Jean-Philippe Guillemin
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Zenwalk 6.0
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| Developer | Jean-Philippe Guillemin |
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| OS family | Unix-like |
| Working state | Current |
| Source model | Open source |
| Latest release | 8.0 / July 2, 2016 |
| Update method | netpkg (xnetpkg) |
| Package manager | netpkg |
| Kernel type | Monolithic (Linux) |
| Default user interface | Xfce |
| License | Various |
| Official website | www |
Zenwalk 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 it. Zenwalk aims to be a modern and multi-purpose Linux distribution by focusing on Internet applications, multimedia and programming tools. Additionally, Zenwalk comes with many specialized tools, designed for beginner through advanced users as it offers system configuration via both graphical and command-line operations.
Zenwalk was originally called Minislack up to version 1.1, taking its current name with version 1.2 released 2005-08-12. Originally using KDE as its desktop environment, Zenwalk now uses Xfce as of version 0.3, although GNOME and KDE packages have always been available separately.
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 introduces a comprehensive package management system with dependency resolution.
The Zenwalk Project has a forum that allows users and developers alike to post their issues, concerns and praise.
The newest official software packages are published in the -snapshot tree. When sufficient testing and debugging have been completed, a package is moved to the -current tree, where most users can download software to update their systems.
The community is also encouraged to take part in software package development, since the official software pool is considered limiting by some users. This allows third-party software to be made compatible with the Zenwalk directory structure, as well as improved interoperability with the rest of the distribution.
Zenwalk uses the netpkg package management system. It is developed in-house, and 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. The system uses meta files to provide dependency information, as well as package description during the install process. This convenience is only available 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.
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Wikipedia