After some initial toolings in Arch and Gentoo, I settled on Slackware…which was my first distribution I tried ever in 1995.  It felt good to be coming back to Slackware…there is a simple elegance about it.  It’s ultimately fast on just about every system I’ve put it on.  I really like the unix like rc files Slackware has; to me, it’s simple to get things working.  This could be because I cut my teeth on Solaris…but then again, I think it’s much easier to manage system services by making an rc file executable (chmod).  Sure Red Hat style is ok with ‘service name start|restart|stop’ but I really like going into a directory, listing it out, and seeing all my services that execute on startup in green.  Maybe it’s my nostalgia getting the best of me.  I’m sure that’s it.

Regardless, I stuck with Slackware only a short while because I was interested in XFCE (not that Slack doesn’t have XFCE…just that I wanted to see a distro that prides itself on XFCE) and decided to give Zenwalk 6 a try (I’ve tried Wolvix already…it just didn’t click with me).  I’d heard nothing but good things about this distro and it is Slackware based, which makes all the nostalgic parts of me tingle.

I installed and all I can say is WOW!  It’s a fantastic implementation of XFCE regardless of distribution.  The Slackware speed and rc system are there, greeting me on each startup/login.  XFCE is done brilliantly there and really feels like a superb implementation.  Updating is a snap with netpkg, something I haven’t had any experience with…it does the job nicely though.  Overall, I’m quite satisfied with Zenwalk and will be sticking with it for a while.  I’ll post back from time to time with any tips or tricks I might find as I’m stretching my legs so to speak in my new environment.

Slackware and Zenwalk originally appeared on Yet Another Linux Blog on June 4, 2009.

Pics of the 350MHz:

STX 1.0

I started off pretty stoked because It is my understanding that STX is built on the solid base of Slackware Linux which happens to be my favorite distro. Boot up went relatively fast on the old PC. I was very impressed with the boot time. Everything was going fine with the install up until the software began to install. The install froze. I figured this wasn’t a good thing (duh!) so I rebooted and repartitioned the hard disk. I then made sure to format with cfdisk (along with some bad block checking). Another bootup and I’m back to installing again.

No dice on this. STX freezes again right as it is getting ready to install software. I decided to let this one sit for a few minutes so I went in and watched an episode of Monk. Coming back in, I can see that we have a kernel panic. I’ve seen this a couple of times with the 2.6.13 kernel and this computer. Perhaps it’s just old and unique? Not sure. For whatever reasons, this PC won’t take an install of STX. I figured that since this only took about 40 minutes, I could try another distro.

Wolvix 1.0.4

I’ve heard good things about Wolvix as well. I’ve heard that XFCE is the default desktop (something I think that many lightweight distros should embrace more often). The Wolvix homepage has an overview of the distro here. I’m looking forward to this distro as well.

Bootup seemed to be going fine until we get to looking for data modules after setting up the Union filesystem. I froze again. This is getting old. Perhaps it REALLY is getting old…the PC that is. Will Linux still be able to install on just any old PC out there? Is this the end for my PII 350? I had such a hard time giving up my PI 75MHz in 2002…that thing wouldn’t quit. It had been a great Linux firewall for four years. Now my PII 350? I sure hope not.

To make sure that I’m not having problems with a bad burn I decided to check both the Wolvix disk and the STX. I brought down my firewall so that I could try an install with it. I run a Celeron 900 in an old Gateway mATX for my firewall/webserver/gateway. No problems installing/booting there with either distro. Perhaps it is the CDROM? I put Slackware 10.2 into the PII 350 and boot up then proceed to install. No problems installing at all. I can install the full distro with all the fixins on the current setup with the CDROM. I’m thinking that this is something with the motherboard and the 2.6.13 kernel. Not sure exactly what it is but it is preventing me from installing these handful of distros.

I’ll have to give up tonight. I’ll try a few more of the distros I listed previously. Sure hope that I can find at least one of these that can give me a nice working XFCE desktop. Thanks for reading.

350 MHz XFCE Desktop Search Continues originally appeared on Yet Another Linux Blog on February 8, 2006.