A lot of the "complaints" about difficulty in installation (of just about whatever distribution you choose) are often attributed to people who are "lazy." However, I think it should more correctly be attributed to people who view computing and, by extension, their computers as a means to an end (e.g., working) rather than as a hobby.

As a result, for better or worse, computers are to many people another appliance, like a toaster. Because of that, these people just want their computers to work, to allow them to do what they need to get done. And like a toaster, they don't want to have to know how to fix it.

Having said that, and as someone for whom partitioning the hard drive was scary the first few times I ever did it, I don't find the Zenwalk installer that difficult. (Of course, I have not upgraded since version 3.0 as it currently does everything I ask of it.) I understand that Zenwalk may no be geared to or intended for use by newcomers to Linux; however, it might be nice if the installer included a bit more text explaining the process of partitioning and how to do it. (Perhaps it does; as I said it's been a while since I did an install.)

Finally to those who might view GUI installers as dumbed-down, I would argue that this need not be the case. I would also argue that a GUI installer looks more polished to most people, and since the installer creates the first impression and expectation on the part of the new user, this area perhaps deserves more attention.

Just my thoughts off the top of my head. There, I feel better.

JP, where does one subscribe the zenwalk-mailing list?

send an email to:
zenwalk-doc+subscribe ~AT~ lists(dot)zenwalk(dot)org

You have to change a few things in the address 

Title and body of email can be anything

That's for the doc ML, try this:
zenwalk-main+subscribe ~AT~ lists(dot)zenwalk(dot)org


++

Yeah, I was quite surprised to read quite a few Zenwalk criticisms.  Most of them seemed to be pure BS (come on... the installer is too hard?  These people need to learn how to read... not everything is about the pretty pictures... text installers can be just as effective...).  A couple of them I wasn't sure about; they seemed to be somewhat believable, but not 100%.  I also replied, mine is #68.

Anyway, if Zenwalk *does* officially create a graphical installer, I hope it will retain the current installer as an alternative.  I really like Zenwalk's installer... it works perfectly.

BTW, I was going to wait to install Zen 4.4, but ended up installing it anyway.  The new hard/cd/dvd drive labeling system is weird, but actually not too bad.  Still getting used to it.  Great release as usual.  Whatever bug 4.4.1 was supposed to fix, I don't think I'm experiencing it (running 4.4).

I quite like the simplicity of the present installer, it merely asks where you want zenwalk to be installed and does it - quickly and well.

Ever tried the non-gui installer from SCO OpenServer ? there are all shades of blue and white colors in it, but ONE false move and you are toast!

There is a good reason for computers being shipped with a pre-installed  O/S 

btw,  a graphical setup would be half-easy to achieve if we dont mind having X, python , pyparted and pydialog on the initrd 

I don't mind to increase the size of the initrd

PLease send the first version for testing , as soon as you have something...

Cheers

JP

firstly, if you could post the 4.4 initrd and boot kernels in http://download.zenwalk.org/i486/zenwal ... /packages/ , i will certainly experiment a little.

It was a joke

Please contact me in private about this
JP

while I agree that zenwalk is deserving of some of these critics for more newb friendliness, I think the comments are a bit harsh. Almost all distros suffer one handicap or the other.

Ubuntu excels at a very high level that not many distros can attain. It is a huge distro with a lot of support. Support there is near unmatched. One could get help there on issues for windows, mac, bsd, and any other linux distro.

Zenwalk is good in the sense that it is fast to install and simple once user understands it one time how to use it. Zenwalk and Vector linux make slackware install a piece of cake. Zenwalk beats out most other slack-based distros with the unique carrying of xorg 7 while most other slack distros still use xorg 6.8 or 6.9.

Moreover, Zenwalk is bleeding edge also. But some minor frustrations and long time trying to get an issue resolved is enough to frustrate a newbie to a simpler distro like pclinuxos or ubuntu.

The newest Zenwalk was almost perfect for me except for one simple thing, it would not play sound or warn about sound issue. Every other distro I tried including the older Zenwalk 4.2 played sound on that same hardware. What changed.

Things like this are deal breakers for newbs especially when there isn't a howto on how to resolve their issue.

But Zenwalk is not to be compared with gentoo. It is one of the simplest and easiest distros I have ever used.

And Ubuntu has its flaws as well. This is the reason I am still dabbling around b/w distros including this one.

Oh please dont include a nearly waste GUI stuffs into the product and make it more weigh. Since already Zenwalk is 400MB and adding this no use of GUI will always increase its size as well as i dont find any problem with current installers as well as the GUI installer will only be used once by any body (unless one is crazy to install it again and again).

I dont find GUI installers are useful. My opinion, is to make the distro less size as possible with more sweeter things in it.

Like there is a saying" Short (small) and Sweet"....

I totally agree with kazuya, small problems are deal-breakers! And the installer is easy for someone who knows what he wants done and how. For a basic Windows-convert, partitioning is not a easy task! I dont know how the "step" is called, but what is the part about where you pick the 'type' (?) of partition (84 if think is Linux and the rest is unknown to me)? A normal, average, non-expert user has no clue what is the "best" option here. I think the installer should be reduced in option. For example some BASIC schemes for partitioning: CUSTOM, HOME (split / and /home), and some other (let them choose on which HDD to put what) but give them a red thread to hold on to!

I think that the point of GUI installers is to make the whole thing more intuitive and to increase the confidence of the user. If sees "/dev/sda" for the first time he will think "WHA..?" but if he sees the small image of harddisc next to it he'll think "AH, harddisk" If you add a tree-view of it (partitions under their respective HDD) they will see "That is on that disc". It is not relevant for a linux-gun-master, but the n00b feels more comfortable.

The installer alredy has an auto-partitionning option.

It cannot be simpler, the user is asked something like  : "do you want me to setup your disk ? yes/no"

Really impossible to make it simpler, sorry

JP

Sorry, I might have overlooked it.

Yes your right Jp. There cant be much more simpler than what it is now.

So best is to leave it (continue in the future) as of now (ncurses based) in the future ver of Zenwalk with slight changes in the way it looks (probably)...

But my humble request to all Zenwalk developers is, to make Zenwalk weight (Size) less as much as possible.

Thanks to all of you there...