I've seen 2 quite harsh criticisms on Distrowatch Weekly : http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20070226 about Zenwalk.

The first:

1 • Zenwalk (by Sage on 2007-02-27 09:30:30 GMT from United Kingdom)
Susan mentions this one and it has an entry above, too.
Definitely one to avoid. The installer is broken and requires considerable experience to overcome. Distros have moved on - the dinosaurs are gone. Installation and detection is solved. And, incidentally, the Zenwalk Forum is stuffed with bigots who delete any hint of dissent and will likely ban you if you step out of line by telling them like it is! No prizes for guessing from whence it emanates.

The second

3 • No subject (by linbetwin on 2007-02-27 10:02:15 GMT from Romania)
Totally agree with Ladislav on the subject of what makes a distro great. With Ubuntu, everywhere you turn you find help, the forums is undoubtedly the biggest and friendliest of all Linux forums. Their wiki is still a mess, but you can find a lot of useful information if you know how to search. You can bash Ubuntu and Shuttleworth all you want, I still think Ubuntu is the best and most promising Linux environment (i.e. distro + infrastructure + community). Mutatis mutandis, Ubuntu is the Mac OS X of the Linux world. That was their goal from the beginning and they're doing pretty well.

I am currently running PCLinuxOS .94/2007 TR1 updated and with beryl. It's very nice and stable so far. It looks beautiful, although fonts look ugly in some applications. But the software categories view in Synaptic is a mess.

Downloaded Zenwalk for the first time and tried to install it in VMWare. I don't mind text-based installers, but this one is almost as newbie-unfriendly as Gentoo's. I gave up. Why would I need a distro like that, anyway?

Again, the above are not my opinion, but I think they are indicative of something which has to be improved in the distro. The textbased installer didn't bother me, but I can  understand that it is harder for new users, especially if you are dualbooting. A friend of mine who didn't know Linux did manage to install it though. It would be nice if it was GUI, though or at least more userfriendly.

However, hardware detection was good, as good as Ubuntu's...i don't know why Sage is faffing around. Software installation could be improved, but that is a work in progress, I believe..

Regarding the community, I haven't had any problems with it.

Well, I'm far from being a Linux guru, but I've tried many different distributions over the past six or so years of being a Linux user.  My experiences with Zenwalk so far have been very good and I have to say it has been one of the more easier distros to install and get up and running that I've tried.

In my opinion, there's a delicate balance between ease-of-use, stability, performance, and bleeding edge every OS has to keep in order for me to consider it a "good" OS.  I'll sacrifice one for the other in order to keep a good balance.... for example, I prefer an OS that isn't quite bleeding edge in order to maintain stability, or ease of use in order to increase performance (all to some extent, of course).

Of all the distros I've worked with, Mandriva, in my opinion, has been the only distro. that has kept this balance over the years.

Now, I've only been a Zenwalk user for a week now, but I say it also seems to be maintaining what I call a good balance.  So I can't say I agree with these comments on Distrowatch.  But, in my opinion, there are quite a few "fickle" people who visit and post on Distrowatch... but that's just my observations.

I never understood why people complain about simple graphical installers. And Zenwalk's install program is not only simple, but its also absolutely easy to use! I mean, it nearly guides you through the install process, just choose what you want to do and that's it.

But then again, I have already partitioned my hard drives, I came from Slackware to Zenwalk and worked with simple graphical programs even before I started working with GUIs (or even Windows)- and I still prefer them over the latter. Maybe that's the reason why I didn't have any problems (so far) with Zenwalk's installer and feel pretty comfortable with it.

Aye, I also partitioned harddrives before I used Zenwalk...however, the first time I had to use it, I had to learn cfdisk and fdisk. A bit scary for the newb

I see no real advantage to a full GUI installer. It makes you lazy, just point & click. Nothing more. No thinking, no reading - oops, i clicked the wrong button! Your problem...

I prefer for example cfdisk to any partitioner in the existing graphical linux installers - their partitioners are a pain to work with (and to look at). And in case you wonder: no, I'm not stupid.

I use gParted 1st then install Zenwalk.

These people who think Zenwalk is hard to install? I don't get that one at all, Zenwalk is easy. Try installing NetBSD, FreeBSD, Arch Linux, even regular Slackware, those are much harder. 

But cfdisk cannot resize disks, unless I am mistaken?

I think a lot of it comes from the theory that many novice users (even some so called "trained" professionals) buy in to the idea that a computer is like a toaster.  Just plug the thing in and it will do what you want by just pressing a button.

I grew up in the 70's and 80's.  I began my computer learning on PETs and Commodore 64s.  Back then, if I wanted to do anything I had to learn how to do it.  I like learning stuff like that and why I took to Linux so easily.  Much like my early days of computing, Linux is not hidden behind a veil of licenses and such... not like Microsoft or Apple.  They want users to be "dumb operators", so they market the idea that you should not have to (or want to) learn about partitioning and the like.

Unfortunately, many MS users bring that idea along with them when they start to dabble in Linux.  Granted, I like the GUI installer for Mandriva because I already know what's going on behind the scenes, the GUI just makes it easier for me to get the job done.  However, I'm also not afraid of a text-based installer, like Zenwalk.  And as text-based installers go, Zenwalk's is really, really easy... especially for those of us who have taken the time and effort to learn more than the fact that a toaster has a lever to lower the toast and a knob to make the bread darker. 

Another thing about those Distrowatch comments is that I don't understand where this hostile community idea came from.  I haven't had any bad experiences with the Zenwalk community or its developers.

Don't hesitate to give your opinion on Distrowatch weekly , I would really like to read positive comments on Zenwalk as well

Cheers

JP

If those toaster people were real developers and not a lazy bunch of sub-intellectual bigots, they would would have read my mind about how dark I want my toast customised, and would deliver it to me with a smile every morning.  I don't want their prehistoric "toaster" contraption; just the right to condemn it.

  markc

What the hell are they talking about? The Zenwalk installer is easy as pie as long as you aren't afraid of its uglyness (no offence).

Also I find it more stable. I have experienced crashes before with GUI installers (from most distros, especially ubuntu) and they have literally just given up and died. But with the installer Zenwalk/Slackware uses I have never once experienced a crash. I've even successfully installed Zenwalk with some of the packages corrupt from using excessively over-used CD/RWs. Not only did it install and booted, I could use netpkg to replace the broken packages from the CD and get everything working.

I have never experienced this with any other OS. If any of the installer packages fail, its as dead as my grandparents.

And what does the fact that Zenwalk originates from France have anything to do with it?

Out of curiousity, how difficult would it be to port Zenwalk to a different installer? If its possible, maybe we should consider a future version (say, Zenwalk 6, 7 or 8 ) coming with a secondary ISO that has a graphical installer. Of course, we could make it well noted that it is officially classified as "unsupported" and "unstable" but it may make people who are newer happier.

I think the fact is not that the average user is too dumb or lazy or whatever for the installer, but i think that it is a "little" (!) too legacy to be mantained in the 21. century. dont flame me, i have used the installer, i dont like it (visually, come on, SOME colors!!!), I use it.

And i also think that the installer is the first impression one gets from the OS. I mean your hear "ZENwalk" and think "it already sounds techy" and then you get a boring cheerless installer, but a beautyful OS!

The basic tools can still be used as a backend, but i think a sleek, zen-colored installer would make the whole ZEn process (install, use, update) a more "round" experience!

hi all..
well in my case text or gui installers are ok, the problem with people is that they do not read the things in the screen, they are just lazy to do it, and are comfortable with click "ok" "yes" or "continue" buttons, even in gui installer people have to read messages, and om my personal experience, making partitions is preferable with a livecd and gaprted before installation process, it makes installation easier...

Or else, during the installation itself, as in Ubuntu's or Fedora.

Regarding the community, I like this community a lot. You can find misguided bigots even on the Ubuntuforums...so I don't know why Sage was so angry bout this.

Hyperion, would it be possible to make a gui installer for Zenwalk? Or is it impossible because of philosophical issues? The distro is already quite small, so I don't think size will be a problem...an anaconda installer would look good, imho.

It's being discussed on the mailing list. Feel free to subscribe, if you want to join the discussion

JP