About Zenwalk - comp.os.linux.misc

I've been a loyal Slackware user for a while now, but I really wished that it didn't duplicate so much of its software (Seamonkey and Firefox and Links and Lynx, for example). I also feel that, with all of the projects I have going on, I don't really have time for the constant persuasion using a complex, somewhat server oriented distro like Slackware. Enter Zenwalk. I read about Zenwalk in Linux Format and it seemed like a pretty good idea, simplifying Slackware and polishing it up into a good desktop distro. However, I wondered, and this seemed like a good place to ask, how much (if any) of Slackware was lost when it was polished up? Does Zenwalk feel like a well configured desktop installation of Slackware or does it have its own look and feel? Can you use it the same way you use Slackware, that is, hand-editing *.conf files and using "./ configure; make && sudo make install" as the package manager? <asbestos> I'm not bashing Slackware, I love it and it will always have a place in my heart. </asbestos Thanks for your time.

On Fri, 16 Dec 2011, jarubyh wrote: > I've been a loyal Slackware user for a while now, but I really wished > that it didn't duplicate so much of its software (Seamonkey and > Firefox and Links and Lynx, for example). I also feel that, with all > of the projects I have going on, I don't really have time for the > constant persuasion using a complex, somewhat server oriented distro > like Slackware. Enter Zenwalk. I read about Zenwalk in Linux Format > and it seemed like a pretty good idea, simplifying Slackware and > polishing it up into a good desktop distro. Links and Lynx are not the same thing, so it's not duplication. I've used Lynx since August of 1996, five years before I installed Linux, and while I've sampled Links, I really can't stand it. It is different, though of course for someone not interested in a text only browser, of course they'd be "duplicates". Same with graphic browsers, they aren't identical, people get used to one and want to stick with it. In 2001 I got Debian, wanting to use it because of it's non-commercial nature. But it didn't have Pine, which I'd been using for five years, so when "Slackware for Dummies" appeared at a local bookstore clearance table, I grabbed that since Slackware does include Pine (along with various other mail and newsreaders). And so it goes. Most people nowadays have hard drives with loads of space, so a full install will never bother them, and they don't have to fuss over what to install and what not to. Hence distributions that are full of "duplicate" programs dont' matter one bit, it doesn't really matter that it's a DVD rather than a CD now. Most good distributions do try to include as much as possible. The exception being niche distributions. You just ignore what you aren't interested in, and be glad that the distribution does include the programs you want. You won't notice the extra hard disk space used, and the fact that the extra stuff is there won't affect your daily operation at all. Zenwalk, I think it's that one, is making decisions for you. You have to take what they provide, which may be fine if you're a beginner and don't know what to use, but once you've used Linux for a decent amount of time, you have your preferences. And unless I'm confusing it with some other "small footprint" distribution, Zenwalk made bad decisions when I checked into it, going after GUI applications (and only one of each) rather than really saving space by using non-GUI applications. I'm not sure what you mean by "constant persuasion" but if you've actually been using Slackware, the effort involved in learning it gets lost if you switch to another distribution. People always hopping from distribution to distribution lose out on the effort they've put into any given distribution (unless they stick with it for such a short time that they never learn anything). If Zenwalk really derives from Slackware (I can't keep track), then there's no advantage in moving to Zenwalk, since you've handled the full system. Zenwalk is aimed at a subset of the population, is it those using "older" computers (I can't remember) or dont' want to worry about multiple programs that do the same thing. Note that if it's aimed at "older" computers, Slackware itself is already well suited, since it's less likely to be specific to a given CPU and doesn't include a bloated GUI installer (that needs loads of memory even before you install), and of course includes a wide selection of programs, so if that GUI editor uses up too much RAM, you can use Joe or Pico. Michael

Michael Black writes: > You just ignore what you aren't interested in, and be glad that the > distribution does include the programs you want. You won't notice the > extra hard disk space used, Why would you install packages you are not interested in at all? -- John Hasler jhasler@newsguy.com Dancing Horse Hill Elmwood, WI USA

On Fri, 16 Dec 2011 14:26:26 -0600, John Hasler wrote: > Michael Black writes: >> You just ignore what you aren't interested in, and be glad that the >> distribution does include the programs you want. You won't notice the >> extra hard disk space used, > > Why would you install packages you are not interested in at all? > Compared to other distros, Slackware is already stripped down. Stripping it down further, beyond its base set of packages can still be done, but is mostly left as an academic exercise at this point. Leaving things out is likely to introduce breakage. Slackware's installer will let you do it, because it is still assumed that the root user knows best and knows what he's doing. ;) -- Douglas Mayne

On 2011-12-17, Douglas Mayne <none@invalid.com> wrote: > On Fri, 16 Dec 2011 14:26:26 -0600, John Hasler wrote: > >> Why would you install packages you are not interested in at all? >> > Compared to other distros, Slackware is already stripped down. Stripping > it down further, beyond its base set of packages can still be done, but > is mostly left as an academic exercise at this point. Leaving things out > is likely to introduce breakage. Slackware's installer will let you do > it, because it is still assumed that the root user knows best and knows > what he's doing. ;) > Not to mention that, to select just the packages you want from the hundreds or thousands that Slackware would install by default would be a very time-consuming task. You can select or deselect groups of packages, such as KDE or games or emacs, so you can easily leave out some things you might not want. -- Chick Tower For e-mail: colm DOT sent DOT towerboy AT xoxy DOT net

On 2011-12-18, Chick Tower <c.tower@deadspam.com> wrote: > Not to mention that, to select just the packages you want from the > hundreds or thousands that Slackware would install by default..... Are you outta yer freakin' mind!? ...."thousands"!!??? nb

On Fri, 16 Dec 2011, John Hasler wrote: > Michael Black writes: >> You just ignore what you aren't interested in, and be glad that the >> distribution does include the programs you want. You won't notice the >> extra hard disk space used, > > Why would you install packages you are not interested in at all? Because it's simpler than doing a partial install. The first time I tried Linux it was with a 240meg hard drive, and once there was a partition for swap (needed so badly since the computer had only 8megs of RAM) I had to do a partial install. But since I'd never used Linux before, besides the obvious of "what do I absolutely need?" there was the question of "but which programs will I use". It was actually simplified by the very limited drive space, I coudln't install much more than the "base" and Lynx and Pine. That small a hard drive in 2001 meant I probably would have been serially installing programs as I needed them, and taking them off to provide space for the next one. That computer showed me I needed something better, so I went out and actually spent some money on a used computer to run Linux. 2gigs of hard drive, 16 or 32megs of RAM. Then I could do a full install, didn't have to fuss with what I needed and what I wanted or didn't want. It was a much faster process. I still had lots of space for my own needs. When I moved to a computer with 20gigs of hard drive at the end of 2003, it wsa even simpler since there was even more hard drive space. Oh, I left out server stuff like Samba that I knew I wasn't using, but general applications, I never notice them being on the hard drive, they don't bother me since I have way too much hard drive space. It does mean that if I suddenly need something, I can just type it in, and if it came with the distribution I've got it. The programs use no resources other than hard drive space unless I'm actually running them. I once tried to do a partial install, of things I definitely didn't need. But, I ended up with some trouble, some innocuous bit that didn't seem useful to me ended up serving some important function. Meanwhile, the real applications, I didn't feel much like eliminating them because you never know when I might need them. Yes, I realize I can install them later, but it doesn't seem worth the effort. But this isn't really relevant to the discussion. The original poster thinks Zenwalk is the way to go since it doesn't 'duplicate programs". But once someone else decides, you may find their choices aren't your choices. With a full distribution, whether or not you install everything, you get to decide which of a selection of programs that do the same thing is what you use. 10.5 years after I first installed a useful version of Linux, I'm still finding new things among what's on my favorite distribution. Sometimes it's because I hadn't had a use for something before (I use GIMP a lot more now than a decade ago), sometimes it's something I'm unaware of. Linux is big, there are all kinds of tiny little utilities that don't get a lot of attention but which are really useful because they do one tiny thing. Then one day you see an article that mentions it, or someone talks about it here, and you can often give it a try right away because it was part of the distribution, and you did a full install. I can't remember whether it was something about "useful command line utilities" in The Linux Gazette, or from one of those books from the eighties or early nineties about Unix intended for the user (since back then most users weren't adminstrating their own system), but it mentioned "look". I was oblivious to it before that, and it was after having Linux installed for at least five years, but it's something I use all the time. I've never liked spell checkers, but here's a way to check the spelling of specific words without reaching over for the dictionary or that book for getting the right spelling of words. Or BSD games comes with an ROT13 decoder. Probably other things do it too, but it's handy and because I did a full install I never had to think about it when I needed to decode something. Then one time I decided I'd wasted too much time with those games, so I didn't install the package the next time I upgraded. And then suddenly I couldn't decode ROT13 messages the way I'd been doing. That's a really minor thing, but some of the usefulness of Linux is all those tiny utilities, and once you start doing selective installs, they are no longer so handy. If I suffered from lack of hard drive space, I would be looking at pruning, but more likely leave off the Big Stuff, like servers I don't need or a desktop I don't use, rather than specific programs. And certainly for someone starting out, it isn't worth trying to guess at what's needed, since they haven't tried things enough to know what they want. Michael

On Sun, 18 Dec 2011 19:38:51 +0100, Chick Tower wrote: > On 2011-12-17, Douglas Mayne <none@invalid.com> wrote: >> On Fri, 16 Dec 2011 14:26:26 -0600, John Hasler wrote: >> >>> Why would you install packages you are not interested in at all? >>> >> Compared to other distros, Slackware is already stripped down. >> Stripping it down further, beyond its base set of packages can still be >> done, but is mostly left as an academic exercise at this point. Leaving >> things out is likely to introduce breakage. Slackware's installer will >> let you do it, because it is still assumed that the root user knows >> best and knows what he's doing. ;) >> >> > Not to mention that, to select just the packages you want from the > hundreds or thousands that Slackware would install by default would be a > very time-consuming task. You can select or deselect groups of > packages, such as KDE or games or emacs, so you can easily leave out > some things you might not want. > I have a fairly complete full install of Slackware 13.37, minus KDE, and that has just short of 900 packages installed. For sure, you are correct that going by package groups is a good, simple, and quick way to decide under normal circumstance. -- Douglas Mayne

On 2011-12-19, Douglas Mayne <none@invalid.com> wrote: > I have a fairly complete full install of Slackware 13.37, minus KDE, and > that has just short of 900 packages installed. Full default install = approx 900+ I have a couple doz extra pkgs installed. Do yer own count: $ls -x /var/log/packages/ > ~/foo $cat -n ~/foo I tried to pipe this, but didn't work. Gurus? > For sure, you are correct that going by package groups is a good, simple, > and quick way to decide under normal circumstance. Yep. nb -- eschew obfuscation

On Mon, 19 Dec 2011 16:40:12 +0000, notbob wrote: > On 2011-12-19, Douglas Mayne <none@invalid.com> wrote: > >> I have a fairly complete full install of Slackware 13.37, minus KDE, >> and that has just short of 900 packages installed. > > Full default install = approx 900+ > > I have a couple doz extra pkgs installed. > > Do yer own count: > > $ls -x /var/log/packages/ > ~/foo > $cat -n ~/foo > > I tried to pipe this, but didn't work. Gurus? > >> For sure, you are correct that going by package groups is a good, >> simple, and quick way to decide under normal circumstance. > > Yep. > > nb > It works for me... $ ls -x /var/log/packages/| cat -n - 1 ConsoleKit-0.4.3-i486-1 2 M2Crypto-0.20.2-i486-1 3 MPlayer-20101218-i486-1 4 PyQt-4.8.1-i486-1 5 QScintilla-2.4.5-i486-2 6 a2ps-4.14-i486-5 7 aaa_base-13.37-i486-3 8 aaa_elflibs-13.37-i486-7 9 aaa_terminfo-5.8-i486-1 10 aalib-1.4rc5-i486-3 : : : 871 xvinfo-1.1.1-i486-1 872 xwd-1.0.4-i486-1 873 xwininfo-1.1.1-i486-1 874 xwud-1.0.3-i486-1 875 xxgdb-1.12-i486-3 876 xz-5.0.2-i486-1 877 yasm-1.1.0-i486-1 878 yptools-2.12-i486-2 879 ytalk-3.3.0-i486-1 880 zd1211-firmware-1.4-fw-1 881 zlib-1.2.5-i486-4 882 zoo-2.10_22-i486-1 883 zsh-4.3.11-i486-1 or $ ls -x /var/log/packages | wc -l 883 -- Douglas Mayne

On 2011-12-18, notbob <notbob@nothome.com> wrote: > On 2011-12-18, Chick Tower <c.tower@deadspam.com> wrote: > >> Not to mention that, to select just the packages you want from the >> hundreds or thousands that Slackware would install by default..... > > Are you outta yer freakin' mind!? ...."thousands"!!??? > > nb Try doing one of those installs and see if it doesn't seem that way. -- Chick Tower For e-mail: colm DOT sent DOT towerboy AT xoxy DOT net

Il 16/12/2011 16:58, jarubyh ha scritto: > I've been a loyal Slackware user for a while now, but I really wished > that it didn't duplicate so much of its software (Seamonkey and > Firefox and Links and Lynx, for example). I also feel that, with all > of the projects I have going on, I don't really have time for the > constant persuasion using a complex, somewhat server oriented distro > like Slackware. Enter Zenwalk. I read about Zenwalk in Linux Format > and it seemed like a pretty good idea, simplifying Slackware and > polishing it up into a good desktop distro. > However, I wondered, and this seemed like a good place to ask, how > much (if any) of Slackware was lost when it was polished up? Does > Zenwalk feel like a well configured desktop installation of Slackware > or does it have its own look and feel? Can you use it the same way you > use Slackware, that is, hand-editing *.conf files and using "./ > configure; make&& sudo make install" as the package manager? > <asbestos> I'm not bashing Slackware, I love it and it will always > have a place in my heart.</asbestos > > Thanks for your time. I am a Slackware fan, too. And the only other distribution I use is Zenwalk. Think of Zenwalk as a limited, very well conceived Slackware without all the server stuff. A Desktop, lean and clean distribution. The last one I installed on my laptop was 6.1, based on kernel 2.6.25, and later on I took the Slackware disc and installed Apache, Wine and some other stuff I needed. No problems. I mean the two distributions are compatible, you can play with pkgtool, MC, Pine (Alpine) an so on. (ehm, I mean all the text stuff that probably nobody wants anymore, but I still use and love.) The default installation comes with xfce (but there was a version with kde IIRC) and filesystem xfs. Fast and light. Just my five cents... DC