Zenwalk 5.0 Review

Zenwalk aims to be a multi-purpose Linux distribution by focusing on Internet applications, multimedia and programming tools.

According to the project website; Zenwalk is a GNU/Linux operating system, designed to provide the following characteristics: Modern and user-friendly (latest stable software, selected applications), Fast (optimized for performance capabilities), Rational (one mainstream application for each task), Complete (full development/desktop/multimedia environment) and Evolutionary (simple network package management tool - netpkg)

Zenwalk comes with a Live CD edition,but the Standard edition does not support Live environment. The install CD still comes with ncurses based text installer. After installation the desktop came at 1280×1024 and proprietary nvidia drivers were not installed by default. GCC and kernel-headers were installed by default that allows you to install nvidia drivers.

Installation
There is no reason to be intimidated with the text based installer; it’s really easy. Its asks the standard questions: root partition, swap partition and begins installation.Once the installation is finished, user can configure the system.

Aesthetics
Simple, beautiful and pleasing, are the words that describe look and feel: flaunted by Zenwalk. The theme is unified, and the login-manager bug mentioned in the last release is gone. Furthermore, Zenwalk retains the true spirit of XFCE; does not try to imitate other desktop environments as done by default installation of some other distributions.

Applications
Zenwalk has a rational choice; one mainstream application for each task. And it is really nice. It means ease of use for a newbie.
All the applications are in there latest packages(at the time of Zenwalk release). For windows network browsing you have fusesmb tool. To view your network shares, create a directory (probably ~/smb), launch the fusesmbtool under network applications, specify the folder where you want to mount the network shares, specify the windows username & password, and hit connect. User will see the windows network under the directory specified.Zenwalk comes with a simple control-panel called aptly called Zenpanel. It contains almost every aspect of computer customization, that an average desktop user will require. Zenwalk 5.0 comes with HAL (hardware abstraction layer) instead of its own custom hot-plug system. And it means better support for plug-and-play devices.XFCE supports a list of images for the wallpaper, but does not allow user to choose when to change the wallpaper. There is a way around this; the command “killall -USR1 xfdesktop” changes the wallpaper on the desktop. So those of you who want automatic cycling of wallpaper can create a cron job, or create a desktop icon to do the same.

Multimedia
Zenwalk supports proprietary codecs out of box. I was able to play MP3 and WMV files. DVD playback was also supported.