I hope I don't regret this, I don't want to damage what's being done, but I haven't seen Zenwalk looking and feeling as comfortable and slick and "Just there", true to its name, as I did in revision 2.0: After minutes, almost as soon as saw it I felt right at home with it, even though it was something totally new. As it said in my 2.5 word review on another forum: "I Zenwalk".

Am I just resistant to change? The organisation was just so in the first edition of the second full revision. I immediately felt sorry when I overwrote my original 2.0 setup in search of better things with 2.2. I thought I'd get used to it in time, but the best I could do was reinsstall my first installation for comfort and joy and use the second just as a basis for its newer technology. I felt sad that I had to choose between good organisation versus later technology. I never really got a reason from it to drop 2.0.

Now with 2.4 I braced myself for change and kept my mind open when I saw the new desktop. But once again, more boat rocking with the revised organisation. It worked fine the first time and the new looks seem to be there just for the sake of making it appear different. It doesn't make things better though and, for my working pleasure, it loses something in translation. I quoted this before, I dread criticising but if it wasn't broken, why fix it? I have even wonderd if this has anything to do with in-fighting at Zenwalk towers?

I now have a very bright, non relaxing greeting, desktop icons, which are a nice addition, a loss of the top-screen panel (why choose it for the previous two, then suddenly decide to lose it?). Some of this I use the setting myself, yes.... to get it back to how it was in 2.0. And you know what? When I ran the console window, it never occured to me beforehand that it wouldn't work. When I teach myself to compile my own kernels I'm going to base my future developments on 2.0 and upgrade packages by myself. This isn't an indictment: As you see, I have no intention of leaving your distro for something else (although, like most people, I will be trying others to see what they're like, mentioning no names here).

Hi,

I can easily understand your point of view.

It's true that Zenwalk is evolving a bit too fast, and that there were some "cosmetic" changes in 2.4.

I will try to keep this in mind for the next release

Thank you for this post

JP

That is a load off my mind... I tried to be as constructive and truthful as possible and didn't want to cause upset. Thank you for your patience.

no its not just zenwalk..  almost all distros are like that.. constantly changing.. especially when the xyz that is common to all linux is updated.. all the distros using the same xyz have to keep itself up-to-date, otherwise it would be considered outdated although stable.

If you look at ubuntu / suse / mandriva / etc.. they kept updating their versions.. which I hate.. because most of them suggest full re-install , rather than upgrade, thereby you have to wipe-clean your harddrive and lose all your settings that you've set up already the way you want it to be.

Very few distros are conservative..  they do revision only after spending weeks reviewing the latest xyz.  Example will be Knoppix , BLAG, MYAHOS, WOLVIX, etc.

vapourmile, to keep your personal settings, put your /home on a separate partition... I still use the same desktop layout since Minislack 1.1 more or less . And by the way: you can still configure your XFCE to look like before (with the top bar), if you watch the screenshots topic, I think you'll see many people still have it like that .

Personally, I really like the new 2.4 layout & new Xfce.
Only one trouble... I still haven't figured out how to add/remove icons to the desktop... must be simple, but somehow it is eluding me.
Can someone point me in the right direction?

Hi,


For removing: right click and delete.

For adding an icon, simply add a .desktop file in your /home/user/Desktop directory.
Here is an example for pan.desktop:


Cheers.

You can also add regular file to your ~/Desktop directory: they'll automagically appear as icons.

Have fun!

Filippo

If I may bother the Masters of Zenwalk for a moment:

Quote of Borromini:


Borromini, can you please post details in the tips and tricks for this?  Can this be done post-install?  Can you also please give any details on putting /home on a second drive?

Thanks from a fanatic follower of Zenwalk!!

StarHawk92, you'll have to create a seperate partition for your home directory during install. Afterwards this partition could be mounted as /home.

Keep in mind that this partition mustn't be formatted if you set up a new system (only mount it).

...and you'll keep your settings.

JustusJonas

FredG & NeverBorn

Thanks

When installing, you get the choice to create partitions (and assign mountpoints). Your first partition will be mounted as / (root), the other partitions you create will ask you for a mount point. So create a second partition, and assign /home as mount point. Et voilà

hwo bout "post-install" ?

like if you've already installed everything on hda1, but then you've decided to "move" the home partiition out of hda2 and migrate it to hdb1 instead ?  is it too late ?

No, you just have to be careful.

It works but you have to be very carefull (as Borromini said). Do the following steps as root.

1. Create a new partition or use an existing one which is still unused (no FAT or NTFS partitions as they don't support file permissions). Partitions can be created using cfdisk.  It doesn't matter whether it is a primary or an extendend partition. Afterwards I would recommend a reboot.

2. Your new partition needs a filesystem. According to your preferences use mkfs.ext3 or mkfs.xfs.




Please be aware that you will loose your data if you choose the wrong device! Be carefull and recheck devices! (??? is your target partition)

3. Mount the new partition. Create a folder in /mnt. e.g. mkdir /mnt/newhome. Then do:



4. Now you are ready to copy (not move) your data. No files should be open, so do this step in single user mode. You can get there by:



Go to /home and copy your data with:



6. Move your old /home folder:



Create a new home folder:



Leave single user mode.



Login



7. Edit /etc/fstab according to your filesystem.



8. If you are sure that everthing went right, you can remove your old home folder. Or keep it in place as long as you are sure that everything works fine.

JustusJonas