| Zenwalk 5.0 - Something More, Something New. |
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| Written by Administrator | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Thursday, 24 January 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Another Major Evolution
Zenwalk Linux 5.0 for desktop was released on the 18th of January 2008 with the continued focus on simplicity and optimum performance. This major release also boasts the out-of-the-box availability of three Intel Pro Wireless and one Intel Wireless WiFi Link firmwares. This is also the first time that the modern HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) will be implemented thus replacing the old Zenwalk hotplug system. In keeping with tradition, the latest softwares are provided. The key components found on the 469MB CD image of the Zenwalk Linux 5.0 are the bleeding edge Linux kernel 2.6.23.12, glibc 2.7, gcc 4.1.2, Xfce 4.4.2, X.Org 7.3. and numerous other software updates.
Installation: Preparing The Partitions & Copying
The order of the newbie-unfriendly screens is basically still the same. As usual, you'll be presented with Ncurses-based Zenwalk Setup menu where you have to prepare the hard disk with cfdisk if it is not prepared yet. On the Zenwalk Setup menu, there is also an option to "AUTOINSTALL", meaning that the installer will create a system dedicated to Zenwalk Linux only. Of course, if you have all the necessary partitions prepared before-hand, you can just choose the "INSTALL" option. After you've chosen the "INSTALL" option, the installer will help you to set up the swap partition, root partition, optional partition like /home partition and also the NTFS partition, if you're dual-booting with Windows. The copying process onto the hard disk of my Compaq Presario notebook with Turion 64x2 processor took only 6 minutes. Interestingly, only 4 minutes was required on my desktop with Core2Duo processor, however it needed 19 minutes to do the job on my Dell desktop with Pentium III (600MHz) and a RAM of 128MB.
Installation: Configuration Of The New System
As usual, after the copying process, you will be required to configure LILO, the bootloader. After the installation of LILO, you'll be required to configure the hardware clock and timezone. The last step would be the configuration of services. As Wicd service is disabled by default, you will need to enable it here. The system will reboot automatically and you'll meet the LIL0 boot menu where you can choose to boot either Zenwalk Linux 5.0 or Windows(if dual-booting). Midway through the kernel boot splash, you'll be presented with the GPL lisence agreement and also the Intel Pro Wireless firmwares agreements. Then you'll have to deal with the configuration of sound device and language. Subsequently you will have to provide the root password and you will also have to manage non-root user accounts. The last screen will be the enabling/disabling of the numlock at login. Fifteen to twenty seconds later, you will meet the graphical login screen.
The Simple Xfce Desktop
The new artwork with the usual colour scheme of "summer-beach-blue-orange" is still cognitively-pleasant. The more refined new artwork can be seen throughout the whole process of boot splash, Xfce splash, login screen and the Xfce desktop. In my opinion, the Xfce splash has the best visual effects which reflect the tremendous dynamicity of the Zenwalk Linux project. It's simply elegant!
New background of Zenwalk Linux 5.0.
The Xfce 4.4.2 desktop consists of 2 desktop panels. The start menu button is located on the top panel. The three shortcuts to "Play CD/DVD", "File/Application Locator" and "Zenpanel" are still available on the bottom panel. With the implementation of HAL, you will be able to see the icon of the removable device on the desktop. My pendrives and USB DVD-RW drive were mounted automatically when plugged into my notebook.
This is the Hardware Lister.
There were at least two new applications which I discovered on the Xfce main menu. The first one is the Hardware Lister (lshw). The lshw is a small tool that can provide detailed information on hardware configuration and also report detailed informations on your CPU, motherboard, etc. Another new tool bundled with Zenwalk Linux 5.0 is Grsync. It is a synchronization and backup tool. On the Zenpanel, the debutant was the Network Proxy module. One of the very few things which I tried upon reaching the Xfce desktop was lauching Transmission, the resident BitTorrent client. It was really swift and reliable.
The Xfce main menu.
HAL at work!
Zenly Active Multimedia Department
I was able to surf the Internet via the wired ethernet once I logged onto the desktop. As Zenwalk 5.0 comes with a rich array of multimedia support, I had no problem watching streaming videos and audios from BBC.com. Zenwalk Linux 5.0 flawlessly played MP3 songs, MPEG-2 movies, Real Videos, DivX file, XviD file, Quicktime movies, WMV videos, etc. You will need to download the libdvdcss-1.2.9 package from the restricted repository if you want to play encrypted DVD movies.
This is also the department that you would see new faces whenever a new version of Zenwalk Linux is released. Of course the new faces will replace the existing incumbents as a result of the one-tool-for-one-task policy. In Zenwalk Linux 5.0, GnomeBaker CD/DVD burning application is replaced by the easy-to-use Brasero CD/DVD burning tool for GNOME while the CD ripping task of Grip has been passed on to Asunder.
Iceweasel 2.0.0.11 plugins
Like the previous release of Zenwalk Linux, this new iteration of Zenwalk Linux 5.0 also doesn't come with Flash and Java plugins. However, the Adobe Flash plugin can be easily installed by using the Iceweasel's Plugin Finder Service or by installing it via Netpkg. You'll get a newer version of Flash-plugin if you were to use the Plugin Finder Service. For your information, the Flash-plugin 9.0.48.0 available in Zenwalk Linux official repository is not the latest version already available at Adobe. Should you need the Java-plugin for Iceweasel, you can install the Jre-6u2 package from the current repository. The Plugin Finder Service wouldn't be able to help you with Java plugin!
WiFi Milestone.
For the very first time, Zenwalk Linux 5.0 supports Intel Pro/Wireless 2100, 2200, 3945 and Intel Wireless WiFi Link 4965 chipsets out-of-the-box. I managed to test the IPW2100 and IPW3945 wlan adapters and they worked efficiently! No tweaking needed! This milestone has been further enhanced by the modern and powerful Wicd network manager, replacing the old WiFi Radar. Of course, if you need other wlan adapters with other types of chipsets to work on Zenwalk Linux 5.0, such as the bcm43xx, Zydas, or Prism-based wlan adapter, you have to copy their firmwares to the /lib/firmware directory. Otherwise, you'll need the friendly Ndiswrapper Wireless Drivers tool which is powered by the latest Ndiswrapper 1.51.
WPA encryption protocol can be easily configured via Wicd.
The Wicd tray icon can be seen on the bottom desktop panel.
Hypertrophied Repositories
Well, there is not much change to the default set of softwares that come with Zenwalk Linux 5.0 iso image. However, if you look at the number of newly ported softwares in the official Zenwalk Linux repositories, (the current or the snapshot section) you'll have a feeling that Zenwalk Linux team of developers are trying to erase that not-so-many-packages label from the project's forehead! Even the latest stable software, like the one-month-old Nvidia driver 169.07.1 and the three-weeks-old VirtualBox 1.5.4 can be in the repositories. Other popular softwares residing in the official repositories are KDE 3.8.5, Openoffice 2.3.1, Skype 1.3.0.53, Google Earth 4.2.180.1134, Opera 9.25, Qemu, Qemulator, etc.
The official repositories of Zenwalk Linux 5.0.
When The Developers Start Listening....
This is another great release from the Zenwalk Linux team. The developers have obviously listened to the requests or even demands from its users or fence-sitters. Zenwalk Linux 5.0 is much more WiFi-friendly now, at least with Intel Pro Wireless and Intel Wireless WiFi Link chipsets. I am also very delighted to have found so many bleeding edge packages in the Zenwalk Linux official repositories, whether it's in the current or snapshot directories.
The only issue, which I had the chance to discover was that of the new Wicd. There was an occasion when I tried to reconnect the wlan adapter to the router after disconnecting it, the Wicd tray icon and also the Wicd graphical user interface disappeared. Well, it's not a big deal as I was still successfully connected to the router. However, I was slightly disappointed when I couldn't stop the wlan device from Xnetconf module of Zenpanel.
The boot times were also incredibly fast, on my desktop with Core2Duo processor the boot time was 31 seconds while on my Compaq Presario notebook, the boot time was 39 seconds. Imagine, I needed only 1 second to cold-start Iceweasel 2.0.0.11 on my desktop with Core2Duo machine. Since Zenwalk Linux 5.0 is also designed to run on low-in-resource PC, it took 57 seconds to boot on my Dell Pentium III (600MHz) with a RAM of 128MB and it needed only 11 seconds to cold-start Iceweasel.
Zenwalk Linux, like many other Linux distributions also has a friendly forum. In addition to the forum, Zenwalk Linux has a very, I mean very, helpful online Wiki. Even the upgrading steps from Zenwalk 4.8 to Zenwalk 5.0 looks quite simple with the help of the online Wiki.
Thank you for reading my review.
By Michael Shee Choon Beng. ( This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it )
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