menuconfig/gconfig and you will see a lot of twiking.

I'm currently using 4.2 and tried to upgrade. Bad idea. That broke everything. So if you aren't a "the newest" freak don't upgrade the whole system, just individual packages, and only if you really need an upgrade.

.aku
February 10th, 2007, 08:47 AM
I'm currently using 4.2 and tried to upgrade. Bad idea. That broke everything. So if you aren't a "the newest" freak don't upgrade the whole system, just individual packages, and only if you really need an upgrade.

I think the upgrade problem is fixed by installing 'xorg-drivers' via netpkg. They split xorg for better maintainability, and strangely, xorg-drivers isn't a dependency for xorg..?


netpkg xorg-drivers should do it.

energiya
February 10th, 2007, 09:03 AM
Yes, I know! I did that and fixed xorg. But various problems appeared:
1) mpd started complaining about mising files
2) gaim, wine (fontforge) wouldn't compile (that didn't happen before)
3) Zenwalks speed was... gone. It started working at a slower pase. Still faster then Ubuntu but slower then the fresh zen install.

I did this 2 times; every upgrade was made on fresh installs, after closing X.

.aku
February 10th, 2007, 09:15 AM
hmm, beats me. :confused:

energiya
February 10th, 2007, 09:28 AM
Anyway... ignoring this small issue, Zenwalk rocks!

.aku
February 10th, 2007, 01:17 PM
Anyway... ignoring this small issue, Zenwalk rocks!
So true !

arox
February 10th, 2007, 07:05 PM
mpd started complaining about mising files
You must recompile mpd with new flac

bonzodog
February 10th, 2007, 07:17 PM
Yes, there were some problems on the 4.2 upgrade -- Python, gtk1, and a couple of other libs were moved/removed. Also, like you discovered, it broke xorg. I have now fixed that issue myself. The issue with python was an upgrade to 2.5, which a lot of apps couldn't handle.

Remember people, also, if you cannot find a package in netpkg, try the community Zenwalk downloads site first (http://users.zenwalk.org), and then check the forums contributed packages section as well. Lastly, Zeqadious has his own repo/ftp site where he builds his own stuff, it's at: http://zeqadious.homelinux.net/zenwalk/. You might find, in addition to this, that Slackware packages sometimes work - look at http://www.linuxpackages.net/

But, Zen is still fast for me. :D

Lord Illidan
February 10th, 2007, 11:09 PM
Yes, I know! I did that and fixed xorg. But various problems appeared:
1) mpd started complaining about mising files
2) gaim, wine (fontforge) wouldn't compile (that didn't happen before)
3) Zenwalks speed was... gone. It started working at a slower pase. Still faster then Ubuntu but slower then the fresh zen install.

I did this 2 times; every upgrade was made on fresh installs, after closing X.

Aye, I did a reinstall myself. Also, don't forget to compile libs and stuff with ./configure --prefix=/usr

tommcd
February 11th, 2007, 09:51 AM
Aye, I did a reinstall myself. Also, don't forget to compile libs and stuff with ./configure --prefix=/usr

Lord Illidan,
I just did a new install of zenwalk on a new hard drive. I now got a triple boot system with windows, ubuntu, and zenwalk. Could you please explain the "compile libs and stuff..." part? Is that necessary on a new install? I updated everything via netpkg and have no problems.
I'm still trying to learn the ropes in zenwalk.

tommcd
February 21st, 2007, 08:05 AM
Anybody updated to the new kernel yet (2.6.20) on zenwalk 4.2? And if so did it break anything?
Will upgrading the kernel mean I have to reinstall the nvidia driver?

kazuya
February 21st, 2007, 04:06 PM
probably. I tried to do so two weeks ago on snapshot and had to reinstall nvidia driver. Also my system crashed. I may try it and let you know what happens when I get home. I shuffle my OS daily.

tommcd
February 22nd, 2007, 10:06 AM
I went ahead and updated my kernel and kernelsource to 2.6.20. X would not start. I had to reinstall the nvidia driver. Everything is OK after that.
Zenwalk flies on the bleeding edge!

energiya
February 22nd, 2007, 04:05 PM
I went ahead and updated my kernel and kernelsource to 2.6.20. X would not start. I had to reinstall the nvidia driver. Everything is OK after that.
Zenwalk flies on the bleeding edge!

Any notable speed increase? (Even thow I don't think so I have to ask...)

Lord Illidan
February 22nd, 2007, 09:40 PM
Lord Illidan,
I just did a new install of zenwalk on a new hard drive. I now got a triple boot system with windows, ubuntu, and zenwalk. Could you please explain the "compile libs and stuff..." part? Is that necessary on a new install? I updated everything via netpkg and have no problems.
I'm still trying to learn the ropes in zenwalk.

If you are installing libraries from source, a.k.a..not from netpkg's limted list of packages...then install them like this :


./configure --prefix=/usr && make && su -c "make install"

I now installed Zenwalk on an older computer 192 MB Ram and 333 Mhz and it clips along quite well. Ok, it's not exactly lightning speed, but it works better than XP, which didn't work so well at all.

My friend also installed it on an old laptop of his. It was his first serious linux installation and he liked it quite a lot.

tommcd
February 23rd, 2007, 11:06 AM
Thanks Lord Illidan. This is something I've been wondering about. In ubuntu, if I wanted to compile a program from source, I would just search for the dependencies in synaptic and then just ./configure, make, make install. In zenwalk, with it's limited repos, where do you find needed dependencies? If you can't find them on zenwalk repos or linuxpakeges.net, where else can you get them? sourceforge? And if on sourceforge, then I suppose you have to compile them as well, correct?

bonzodog
February 23rd, 2007, 06:21 PM
Almost all known libraries are in the repos, or on community packages, the forum packages, or on Linuxpackages.net.

But, should you come across a not very well known library dependency, then yes, you will have to build the library as well.

tommcd
February 24th, 2007, 03:05 AM
Any notable speed increase? (Even thow I don't think so I have to ask...)

I do not notice any speed increase with the 2.6.20 kernel on zenwalk 4.4. I didn't really expect one either. I mainly wanted to see if I could successfully upgrade to zen 4.4 without breaking it. I had to reinstall nvidia, and also sort out the Pata to Sata issues mentioned here:
http://www.zenwalk.org/modules/news/article.php?storyid=41
Also, if you use LILO, you will have to update LILO as described here:
http://wiki.zenwalk.org/index.php/Upgrade_Kernel_with_netpkg
Fortunately, I boot zenwalk with GRUB from ubuntu, so I did not have to worry about that. Using GRUB makes zenwalk a bit easier IMHO.

bonzodog
February 24th, 2007, 10:57 PM
Yeah guys, Zenwalk 4.4.1 is out now. the .1 release is an xorg bug-fix.

See the first link above for details.

energiya
March 1st, 2007, 09:49 PM
Does anyone know how to install Engage dock in Zenwalk? It seems I can't access svn...

.aku
March 1st, 2007, 11:39 PM
Just be patient. Axxium is going to release his new e17 packages quite soon(ish) ? (see this post here (http://support.zenwalk.org/index.php/topic,6066.msg39108.html#msg39108)). I think they should include engage too..

energiya
March 2nd, 2007, 09:25 AM
oookkk... and would this engage work as standalone with xfce? I really don't like the way e17 integrates with gtk themes (but this isn't the only think).

.aku
March 2nd, 2007, 09:48 AM
hmm.. I don't know, you should ask axxium (which I see you've done already) or then try to find out how Dreamlinux (it has engage working in xfce quite nicely) ppl did it ? I don't have any experience with integrating engage or anything 'e' to xfce..

energiya
March 2nd, 2007, 10:17 AM
I've tried installing it back in the days I was using Ubuntu with Gnome, and worked... somehow.
P.S. I've now managed to get all the sources from a friend and I'm compiling the whole thing.

edit:
all went well until epsilon:


../../src/common/epsilon_thumb_common.c:56: error: conflicting types for 'epsilon_ipc_server_send'
../../src/include/epsilon_private.h:44: error: previous declaration of 'epsilon_ipc_server_send' was here
../../src/common/epsilon_thumb_common.c:56: error: conflicting types for 'epsilon_ipc_server_send'
../../src/include/epsilon_private.h:44: error: previous declaration of 'epsilon_ipc_server_send' was here
make[4]: *** [epsilon_thumb_common.lo] Error 1
make[4]: Leaving directory `/home/energiya/compile/epsilon-0.3.0.007/src/lib'
make[3]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[3]: Leaving directory `/home/energiya/compile/epsilon-0.3.0.007/src/lib'
make[2]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory `/home/energiya/compile/epsilon-0.3.0.007/src'
make[1]: *** [all] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/energiya/compile/epsilon-0.3.0.007/src'
make: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
:(

kazuya
March 2nd, 2007, 02:50 PM
For all you guys there. I have no one else to turn to for this issue below:
http://support.zenwalk.org/index.php/topic,6537.0.html

I have yet to get help on this issue with alsa or sound on zenwalk 4.4.1. Any ideas?

EDIT: Solved now as shown in the above url.

tommcd
March 3rd, 2007, 04:54 AM
Kazuya,
Did you have sound in zenwalk 4.0 and 4.2, but not in 4.4.1? I am still a beginner in zenwalk, but all I can suggest is to reinstall 4.0 or 4.2, and work your way through this:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=205449
Then install 4.4.1 and see what the difference is. Perhaps downgrading alsa might help? You could try a friendly bump of your thread. Hopefully one of the zen masters could help you out.
Also, is zen 4.4.1 a fresh install or an upgrade from 4.2? If an upgrade, then perhaps a clean install might help. Wish I had a better answer.

pelle.k
March 3rd, 2007, 05:23 PM
alsamixer can be decieving if you're not paying attention to the controls. I mean, at the bottom of the bars, theres a mute setting (MM), which you unset with the "m" key.

You should have two sound devices (alsa and oss), if OSS is set to 0 or mute, alsa will have nothing to work with...

If nothing of the above works, downgrade the alsa kernel modules yourself. maybe it's as easy as to modify the alsa build file and recompile it. i don't know, i'm no "zenwalker". You could just compile alsa driver and replace *.ko modules yourself.

kazuya
March 8th, 2007, 09:02 PM
oh sorry for my delay. I eventually figured a way around my dilemna.
I recall in a vectorlinux / ubuntu forum being asked to disable the second sound card from bios.

Solution: Go into Bios> Integrated peripherals> disable ac or nforce sound card.
When you now run alsaconf, you only see the proper sound cards select it and hit okay.

This was how I permanently solved my dilemna. Now I use the c-media sound card instead of the non working integrated/onboard realtek sound card.

Zen flies for me. I am using slacke17 for my zenwalk install. Works awesome, but have issue with fixing my entrance launch to see the other DEs like gnome or xfce or kde, fluxbox, etc.

I have tried xwmconfig.

My workaround for that is to type Ctrl Alt F2, or some other F# to access the console> Then type in gdm, and I now see the other boot screen.

Tipo
March 11th, 2007, 02:50 AM
So, I've installed Zenwalk and it has picked up and is using the internal speakers on my HP desktop computer (recogizing that I had internal speakers was something Ubuntu never did)

However, I have a nice set of external speakers that I would like to use, but plugging them in only results in me hearing output from BOTH the internal and external sets of speakers...

Any way I can just set it to use one or the other? (Couldn't find anything in the Zenpanel)

Thanks for any suggestions/ideas

P.S. I believe my soundcard is something along the likes of an Intel ICH5 if that helps any

.aku
March 11th, 2007, 07:56 AM
So, I've installed Zenwalk and it has picked up and is using the internal speakers on my HP desktop computer (recogizing that I had internal speakers was something Ubuntu never did)

However, I have a nice set of external speakers that I would like to use, but plugging them in only results in me hearing output from BOTH the internal and external sets of speakers...

Any way I can just set it to use one or the other? (Couldn't find anything in the Zenpanel)

Thanks for any suggestions/ideas

P.S. I believe my soundcard is something along the likes of an Intel ICH5 if that helps any

I think you should enable the headphone / line jack sense..
There was a way to do this from xfce's mixer, but to be on the safe side, run
alsamixerfind headphone jack sense (or line jack sense) and press 'm' to enable/unmute it. This way when you plug in your external speakers, it should mute the internals.

//aku

Tipo
March 11th, 2007, 03:01 PM
Thank you Aku! :)

I was able to get a similar solution/result by changing the volumes of the pcm (which seemed to modify the volume of the internal speakers) and the pcm2 (external speakers)

Anyways, it's working wonderfully now, I am enjoying Zenwalk!

.aku
March 11th, 2007, 03:06 PM
Thank you Aku! :)

I was able to get a similar solution/result by changing the volumes of the pcm (which seemed to modify the volume of the internal speakers) and the pcm2 (external speakers)

Anyways, it's working wonderfully now, I am enjoying Zenwalk!

Yeah, the only difference is that when you enable the jack sense, it will always mute your integrated speakers, when you plug in your external speakers.

But anyways, good to hear you got it working.

//aku

bonzodog
March 22nd, 2007, 06:52 PM
Just so people know, there has been a change to the Zenwalk development cycle.

According to Zeqadious, it is now about 5-7 months, so 4.4.1 will remain the current stable until about June/July time.

If you are really hooked on being absolutely up to date, can I please advise that you switch to Snapshot/Testing repos.

energiya
March 22nd, 2007, 07:02 PM
Just so people know, there has been a change to the Zenwalk development cycle.

According to Zeqadious, it is now about 5-7 months, so 4.4.1 will remain the current stable until about June/July time.

If you are really hooked on being absolutely up to date, can I please advise that you switch to Snapshot/Testing repos.

This might be better for Zenwalk because a slower release cycle usually gives a more mature project. So we hope the developers will still produce quality Zenwalk releases.

tommcd
March 23rd, 2007, 07:51 AM
Thanks for the info. Bonzodog, where did you see that btw? I check netpkg every day looking for the next major upgrade. Guess it won't be for a while now. At least I'll get to play with fiesty in the meantime when it comes out.

bonzodog
March 23rd, 2007, 06:29 PM
Thanks for the info. Bonzodog, where did you see that btw? I check netpkg every day looking for the next major upgrade. Guess it won't be for a while now. At least I'll get to play with fiesty in the meantime when it comes out.

I talk to him on IRC.

For everyone here, there is an IRC channel, #zenwalk on freenode, same place as #ubuntu and #ubuntuforums.

To join the channel simply type:


/join #zenwalk

in to the XChat/Irssi/Weechat/whatever text entry line.

manicka
March 25th, 2007, 12:22 AM
If you are really hooked on being absolutely up to date, can I please advise that you switch to Snapshot/Testing repos.
Staying up to date with the current repo will keep most people more up to date than most other distros out there and keep your system stable :guitar:

ahaslam
April 13th, 2007, 04:52 PM
Fancy some slick screensavers for your Zen?

http://support.zenwalk.org/index.php/topic,7569.msg44994.html#msg44994

:popcorn:

energiya
April 13th, 2007, 04:57 PM
Nice ones !

ahaslam
April 13th, 2007, 05:03 PM
Yeah, card killers ;)

energiya
April 13th, 2007, 05:26 PM
Yeah, card killers ;)

Will they work on my old TNT2 ? I just looked at the screenshots and the seem very nice... well, I think there is just one way to find out :)

ahaslam
April 13th, 2007, 05:37 PM
I think there is just one way to find out :)

They wont work on a Via Unichrome Pro, that's for sure. If you get more than 1000fps in glxgears it should be fine ;)

PS. Nice choice of avatar ;)

energiya
April 13th, 2007, 05:48 PM
They wont work on a Via Unichrome Pro, that's for sure. If you get more than 1000fps in glxgears it should be fine ;)

Well... I get a max of 79 FPS in fullscreen and 276 in normal window :(



PS. Nice choice of avatar ;)

Thanks! Found it on http://www.deviantart.com some time ago and has became (in some sense) part of me. Wish I could remember exactly were I got it from...

ahaslam
April 13th, 2007, 05:54 PM
Well... I get a max of 79 FPS in fullscreen and 276 in normal window :(


If your drivers provide stable 3d acceleration it's worth a go ;)
PS. I've provided an alternative download which isn't too fast but should prove more reliable ;)

ahaslam
April 25th, 2007, 07:39 AM
Any of you been impressed with Feisty? I had Zenwalk as my sole OS since 3.0 & now Ubuntu has edged it's way back onto the neighbouring partition ;)

tommcd
April 25th, 2007, 09:25 AM
Any of you been impressed with Feisty? I had Zenwalk as my sole OS since 3.0 & now Ubuntu has edged it's way back onto the neighbouring partition ;)

Well, Fiesty is nice. Ubuntu continues to be a solid, user friendly spinoff of debian imo. Debian etch feels like a lighter, faster, less noob friendly ubuntu. (This is not a bad thing. Debian is debian. Ubuntu is ubuntu. Linux is about choice and freedom). I like the way the multimedia codecs and restricted drivers are easier to get in ubuntu fiesty.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=413626
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BinaryDriverHowto/Nvidia?highlight=%28nvidia%29#head-7f830fe17ae6da7c546decbb10c32ff61471258e

And my mplayer plugin for FF works in fiesty, which it would not do on edgy.

I installed zenwalk 4.0 on my test box, just to check it out, and to use it to learn more about linux. I found that I like zenwalk a lot, and I admire it's speed and elegance, and it's cutting edge development. I use zen on my main computers more than ubuntu these days.

ThinkBuntu
April 25th, 2007, 05:00 PM
Just a quick announcement. A snapshot of what will be 4.6 is now available. Here's a guide to update from 4.4.1 using netpkg (http://wiki.zenwalk.org/index.php/Snapshot_for_Toolchain), predictably, bugs have been reported so upgrade at your own risk. There are rumors in the Zenwalk boards that a beta could arrive as soon as May, and that the official 4.6 release could be as soon as June, although July seems more likely.

DJiNN
April 25th, 2007, 05:42 PM
Any of you been impressed with Feisty? I had Zenwalk as my sole OS since 3.0 & now Ubuntu has edged it's way back onto the neighbouring partition ;)

Well impressed with Feisty. I'm always looking in on Zenwalk & have the 4.4.1 CD here. But everytime i install it & start to use it on a daily basis, i always have problems of one sort or another. Nothing Major, just problems that i don't get in Ubuntu or Xubuntu et al. That's why i use Feisty (Ubuntu) as my main OS..... it just works really well without too many problems that need sorting.

DJiNN

ThinkBuntu
April 25th, 2007, 06:01 PM
Things that always got in the way for me included wireless support (I got it to work, but hopping onto open networks was impossible, as Wifi Radar was useless) and some very simple settings, namely getting my laptop to suspend when the lid is closed.The best solution anyone in the forums could come up with at the time was to enable hibernate and use a key shortcut, which when pressed would require me to type in my root password.

Even so, it can only improve, so I'm sure these issues will be addressed. I do get the feeling that JP runs Zenwalk on a desktop, so when "testing" he doesn't notice these shortcomings.

bodhi.zazen
April 25th, 2007, 06:22 PM
Well impressed with Feisty. I'm always looking in on Zenwalk & have the 4.4.1 CD here. But everytime i install it & start to use it on a daily basis, i always have problems of one sort or another. Nothing Major, just problems that i don't get in Ubuntu or Xubuntu et al. That's why i use Feisty (Ubuntu) as my main OS..... it just works really well without too many problems that need sorting.

DJiNN

Hey, good to see you again DJiNN :)

I agree Feisty is an improvement over edgy. I also have problems when I tweak Zenwalk, it does seem easy to break. I find if I do a base install and don't tweak it it is rock solid.

If you would like to try something new, check out Wolvix ;) I would say it is not as bleeding edge as Zenwalk, but I seem not to have as much problems with breakage.

DJiNN
April 25th, 2007, 06:27 PM
Things that always got in the way for me included wireless support (I got it to work, but hopping onto open networks was impossible, as Wifi Radar was useless)

That was one of the things that moved me away from using Zen "Full time". No matter what i tried i just couldn't get my D-Link USB stick to work. They may have got is sussed now, as this was a good 8 months to a year ago. :)


and some very simple settings, namely getting my laptop to suspend when the lid is closed.The best solution anyone in the forums could come up with at the time was to enable hibernate and use a key shortcut, which when pressed would require me to type in my root password.

Funny how it's often the simpler things that make the difference isn't it? :)
I have always disliked the Netpkg way of upgrading & much prefer apt-get, finding the latter easier to use, more straightforward & definitely more robust. The amount of times i broke Zenwalk by adding or updating was ridiculous, and VERY frustrating! Still, i did learn a lot from it. :)


Even so, it can only improve, so I'm sure these issues will be addressed. I do get the feeling that JP runs Zenwalk on a desktop, so when "testing" he doesn't notice these shortcomings.

Agreed. That's why i always check in now & again to see how it's going. I've had a go at installing 4.4.1 on my laptop (2 ghz Core 2 Duo with nVidia graphics) and it just doesn't want to know.... at least not without quite a bit of work finding out why, and then i stick in a Feisty disc (Ubuntu or Xubuntu) and it just installs and works, with all the drivers etc, perfectly.

But i have to say that Zenwalk is FAST!! I kind of miss that speed. :)

DJiNN

ahaslam
April 25th, 2007, 10:08 PM
Contrary to what you guys are saying, I actually found wireless easier on Zenwalk :-k

ahaslam
April 26th, 2007, 08:51 AM
Ubuntu has gone again, not intentionally though. The filesystem on that partition went screwy, causing lots of problems. I've never been happy with ext3, but Ubuntu always screws it up on my machine. I don't get why they can't have xfs & grub, Debian can. Furthermore when the live cd warns you of xfs & grub, why doesn't it install lilo when you click the relevant button?

Thankfully there's Zenwalk spanning over the rest of my partitions. A bit of a shame though, Feisty really did seem like their best effort to date & I wanted to make an effort with it, mainly to keep up with these forums.

DJiNN
April 26th, 2007, 12:42 PM
Ubuntu has gone again, not intentionally though. The filesystem on that partition went screwy, causing lots of problems. I've never been happy with ext3, but Ubuntu always screws it up on my machine. I don't get why they can't have xfs & grub, Debian can.

Sorry to hear about your filesystem probs. I never had any problems with ext3 filesystems until Ubuntu changed to using the UUID thing (Can't remember what release that was) and then after that it was always seeming to find problems somewhere or other, and a couple of times i lost the system & had to reinstall......

I'd prefer to use xfs as well, but it doesn't give you the option to use it on the root partition does it? I don't know why that is.


Furthermore when the live cd warns you of xfs & grub, why doesn't it install lilo when you click the relevant button?

Sorry, i'm lost here..... i didn't think that Ubuntu gave you the option of lilo anyway..... i thought it was Grub or nothing! :) Not that i'd choose lilo anyway, because i'm more used to Grub now, but i never even noticed the option.


Thankfully there's Zenwalk spanning over the rest of my partitions. A bit of a shame though, Feisty really did seem like their best effort to date & I wanted to make an effort with it, mainly to keep up with these forums.


Agreed, Feisty is the best Ubuntu so far, and also the best Xubuntu release. Everything (Well, most things anyway) work really well, and it seems a lot snappier & responsive than some of the other releases.

I'm glad to hear that you have Zenwalk as a back up so that you can carry on using your machine, but wouldn't it be just as easy to reinstall Feisty? With a separate /home you shouldn't lose anything and at least you'll have a nice clean system to work with? :)

I still can't decide what to do about Zenwalk though. Everytime i install it on a machine i just end up (after a while) installing Xubuntu again. Why?.... i'm not really sure, because Zenwalk works really well & is very fast, even on this old PIII that i'm using Xubuntu on. It just seems so much more difficult to do anything on Zenwalk, and i know that if i start updating things or trying new things out (Adding Fluxbox maybe, or trying out some new packages etc) then it'll eventually just fall over. That doesn't happen as often with the Buntu's, and even if it does, it's a lot easier to correct or put right again.

It's probably down to a lack of experience with linux in general rather than anything amiss with Zenwalk. But i'll always be floating around the forums & downloading the latest releases because i think it's one of those releases that's not going to go away, but will just get better & better.

I've got it...!! I need another machine to run Zenwalk on..... that would solve my problem! I knew i'd get an answer if i thought about it enough. :)

So, are you staying with Zen for the time being or are you thinking about reinstalling Feisty?

ThinkBuntu
April 26th, 2007, 04:41 PM
By the way, I'll be upgrading to the 4.6 snapshot tomorrow. I'll post my impressions ASAP.

bonzodog
April 26th, 2007, 05:30 PM
From talking to Borromini, Zeqadious, and JP online in IRC, it seems 4.6 will remain a snapshot release. 5.0 will be the next proper release it seems, and ther is no date as yet set for it. We are waiting for the Slackware main tree to upgrade to gcc 4.0.

DJiNN
April 26th, 2007, 05:31 PM
one
By the way, I'll be upgrading to the 4.6 snapshot tomorrow. I'll post my impressions ASAP.

Thanks for that..... i for one would be interested to know how it's all coming along & what's slated for the next release. Good luck. :)

DJiNN

ahaslam
April 26th, 2007, 06:48 PM
I'd prefer to use xfs as well, but it doesn't give you the option to use it on the root partition does it? I don't know why that is.
Yep, Zenwalk even does that on a standard, full disc install & many distro's don't struggle with grub, even Etch.


Sorry, i'm lost here..... i didn't think that Ubuntu gave you the option of lilo anyway..... i thought it was Grub or nothing! Not that i'd choose lilo anyway, because i'm more used to Grub now, but i never even noticed the option.
No option, just warnings & buttons that don't do much. It warns you that grub may have issues & advises using lilo, then gives you an option like for proceed or back, not really saying what it'll do, installs grub, screws up, installation failed. It wouldn't take much to implement lilo installation.


So, are you staying with Zen for the time being or are you thinking about reinstalling Feisty?
Staying Zen. I often try other distro's on my spare partitions, not many stay for long but Fiesty looked promising, shame it went postal.

I always find Ubuntu easy initially & hard later (even without problems). Zenwalk is only slightly harder to get how you want but it pays off in the end I believe with a simple, slick system. They're both great, just in very different ways, I hold no grudge against Ubuntu & I'm looking forward to their next LTS in 2008 ;)

ThinkBuntu
April 26th, 2007, 07:20 PM
I think Zenwalk has a good balance between Ubuntu and Arch (not that they're related in any way). It's simple enough that you really can build your own system, but complete enough that you can get to work as soon as it's installed. I wonder why it stays so low on DW?

ahaslam
April 26th, 2007, 07:31 PM
I think Zenwalk has a good balance between Ubuntu and Arch (not that they're related in any way). It's simple enough that you really can build your own system, but complete enough that you can get to work as soon as it's installed. I wonder why it stays so low on DW?

I agree fully & think the same ;)

DJiNN
April 26th, 2007, 09:07 PM
I think Zenwalk has a good balance between Ubuntu and Arch (not that they're related in any way). It's simple enough that you really can build your own system, but complete enough that you can get to work as soon as it's installed. I wonder why it stays so low on DW?

It's only a guess, but i can think of a couple of possibilities.

1: Repos - ie: Progs available that are already packaged & ready to go. There's plenty there, but compared with the Debian choice it's relatively small.

2: Complexity - Zenwalk is really simple if you just want to install & run, and maybe do updates once in a while. But if you want/need/have to change anything, it starts to get more & more complicated (Especially for noobs).

3: Kudos (or "Street Cred" if you like) - Ubuntu has a kind of "Coolness" to many people and genuinely "Looks Good" whether it's K/X/Ubuntu.

4: Installer - The Zen installer is nowhere near as easy as the Ubuntu one, and for a lot of people coming from other OS's that will put them off straight away.

5: Getting things working - For example - XFCE with Thunar is great, but for "Networking" (Which a lot of people are doing these days because they quite often have more than one machine) it's very poor, and needs a lot of adapting to get going. Sure, there's stuff like "Lin-Neighbourhood" (Or whatever it's called) but that's pretty duff (IMHO) and does a poor job. Other things don't always work as they should "Out of the Box" & unfortunately, like it or not, we live in an ever increasing "Out of the Box" World, where if it doesn't pretty much work when it's on, people don't bother finding out why & move onto the next OS in their pile, and let's face it, there are plenty of choices. I think that's why something like PCLinuxOS & Freespire et al has made such an impact.... like them or not, they often (Not always, but often) just work!!

6: Community - The Ubuntu community is pretty excellent i think, and it's pretty huge as well, and seems to betting bigger all the time. That really helps when a person's struggling with an OS.... plenty of help & support etc.

Hmmm, i'm sure there are a few more, but you get the idea? I'm in no way saying that One is better or worse than the other, just giving some thoughts on why perhaps ZW is lower down on the Distro list than something like Ubuntu.

Having said that, i'm really hankering to load up ZW 4.4.1 on this P4 that i have Feisty on, and give it another go. It's bound to break because i don't really know what i'm doing when it comes to slack!! But hey, that's how you learn right? :)

DJiNN

DJiNN
April 26th, 2007, 09:14 PM
Yep, Zenwalk even does that on a standard, full disc install & many distro's don't struggle with grub, even Etch.

Sorry, i was getting confused thinking you were talking about Ubuntu having xfs..... :)


No option, just warnings & buttons that don't do much. It warns you that grub may have issues & advises using lilo, then gives you an option like for proceed or back, not really saying what it'll do, installs grub, screws up, installation failed. It wouldn't take much to implement lilo installation.

Hmmmm, i don't think i've come across that yet. Maybe because i've only used lilo once or twice..... every other time it's been Grub.


Staying Zen. I often try other distro's on my spare partitions, not many stay for long but Fiesty looked promising, shame it went postal.

That's cool. If i fire up Zen on this machine & it starts doing strange things, i'll know who to ask for some pointers. :) I may even put it on tonight, if i get time after work..... Watch this space! :)


I always find Ubuntu easy initially & hard later (even without problems). Zenwalk is only slightly harder to get how you want but it pays off in the end I believe with a simple, slick system. They're both great, just in very different ways, I hold no grudge against Ubuntu & I'm looking forward to their next LTS in 2008 ;)

You could be right there. I certainly learned a lot using Zen, but then again, i've learned a lot using Ubuntu as well. :confused: I've always found Ubuntu easy(ish) to get how i want it, whatever i want to do, and apart from a few times when it just fell over, it's always been pretty solid. Zen has always been solid as well, and incredibly FAST (Which is one of the many things that i love about it) but getting stuff working or changed on it just wore me out in the end. :)

But hey.... i've had a rest now & it's time for another try! :)

DJiNN

ThinkBuntu
April 27th, 2007, 01:20 AM
3: Kudos (or "Street Cred" if you like) - Ubuntu has a kind of "Coolness" to many people and genuinely "Looks Good" whether it's K/X/Ubuntu.

I don't really think Ubuntu has much "street cred" in the Linux world. It seems that the ones with "street cred" are Arch, Debian, and Slackware. Maybe Gentoo for some, but I think most see it as a silly waste of time.

If you have trouble with Zenwalk, post your problems up in the forums there are plenty waiting to help :^)

DJiNN
April 27th, 2007, 02:20 AM
I don't really think Ubuntu has much "street cred" in the Linux world. It seems that the ones with "street cred" are Arch, Debian, and Slackware. Maybe Gentoo for some, but I think most see it as a silly waste of time.

I'd have to agree with you, but only so far. :) Perhaps in the "Linux World" (For geeks) Ubuntu doesn't have much cred, but that seems (to me anyway) to be perhaps more a case of intellectual snobbery than anything else. But in the World of "All the rest" including a large portion of people that are coming over from Windows (Like it or not) Ubuntu is kinda cool & different.

For many people just coming (or having just recently arrived) into the World of Linux (Especially from a Windows environment) Ubuntu is soooo different from everything they know, that as long as they can get it working pretty fast, and without too much hassle, it's as cool as you can get. Maybe after they've been around a while, and learned a bit & tried a few distros etc, they'll see things differently, but they certainly don't seem to carry the "OS Snobbery" that "Seasoned Users" often have. :)

This is only based on my own experience from meeting with others (Both online & in person) and talking about Linux, Ubuntu etc. [/quote]


If you have trouble with Zenwalk, post your problems up in the forums there are plenty waiting to help :^)

I most certainly will do just that. :) I've now installed Zen & am using it right now..... over the next few weeks i'm going to try & set it up the way that i want it, and see how it goes. So far though it's going well........ But soon i'll start tinkering & that's usually when things start going awry! :)

Thanks for the reply, and look forward to talking in the Zen forums.

DJiNN

ahaslam
April 27th, 2007, 07:23 AM
I don't really think Ubuntu has much "street cred" in the Linux world. It seems that the ones with "street cred" are Arch, Debian, and Slackware. Maybe Gentoo for some, but I think most see it as a silly waste of time.

Come on man, don't follow the over opinionated, blinkered elitists. Ubuntu has done great things for Linux.

RAV TUX
April 27th, 2007, 07:47 AM
Any of you been impressed with Feisty? I had Zenwalk as my sole OS since 3.0 & now Ubuntu has edged it's way back onto the neighbouring partition ;)

I honestly have not tried Feisty yet, but I do have a bunny named Fawn and she is feisty: feisty fawn.

have they improved the hardware detection and will Ubuntu work with ati radeon platinum? I have never been able to get Ubuntu to run on my newest box, I only run Ubuntu on a old box.

RAV TUX
April 27th, 2007, 07:51 AM
I'd have to agree with you, but only so far. :) Perhaps in the "Linux World" (For geeks) Ubuntu doesn't have much cred, but that seems (to me anyway) to be perhaps more a case of intellectual snobbery than anything else. But in the World of "All the rest" including a large portion of people that are coming over from Windows (Like it or not) Ubuntu is kinda cool & different.




This isn't bad at all but Ubuntu is becoming the "Windows of the Linux world".

ahaslam
April 27th, 2007, 08:54 AM
have they improved the hardware detection and will Ubuntu work with ati radeon platinum? I have never been able to get Ubuntu to run on my newest box, I only run Ubuntu on a old box.
It's the only Ubuntu release to install on my new build & all hardware was detected correctly (though I did build it with Linux in mind).

As Zenwalk 4.4 was released the same day as I built my rig, I'm taking it as a sign of a perfect partnership ;)


This isn't bad at all but Ubuntu is becoming the "Windows of the Linux world".
I agree but it's purely due popularity, there's little aesthetic or technical resemblance.

RAV TUX
April 27th, 2007, 09:09 AM
It's the only Ubuntu release to install on my new build & all hardware was detected correctly (though I did build it with Linux in mind).

As Zenwalk 4.4 was released the same day as I built my rig, I'm taking it as a sign of a perfect partnership ;)




I will have to try it out one day, right now I am currently downloading the torrents for centos and the latest Sabayon build






I agree but it's purely due popularity, there's little aesthetic or technical resemblance.

exactely, this is what I meant, "Ubuntu, Linux for the masses'

DJiNN
April 27th, 2007, 01:05 PM
This isn't bad at all but Ubuntu is becoming the "Windows of the Linux world".

Perhaps that's so, but someone's going to eventually do it, so why not a distro & a community where people can have an initially "Easy" way in, and then learn (at their own speed & with the help & guidance of others here) more about Linux per se should they so choose it.

Maybe if Ubuntu wasn't the way it is, then people would go elsewhere & use other distros that are "User Friendly"...... like Lin/Freespire, PCLinuxOS, Suse, Mandrake etc etc. Where would Ubuntu be then? Like it or not, if you don't give the people what they want, then your market share will go down, and as far as i can make out, pretty much every distro out there is trying to get to be "Top of the Stack" (Slight pun intended!) :)

DJiNN

DJiNN
April 27th, 2007, 01:07 PM
I honestly have not tried Feisty yet, but I do have a bunny named Fawn and she is feisty: feisty fawn.

:lolflag:

You don't happen to have any pets that go by the name of "Gibbon" also do you? :)

DJiNN
April 27th, 2007, 01:09 PM
Come on man, don't follow the over opinionated, blinkered elitists. Ubuntu has done great things for Linux.

Now why couldn't i have been that succinct!? :)

I agree totally, and i still think it continues to do a lot for the Linux community, allowing many people an "in road" into something that, just a few years ago, they would have steered well clear of.

DJiNN
April 27th, 2007, 01:18 PM
I will have to try it out one day, right now I am currently downloading the torrents for centos and the latest Sabayon build

Sabayon's really nice...... it's not the OS for me, but i do like it. Never tried CentOS, as i've got enough dealing with (X)Ubuntu & Zenwalk. :)


exactely, this is what I meant, "Ubuntu, Linux for the masses'

Aaaah, i see..... i apologise for my slightly over-reactive reply in the last post then. :oops: :-\":biggrin: It most certainly is "Linux for the masses" and long may it continue.

ThinkBuntu
April 27th, 2007, 01:46 PM
Come on man, don't follow the over opinionated, blinkered elitists. Ubuntu has done great things for Linux.
I, not being the street, don't establish "street cred." I'm just relaying what I've noticed to be the general opinion amongst Linux enthusiasts.

ThinkBuntu
April 27th, 2007, 01:54 PM
"Taking the red pill"
Here's the link (http://support.zenwalk.org/index.php/topic,7629.0.html) to the topic in the Zenwalk forum about the 4.6 snapshot upgrade.

I did it yesterday evening, and there really isn't much new. Xfce has a couple extra minor options, the OS boots faster, and of course, all related software is updated (Abiword, GIMP, etc.).

On upgrading, I lost my "zenwalk" icon which I had to replace with a standard Xfce mouse in the menu. I'll fill you all in as I learn more about it.

On a side-note, I had never run OOo on Zenwalk until today. I always stuck with Abiword (thinking "no other writer could possibly boot this fast") until now, but I am floored by how quickly OOo writer starts now. I remember using the "quickstarter" AKA RAM-hogger on Debian-based machines, and it still didn't start this quick (now, it's virtually instant).

DJiNN
April 27th, 2007, 03:17 PM
"Taking the red pill"
Here's the link (http://support.zenwalk.org/index.php/topic,7629.0.html) to the topic in the Zenwalk forum about the 4.6 snapshot upgrade.

Thanks for that...... having a read right now.


I did it yesterday evening, and there really isn't much new. Xfce has a couple extra minor options, the OS boots faster, and of course, all related software is updated (Abiword, GIMP, etc.).

Going on past experiences with upgrading stuff in ZW, i think i'll just wait until the Major release & then give that a go. In the meantime, i seem to have forgotten a lot of what i had learned about the whole "Slack" way. :)


On upgrading, I lost my "zenwalk" icon which I had to replace with a standard Xfce mouse in the menu. I'll fill you all in as I learn more about it.

Is it the one with the dolphin in the lower panel? If it is, then i had this happen when i first tried Zenwalk, so maybe this will help you. Right click on the icon & select properties (that should bring up the XFCE menu box). At the bottom, where it says "icon" all you need to do is browse to the correct location of the correct icon that you need, and in this case it's the following......


/usr/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/apps/zenwalk.svg


On a side-note, I had never run OOo on Zenwalk until today. I always stuck with Abiword (thinking "no other writer could possibly boot this fast") until now, but I am floored by how quickly OOo writer starts now. I remember using the "quickstarter" AKA RAM-hogger on Debian-based machines, and it still didn't start this quick (now, it's virtually instant).

Hmmm, i haven't tried Open Office in Zen, mainly because it's been pretty slow (But very good & certainly functional) on pretty much every OS i've ever used it on, and also because AbiWord does pretty much all that i need. Having said that, i shall certainly give OOo a try now, if for nothing else but to observe the speed. :) Thanks for the help.

DJiNN

ThinkBuntu
April 27th, 2007, 03:26 PM
Thanks for the icon tip. There's also, curiously, an identical icon called "dolphin.svg" in that folder...

DJiNN
April 27th, 2007, 03:40 PM
Thanks for the icon tip. There's also, curiously, an identical icon called "dolphin.svg" in that folder...

Haahaa, i haven't tried the dolphin icon, but hey, give it a try.... it may be even better than the standard Zen one. :) I'd have a look at it myself but i've just rebooted into Xubuntu because i was becoming frustrated with Zen.... :) Lots of small steps will make it easier i think. At the moment, Xubuntu is easier, more familiar, and strangely enough, just as fast & responsive as Zen, which is a surprise.

DJiNN

ahaslam
April 27th, 2007, 05:27 PM
Now why couldn't i have been that succinct!? :)
I don't add sugar to my food or drink, it's the same with my words, you simply get my thoughts ;)


I, not being the street, don't establish "street cred." I'm just relaying what I've noticed to be the general opinion amongst Linux enthusiasts.
I understood, I just don't listen to such people, they're as bad as the MS power users that refuse to believe that a free OS can be just as good.

ahaslam
April 27th, 2007, 05:52 PM
Haahaa, i haven't tried the dolphin icon, but hey, give it a try.... it may be even better than the standard Zen one. :) I'd have a look at it myself but i've just rebooted into Xubuntu because i was becoming frustrated with Zen.... :) Lots of small steps will make it easier i think. At the moment, Xubuntu is easier, more familiar, and strangely enough, just as fast & responsive as Zen, which is a surprise.

DJiNN

What makes it frustrating for you?

I understand frustration with other distro's, I felt like a complete noob trying to disable certain kernel modules in Feisty (quite different to Arch/Slack/Zen).

DJiNN
April 27th, 2007, 06:49 PM
What makes it frustrating for you?

I understand frustration with other distro's, I felt like a complete noob trying to disable certain kernel modules in Feisty (quite different to Arch/Slack/Zen).

Actually, it's my own ignorance at ZW & Slack in general that makes me impatient & somewhat frustrated, because when i finally get something working in ZW, it's great & i feel good that i achieved what i set out to do. But getting there is hard, harder than it is in Ubuntu for sure, and the lack of documentation is sometimes frustrating. :)

But, you see, even saying that, i realise that it's only because i don't come from a Unix/Linux background that it's a problem.

For instance, right at this moment, i'm trying to install Fluxbox on Zen (Because i like Flux & want to see what it performs like). I know that when i did it before (Which admittedly was about a year ago) i used installpkg to install the programs etc (Locally stored progs i mean) but i couldn't remember what the commands were, and couldn't find anything about installpkg in the Zen Manual.......

Then, it suddenly occurred to me..... "Look at the Man pages!!" See, if i had a long background in *nix then that probably would have been my first port of call!!

:grin: So, i'm far more frustrated because i'm both impatient & expect the same kind of speed that i get (In solving problems etc) in Ubuntu and that's not going to happen straight away. So the first reaction is, switch OFF Zenwalk & reboot into Xubuntu because i know my way around it a little bit better than i do Zen, completely forgetting the fact that a couple of years ago i felt the same way about Ubuntu! :)

Oh how we learn eh? :grin: I'm still reading those man pages trying to find the correct switches but at least i'm smiling about it now...... such is "The Way Of Zen" eh?
:lolflag:

DJiNN
April 27th, 2007, 06:55 PM
Well, it's still not happening..... can't seem to install this prog. Any pointers would be great. :grin:

ThinkBuntu
April 27th, 2007, 07:01 PM
Zenwalk will do just about everything I need it to do normally: Word processing, graphics editing, web design (and development), and the occasional spreadsheet. It's not perfect, and I keep a list of things to do, ranging from the very simple (get Suspend to RAM working without root privelege requirement and start it on lid close) to the very complicated (adding new functions to applications without plugins). When I have free time, I sometimes choose to hunt down one of these issues. So while, no, this machine doesn't work as smoothly as my MacBook with OSX, it is more than good enough that I could ditch the Mac if I needed to.

I have a couple productivity issues with Xfce, for example, but I wouldn't consider it to be frustrating if I had a hard time switching to another desktop environemnt. After all, that's only an option in Linux and BSD.

ThinkBuntu
April 27th, 2007, 07:03 PM
Well, it's still not happening..... can't seem to install this prog. Any pointers would be great. :grin:
My ZenPad isn't online, so I can't check on this or duplicate what you've done. Is Fluxbox in the repository?

DJiNN
April 27th, 2007, 07:09 PM
I have a couple productivity issues with Xfce, for example, but I wouldn't consider it to be frustrating if I had a hard time switching to another desktop environemnt. After all, that's only an option in Linux and BSD.

True enough, and as i pointed out in the post, i'm more frustrated at myself (in a good way though) because of my lack of knowledge & understanding of Slack as opposed to say a debian distro. :)

It's the time that it takes to do the simplest operation that makes me frustrated, which is only happening because i'm in a different environment (ie: A slack based distro & not a Debian one) ...... But i'll get over it.... eventually. :grin:

DJiNN
April 27th, 2007, 07:11 PM
My ZenPad isn't online, so I can't check on this or duplicate what you've done. Is Fluxbox in the repository?

It is, and i have downloaded it & have now installed it. But, although i finally got Installpkg to work, it only does so as root. Is this correct, or have a done something blatantly wrong? :)

I thought it was not a good idea to install as root?

DJiNN
April 27th, 2007, 07:19 PM
Well, i just have to say that i'm "VERY" impressed with the fusesmbtool ...... i've always found the whole network thing (Shares etc) a real pain with Thunar, but using the tool, it's incredibly straightforward & VERY fast at reading the shares...... way faster than the Buntu's and XP.

Just had to say that! :)

ThinkBuntu
April 27th, 2007, 07:21 PM
Search "fluxbox" in topics only on the support.zenwalk.org forum. I bet you find your answer.

ahaslam
April 27th, 2007, 07:23 PM
Zenbuntu:
http://xs314.xs.to/xs314/07175/zenbuntu.jpg.xs.jpg (http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs314&d=07175&f=zenbuntu.jpg)
I'm quite proud of that wallpaper (see the gallery) ;)

ThinkBuntu
April 27th, 2007, 07:24 PM
It is, and i have downloaded it & have now installed it. But, although i finally got Installpkg to work, it only does so as root. Is this correct, or have a done something blatantly wrong? :)

I thought it was not a good idea to install as root?
First of all, "netpkg packagename" should do the job. Or, you could open netpkg and search for "fluxbox", then select and install it. And your other point, of course you install as root! If it's more convenient, use sudo.

ThinkBuntu
April 27th, 2007, 07:26 PM
Zenbuntu:
http://xs314.xs.to/xs314/07175/zenbuntu.jpg.xs.jpg (http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs314&d=07175&f=zenbuntu.jpg)
I'm quite proud of that wallpaper (see the gallery) ;)
What a waste of good processor power! You should loan it to some Sabayon or Vista user.

ahaslam
April 27th, 2007, 07:35 PM
LOL, what about when I play Oblivion in Wine?

DJiNN
April 27th, 2007, 07:40 PM
First of all, "netpkg packagename" should do the job. Or, you could open netpkg and search for "fluxbox", then select and install it. And your other point, of course you install as root! If it's more convenient, use sudo.

Thanks for that. I just couldn't remember about installing as root. I've got Fluxbox installed now, although i haven't re-booted to try it yet.

Does anyone here use slapt-get or Gslapt? Just curious as i'm not a fan of Netpkg and much prefer apt-get, but i'm not sure how much alike they are.

Thanks for the help.

DJiNN

ahaslam
April 27th, 2007, 07:45 PM
Have you also created your gdm entrys?

I used Gslapt when I first tried Zen for familiarity, but Netpkg has come on a lot & is just as friendly. The only problem seems to be the small repo's, at least compiling & packaging is easy on Zen ;)

DJiNN
April 27th, 2007, 07:53 PM
Have you also created your gdm entrys?

You mean it doesn't do it automatically!!? :) Blast, i'd forgotten all about that.....


I used Gslapt when I first tried Zen for familiarity, but Netpkg has come on a lot & is just as friendly. The only problem seems to be the small repo's, at least compiling & packaging is easy on Zen ;)

Heehee, define "Easy"..... :) I find compiling to be a right pain in the neck on any distro, and can completely understand why the whole concept of CNR is being championed by several distros.

But, seeing as how i've chosen the slightly harder route, i guess it's something that i have got to get used to. ;)

I've installed Gslapt so i'll give it a try just to see what it's like, but i have to agree that Netpkg is a LOT easier & friendlier than it was a year or so ago.

DJiNN

tommcd
April 28th, 2007, 01:55 AM
Have you also created your gdm entrys?

I used Gslapt when I first tried Zen for familiarity, but Netpkg has come on a lot & is just as friendly. The only problem seems to be the small repo's, at least compiling & packaging is easy on Zen ;)

Where do you go to hunt down dependencies for apps you want to compile from source? Netpkg has most of them I suppose, but what if they are are not listed in netpkg? Do you get them from linux packages or slacky.it?

ahaslam
April 28th, 2007, 09:21 AM
Any of those can help, sometimes you'll need to compile the dep's also. In such a case it can be better to build a package with everything included for easy re/uninstalls.

PS. Nice case, same as mine ;)

rhys_rhaven
April 30th, 2007, 01:45 AM
If you want that beloved package, linuxpackages or slack.it are wonderful. then you can use the slackware and zenwalk repos. if you still cant find it, google for a slackbuild. if you cant find a slackbuild, build one your self. there are plenty of really good templates around. Slackbuilds are aweeesome.

Rhys Rhaven.
Zenwalk Community Packager.

DJiNN
April 30th, 2007, 12:08 PM
If you want that beloved package, linuxpackages or slack.it are wonderful. then you can use the slackware and zenwalk repos. if you still cant find it, google for a slackbuild. if you cant find a slackbuild, build one your self. there are plenty of really good templates around. Slackbuilds are aweeesome.

Rhys Rhaven.
Zenwalk Community Packager.

Hey Rhys (Great Icon by the way, and love the name.... is it Celtic, Welsh, Gaelic?)

Even though i'm not sure how to do it, i've decided to have a go at compiling a couple of progs for Zen, basically just to get some idea of what the process entails & how to do it, and of course just to learn some more about Slack & Linux in general.

I have a couple of questions if you don't mind?

1: By Slackbuild, do you mean something that is built (Compiled) purely for Slack & not a derivative or fork such as Zenwalk et al?

2: I understand what dependencies are, and why they should be included in the package, but how would one find out just what dependencies are needed for a given program that you're trying to compile?

3: As an example, i have downloaded Openbox from Linuxpackages (for version 10.2 of Slack) and intend to try & get that packaged for Zen, or at least get it working in Zen. Will it be just a case of replacing the "Outdated" packages (Libs etc) within the 10.2 release, with the most current "Zen Approved" versions, or is there more to it than that?

And do you know of a reasonably easy (ish) doc or web page which would describe the process & maybe even walk you through it?

Any help at all, however brief, will be much appreciated. I'm just about to go and search the Zenwalk wiki in the hope of finding some documentation about this very thing. :)

Many thanks.........

DJiNN

bonzodog
April 30th, 2007, 04:47 PM
Openbox, and it's companion software, obconf, is already packaged on the community downloads section of the forums. Before building a package yourself, check here: http://support.zenwalk.org/index.php?board=17.0

Also, some community members run their own repos, such as Zeqadious, Borromini, and Fredg.

You will be surprised at how much software is already built for Zenwalk.
Zen has it's own build scripts like slack does, you download the script, then run it - it downloads the raw source, compiles the package with options and switches set for configure, then creates the actual package, then installs it so that netpkg knows you have it installed.

Also, the package that you downloaded from linuxpackages is an already compiled binary - the confusing part about Slackware/Zenwalk is that the binary packages carry the extension .tgz. To install it, you simply su to root in a terminal, then use the command installpkg <packagename>.

DJiNN
April 30th, 2007, 06:10 PM
Openbox, and it's companion software, obconf, is already packaged on the community downloads section of the forums. Before building a package yourself, check here: http://support.zenwalk.org/index.php?board=17.0

Hi bonzodog, thanks for the heads up. I used to go to the community website for software packages after it had first been put together, but hadn't been there for a while and when i went there the other day, found that it had been closed (albeit possibly temporarily).

I shall check out the forum repos (if i can find them..... can't see them anywhere at the moment) :)


You will be surprised at how much software is already built for Zenwalk.
Zen has it's own build scripts like slack does, you download the script, then run it - it downloads the raw source, compiles the package with options and switches set for configure, then creates the actual package, then installs it so that netpkg knows you have it installed.

That's the first time i've ever heard of something like that. I was browsing some buildscripts the other day, but thought they were just scripts to help when compiling progs (Which in effect they are i guess) but i never realised that they did all that.... that's pretty amazing isn't it!?

I've never really gotten into Slack so i don't know how it works that well (Apart from the little that i know about Zenwalk) only that it differs quite a lot to Debian etc.


Also, the package that you downloaded from linuxpackages is an already compiled binary - the confusing part about Slackware/Zenwalk is that the binary packages carry the extension .tgz. To install it, you simply su to root in a terminal, then use the command installpkg <packagename>.

I have installed packages from .tgz downloads before (But it was quite a while ago, the first time that i tried Zenwalk) and had forgotten what program i had to use to do so. :) Thanks for the info..... i'll have a look at all the packages available in the Forum repo's & see what's there. I'll still probably have a go at compiling some programs at some stage, just to see if i can do it & what it entails, but i really like the idea of the buildscripts & i'm definitely going to look into that. It sounds pretty straightforward & easy. :)

On another note, i've just seen that the latest (Snapshot) release of ZW is now available. One thing that's always confused me with ZW is the whole "Update/Upgrade" thing. Everytime i try to upgrade (Or should that be Update?) the system something goes wrong, especially (from what i can remember) when it comes to knowing which .conf files to replace.

Any pointers that you can give on this would be appreciated. I was going to have a go at upgrading to the Snap release but don't really want to break the system that i have here, because it works so very well. :)

Thanks once again for the info...... i'm off to the forums right now to look for some packages. :)

DJiNN

tommcd
May 1st, 2007, 10:17 AM
See here about upgrading zenwalk:
http://support.zenwalk.org/index.php/topic,4895.0.html
See the part: "Performing system-wide updates". This only applies to "current", not "snapshot". Be cautious about upgrading to snapshot, and be sure to read the changelogs:
http://www.zenwalk.org/modules/news/article.php?storyid=46
http://support.zenwalk.org/index.php/topic,7629.0.html

Also, in addition to linuxpackages.net, and slacky.it (which I have found to be very good. I wish the documentation was available in english). I just came across this:
http://slackbuilds.org/
Anybody use these in zenwalk?

DJiNN
May 1st, 2007, 12:44 PM
See here about upgrading zenwalk:
http://support.zenwalk.org/index.php/topic,4895.0.html
See the part: "Performing system-wide updates". This only applies to "current", not "snapshot". Be cautious about upgrading to snapshot, and be sure to read the changelogs:


Thanks for the info on this, i'm just about to do an upgrade here. I've looked at the changelogs, but to be honest i don't really have a clue as to what they're telling me anyway. I understand that they're highlighting changes to certain progs & libs etc, but i wouldn't really know if it was good to change certain libs or not, so apart from the glaringly obvious, it's all just names & numbers.

My approach to the whole upgrade path has to be "Do it & see what happens". That's the best that i can do at this point. :)

I also wouldn't know (Unless i'm missing something obvious here) if i was upgrading to a snapshot or not. As far as i'm concerned, and upgrade is an upgrade, to bring along whatever fixes & changes have been implemented.


Also, in addition to linuxpackages.net, and slacky.it (which I have found to be very good. I wish the documentation was available in english). I just came across this:
http://slackbuilds.org/
Anybody use these in zenwalk?

Thanks for that, looks interesting. Any large(ish) collection of Slack programs that can be used for ZW & other Slack based distros, is a positive move. :)
I've only just been introduced into the world of Buildscripts & haven't tried one yet, but it'll have to happen soon. :)

DJiNN

ahaslam
May 1st, 2007, 08:17 PM
Anyone tried the new beta release?

Something that sounds good:

You will also enjoy faster boot times, resulting from the highly parallelized and optimized init system.

Something that sounds annoying:

Xfce 4.4.1 with new plugins and system notifications (for example, udev now send user notifications about hotplugged devices)

So what are your impressions?

ThinkBuntu
May 1st, 2007, 08:45 PM
To me, the experience was identical to 4.4.1 except Xfce came with a few nicer themes. And, of course, there are the upgraded applications. This release was intended as just an upgrader, so this is what I expected. However, I've defected back to the Ubuntu ranks for now...just too much work getting ZW to do what I want, and my productivity was suffering.

tommcd
May 2nd, 2007, 02:03 AM
Thanks for the info on this, i'm just about to do an upgrade here. I've looked at the changelogs, but to be honest i don't really have a clue as to what they're telling me anyway. I understand that they're highlighting changes to certain progs & libs etc, but i wouldn't really know if it was good to change certain libs or not, so apart from the glaringly obvious, it's all just names & numbers.

My approach to the whole upgrade path has to be "Do it & see what happens". That's the best that i can do at this point. :)

I also wouldn't know (Unless i'm missing something obvious here) if i was upgrading to a snapshot or not. As far as i'm concerned, and upgrade is an upgrade, to bring along whatever fixes & changes have been implemented.



Thanks for that, looks interesting. Any large(ish) collection of Slack programs that can be used for ZW & other Slack based distros, is a positive move. :)
I've only just been introduced into the world of Buildscripts & haven't tried one yet, but it'll have to happen soon. :)

DJiNN


As long as your zenwalk mirrors say "current" and not "snapshot" you will only upgrade to current. To upgrade to snapshot you have to change the mirrors in /etc/netpkg.conf to say snapshot.
Also, if you are upgrading current from, say, 4.2 to 4.4.1, and want to upgrade the kernel as well, see this:
http://wiki.zenwalk.org/index.php/Upgrade_Kernel_with_netpkg
I boot zenwalk with grub from ubuntu, so I did not have to worry about the lilo stuff. Remember, the new kernel in 4.4.1 has optical drives changed from /dev/cdrom0 to /dev/sr0. And IDE and SATA hard drives are now all sda, sdb, etc. So you may have make changes in your media players so they point to /dev/sr0 and not /dev/cdrom0.

DJiNN
May 2nd, 2007, 10:12 AM
As long as your zenwalk mirrors say "current" and not "snapshot" you will only upgrade to current. To upgrade to snapshot you have to change the mirrors in /etc/netpkg.conf to say snapshot.
Also, if you are upgrading current from, say, 4.2 to 4.4.1, and want to upgrade the kernel as well, see this:
http://wiki.zenwalk.org/index.php/Upgrade_Kernel_with_netpkg
I boot zenwalk with grub from ubuntu, so I did not have to worry about the lilo stuff. Remember, the new kernel in 4.4.1 has optical drives changed from /dev/cdrom0 to /dev/sr0. And IDE and SATA hard drives are now all sda, sdb, etc. So you may have make changes in your media players so they point to /dev/sr0 and not /dev/cdrom0.

Thanks for the info tommcd. I did do an upgrade yesterday, and all went very well (much to my surprise) but i didn't upgrade the kernel. :) I'm just learning about Zenwalk & Slack at the moment so things like that usually break things for me. :D

When the time came to change the .conf files i just opted out & all went extremely well. In the past, i just upgraded everything & it always fell over! (That was when i was running version 2.8/3 etc)

As far as the new drive designators in Grub go, i'd completely missed that one, and that could be the reason for a few problems that i've had lately! (Whoops!). I shall remember that. :)

DJiNN

GS2
May 3rd, 2007, 02:55 AM
Just installed Zenwalk 4.4 on an old pentium II laptop with 128MB RAM. works amazingly well.

The only problem is the sound card, Crystal based which needs ISA support. As alsa is now in the kernel, just doing a custom kernel build (keeping the old one of course) - but boy does it take a long time on this old brick ;)

DJiNN
May 3rd, 2007, 03:00 AM
Just installed Zenwalk 4.4 on an old pentium II laptop with 128MB RAM. works amazingly well.

The only problem is the sound card, Crystal based which needs ISA support. As alsa is now in the kernel, just doing a custom kernel build (keeping the old one of course) - but boy does it take a long time on this old brick ;)

Have you tried DSL or Puppy Linux? They may be a better bet than Zenwalk, not that Zenwalk isn't good, it's great, but with a machine with those specs you want every last ounce of CPU you can get, and something like DSL will enable you to really push it. :)

Just a thought. :D Zenwalk is a really great distro though.

DJiNN

GS2
May 3rd, 2007, 03:12 AM
It only for sitting in the garden and browsing round the web, but even with these low specs Zenwalk really performs :)

If this build goes ok, and I get the sound up and running, then I'll slim the kernel down some more. I don't need things like blue-tooth and RAID etc.

I haven't looked at Puppy or Dead Small Linux, was just so impressed with the Zenwalk live cd (which is really quick too).

looks like I'll have to keep a look-out for another old hulk to resurrect from the 90s :)