Zenwalk GNU/Linux is a desktop-focused Linux distribution founded by Jean-Philippe Guillemin. It is based on Slackware with very few modifications at system level making it 100% compatible with Slackware. It aims to be a modern, multi-purpose Linux distribution by focusing on internet applications, multimedia and programming tools. It comes with many specialized tools and is designed for beginners and advanced users alike, as it offers system configuration via both graphical tools and the command line.

History

Zenwalk was originally called Minislack up to version 1.1. It was renamed with version 1.2, released on 12 August 2005. Originally using KDE as its desktop environment, it moved to Xfce with version 0.3, although GNOME and KDE packages have always been available separately.

Aims

The Zenwalk Project aims to create a lightweight Linux distribution, through using only one application per task on the release ISO image; optimization for a specific instruction set architecture, to increase execution speed; and introducing a comprehensive package management system with dependency resolution.

Package management

Zenwalk uses the netpkg package management system. Developed in-house, it provides the main functionality of the apt-get variety of package managers. It uses Slackware's .tgz package format, but adds dependency resolution capabilities. It uses meta files to provide dependency information, as well as package description during the install process. This convenience is available only to the official Zenwalk mirrors listed in the netpkg configuration file, netpkg.conf. In addition to the original netpkg command line interface, xnetpkg provides a GUI frontend with similar capabilities. Zenwalk is also compatible with Slackware package management tools such as slapt-get and its frontends, and have similar functionality as that of netpkg. As of Zenwalk 4.6, package compatibility with Slackware is still maintained. Slackware packages may be used in place of Zenwalk packages where necessary.

Supported architectures

Starting with version 8.0, Zenwalk Linux is built and optimized primarily for the x86 64 architecture; 32-bit i486 architecture is no longer supported.

Project versions

At one time there were five main versions of Zenwalk :

Derivatives

There are currently three known Zenwalk-based distributions:

Live USB

A Live USB of Zenwalk Linux for versions up to 5.2 can be created manually or with UNetbootin. Current versions of Zenwalk can also booted from a USB using Ventoy, but only for installation, not a live session.