Zenwalk is a GNU/Linux distribution optimized for the i686 instruction set, but backward compatible with i486. It is based on Slackware Linux, and uses Xfce as the default desktop environment.
Snapshot review based on Zenwalk 5.2, and updated June 11, 2008
Origin - Home Page: USA - Zenwalk Linux
Desktop: Xfce (default), and Gnome,
Price: Free and Open Source
Comments: Zenwalk uses a menu-based installer, and LVM is not supported. It uses the XFS filesystem by default, and installs a reasonable set of applications for day-day computing tasks. Zenwalk is very fast and has an uncluttered and clean interface.
This is the only distro listed on this site that does not ship with OpenOffice.org, a complete office suite. In its place, Zenwalk provides Abiword, a word processor. For those times when you need to use a spreadsheet application, Gnumeric is provided. You can, if you need to, install OpenOffice or any other application that you need using netpkg from the Command LIne (CLI) or via the GUI frontend.
The installed Web browser is Iceweasel, a re-branded Firefox, and it packs the necessary plugins needed to handle almost any multimedia content - flash, quicktime, etc - that you’ll encounter on the Web. G-Mplayer is the systems default multimedia player, and because Zenwalk come with libdvdcss2 pre-installed, it (G-Mplayer) will play any commercial (encrypted) DVD videos. G-Mplayer is also the systems default audio player.
Zenwalk does not ship with a graphical frontend to iptables, the Linus firewall, unlike Parsix, Mandriva, openSUSE, and Fedora, which not only have a gui frontend (to iptables), but have it configured and enabled by default. Like Mint, Zenwalk does not ship with any game application, but like all Linux distros, dozens of excellent games are available in its repository and can be installed using netpkg, the package manager.
Download/Buy:: Zenwalk offers a standard, core, Live, and a ZenEdu Live versions for download. The standard version comes with Gnome and Xfce desktops, and all the X applications needed for everyday use. the Core version installs the base system ,without any X applications, enabling anyone to install their own custom desktop. Both Live editions are designed to be run from CD, and offer an easy avenue to test Zenwalk without installing it on a hard disk.
Links to download or buy all versions of Zenwalk are accessible from the projects home page.
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