Zenwalk at No.20

Vulpus · **Posted:** Mon Apr 10, 2006 2:02 pm

I see that Zenwalk has entered the top twenty on the Distrowatch page hit ranking (for the last six months).

cfuttrup · **Posted:** Mon Apr 10, 2006 7:14 pm

Hi Vulpus

It's cool ... the door to top 19

... but it also takes quite some work to stay in top 19. I like the fact that we are battling Arch Linux and Puppy Linux - and it looks like we're ahead.

Best regards,
Claus

matt · **Posted:** Mon Apr 10, 2006 11:33 pm

And it's all because of me! Just kidding, but I am one of those that switched from Arch Linux myself.

cfuttrup · **Posted:** Tue Apr 11, 2006 6:38 am

Hi matt,

Interesting.

What do you think about Zenwalk - compared to Arch? (and other Linux experiences)

Best regards,
Claus

matt · **Posted:** Tue Apr 11, 2006 10:24 pm

Claus,

Zenwalk is simple, fast, and already contains most of the apps I use. I used debian for years, still do for my server.

I went from Debian testing to Arch for my desktop for a year or so, but it was always breaking, and I didn't have the time to mess with it for my desktop. Arch is a nice distro though.

Around Christmas time last year I decided to make a list of my requirements, mainly a distro on 1 CD, with all the common apps I use to watch movies, DL torrents, play music, and hack away in Perl, seeing as how I didn't need the fluff of gnome or KDE. After I tried Zenwalk 2.01 I was hooked, and it's been serving me well since.

The only real tweak I do is download the kernel source pkg, add mppe/mppc for my vpn and I'm done.

cfuttrup · **Posted:** Wed Apr 12, 2006 1:04 pm

Hi matt,

Can I convince you to write some sort of distro review of Zenwalk? (maybe compared to the other distros you have experienced)

Best regards,
Claus

matt · **Posted:** Fri Apr 21, 2006 1:04 am

Hi Claus,

I'll try to put something together, although I've never really written a thorough review.

My wife is about to give birth to my 2nd child any time now, so it may be a couple weeks.

--Matt

cfuttrup · **Posted:** Fri Apr 21, 2006 6:25 am

Hi matt,

That's cool. We have Arch in our binoculars here at Zenwalk. Maybe because although different, there are also things that are equal. I'm very interested in this comparison. You could try to write me on my private email address : cfuttrup@stofanet.dk - Thanks.

Best regards,
Claus

ursvik · **Posted:** Tue Apr 25, 2006 9:37 am

Ask George Lucas, Merchandising is the way to stay ahead, check out Arch's merchandise at http://www.cafepress.com/archlinux/ . The baby creeper dress really gave me a good laugh !!

cfuttrup · **Posted:** Wed Apr 26, 2006 12:42 pm

Yeah - and some of their stuff is really nice looking.

Caraibes · **Joined:** Wed Apr 05, 2006 10:49 pm **Posts:** 65

About DW and ZW, there was this guy from Vector who was complaining Vector´s ranking was unfair, in the DWW comments...

I couldn´t help to reply that as much as I respect Vector´s philosophy (and I do !), because it runs fast on older hardware with most usefull apps... Vector is still very buggy, and I tried some versions, most gave me problems such as 800x600 resolution or LILO not seeing winxp in dualboot...

In a word, Zenwalk is exactly what Vector ever hope to be... No offense to the Vector team, I am saying that as a friendly critic.

JP and the ZW crew made a real nice distro, and so far it´s the one on my 3 pc´s...

Xubuntu is trying to come in the same leagues... I think it will be a healthy concurrence...

cfuttrup · **Posted:** Fri Apr 28, 2006 6:28 am

I noticed that Xubuntu just started ... It's got a high score - but we have no chance against a project that leans directly on Ubuntu. Their co-marketing beats us to the dust.

istoyanov · **Posted:** Fri Apr 28, 2006 7:33 am

cfuttrup wrote:

I noticed that Xubuntu just started ... It's got a high score - but we have no chance against a project that leans directly on Ubuntu. Their co-marketing beats us to the dust.

Xubuntu is currently #95, but even if it outruns Zenwalk at distrowatch we don't have to worry -- not everybody can be zen!

prfaasse · **Posted:** Fri Apr 28, 2006 7:48 am

As far as i can see the main 'promotion' DW-wise of the 'other' distro's that we may be missing out on is that they proudly announce every alpha/beta/rc version. Not a bad idea possibly: nobody in their sane mind would expect an alpha/beta/rc to be stable and/or usable, but by announcing it you do stay 'in the news'. If this strategy makes sense 'long-term' is another matter: how much 'loyalty' may one expect from a distro-wise 'newcomer' if the first encounter with a distro is a possibly unusabe alpha-release?

As others have stated before me: please do keep in mind what DW represents: an indication of the level of 'interest' in a distro: it's 'marketing efficiency' so to speak; Not to be confused with an indication of a distro's effective user-base and/or user-satisfaction: it's 'product quality'.

hyperion · **Posted:** Fri Apr 28, 2006 8:23 am

Zenwalk official releases are stable releases. That's why we need !!!more!!! testers :
we try to test everything before announcing.

It's a more professional way , I believe

Regards

JP

Zenwalk at No.20

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