Desktop comparison - Zenwalk Linux, Salix OS and GoblinX



Everybody's definition of bloat will probably be somewhat different, depending on the hardware they have and how far they are willing to go and make sacrifices on the performance scale to get their desired useful, functional, friendly desktop. There cannot be any doubt that, by default, some distributions -- and for that matter desktop environments -- are heavier than others, and often we are asked here on DistroWatch or elsewhere to recommend a distro that will run well on older hardware, but is still nice to look at and has the tools available for any job thrown at it.



I'm a big fan of Slackware because I have always found it immensely clean, stable, and faster than others. I also like Xfce-based distributions - they are fast, simple and elegant. For anybody who would like a slightly friendlier start there are several derivatives that would fit the bill quite nicely, but they all appear similar on the surface and any user coming from the background of a DEB or RPM package distro might find themselves facing the question which one to bother with. Indeed, do they all just differ in their wallpapers and kernel versions? This week I'll be taking a look at the latest versions of Zenwalk Linux, Salix OS and GoblinX (g:Mini edition). All three come with Xfce 4.6.1 as their default desktop environment, although others can be installed later. This makes for the perfect choice for our objective - a lightweight but still very functional GUI with a reasonably populated settings panel for people who do not want to have to edit text files to get their AfterStep, WindowMaker or IceWM to behave and look the way they like. There is also Wolvix that would fit into this category, but it has not had a stable release since August 2007.



All three distros immediately benefit from the vast universe of packages and repositories available for Slackware, as well as their own. Zenwalk has branched off a bit more but is staying fully compatible with Slackware packages, as do the others. It is recommended to stay with the distro's own repositories and supplement them with Slackware package builds as needed, but not to mix and match, for example Salix and Zenwalk packages in any of the two, although it may work, or not. In my experience a Zenwalk package proved to work fine in Slackware, but you'll be on your own if things go wrong, and why would you want to do this except for curiosity with the wealth of packages and build scripts out there.



The test machines: an IBM T42 Thinkpad 1800 Pentium M with 1,024 MB of RAM, Atheros wireless (ath5k) a self-made desktop PC with AMD Duron 900 MHz and 512 MB of RAM. a self-built Dual-Core AMD Athlon X2 4200 at 2,200 MHz, socket 939 with 3 GB of RAM. This one is 4.5 years old now and my most modern piece. Both desktops use wireless GetNet GN-331U USB sticks (Ralink, confusingly sometimes identified as 2870, sometimes as 3070) in the home to cut down on the clutter, and to have this working is a requirement. Keep in mind that I built these for Linux, and also chose the Thinkpad for the very reason of compatibility. The USB sticks were a gamble but proved to work fine once the drivers were installed under Slackware 13.0, my usual day-to-day operating system now. All of them use older ATI cards for video that are fully supported in X.Org, playing 3D games just fine. The newest one is a Radeon 9800 Pro 128 MB, the oldest a AIW Rage Fury Pro 32 MB.





Zenwalk Linux 6.2



My first candidate is Zenwalk Linux, now at 6.2, not the least because I used to run it in 2006-7 when it was the first to offer preview versions of Xfce 4.4. It always performed well and worked without a hitch on my computers. The current version comes with kernel 2.6.30.5 (same as in the Slackware 13.0 /testing repository) and at only 492.3 MB, it easily fits on any CD and is also more accessible to those with limited bandwidth or speed.



Off to the install, and this is the usual streamlined process we have come to know from Zenwalk, a few questions as to keyboard layout, partitioning and setting up your swap and mounts and off you go. There is no choice here over what to install. This is a text-based, obviously Slackware derived installer with typical Zenwalk pastel blue colours and logo in the background, and the whole affair has a nice no-nonsense feel to it.



Zenwalk is more modern than the current stable Slackware in that it ships GTK+ 2.16 (instead of 2.14) which is important for some applications like Liferea to compile against if you don't want an ancient version. It also comes with GStreamer and libdvdnav. On first boot where you proceed to the rest of the configuration I get an "Out of range" black screen problem with my new ASUS widescreen. That's right, X.Org hasn't been configured yet. Hmm, OK, reboot, go into text mode at the LILO screen which allows me to scan for supported modes, type one in, off it goes. So far so good, I'll spare you the post-configuration because that's not what it's about.



Login screen and default wallpaper looking lovely and tie in with the nice background from the installer. More importantly, I'm chuffed it detected my monitor resolution and everything looks crisp. Wicd is loaded by default and even detects my wireless access point. However, no connection yet! Looking around the networking and wireless scripts in /etc/rc.d reveals these are standard Slackware. The driver still needs to be compiled as a module and after the kernel sources are downloaded and the config.mk adjusted for native_wpa_supplicant_support compilation goes without a hitch and we are online wirelessly.



The package manager, Netpkg, seems cumbersome and awkward to use and has changed quite a bit, but it supports dependency resolution with Zenwalk's repositories. There doesn't seem to be an overview for all installed or available packages; instead, everything is lumped into groups with only the option to search for specific packages. But perhaps it's just a matter of getting used to the way Netpkg works. Overall I much prefer GSlapt and slapt-get or, of course, Synaptic and apt-get.



Zenwalk comes with Brasero disc burner, OpenOffice.org (in its Go-oo incarnation), Exaile for playing music (I personally prefer Audacious or XMMS), with Totem instead of MPlayer or Xine for movies and it uses File Roller for archives. Why use a slower GNOME tool when there is Xarchiver? Apart from that, it's a pretty standard Xfce with custom icon theme, slightly changed menu structure and lots of plugins at the ready that I usually have to compile. It comes pretty close to what I add in Slackware, including Evince, Iso Master, Htop and Catfish search tool. Even Lightning is installed in Icedove to make for a full-featured PIM. This is nice attention to detail.



Multimedia works well with GStreamer playing a couple of movies from my hard drive, but I believe Flash is not installed, and libdvdcss is not there by default either. Playing it safe, or free. Zenwalk also comes with a control center with which you can manage start-up services, firewall, and kernel modules to name but a few, but it's not on par with Mandriva's. Oddly enough, the loaded wireless module is identified as rt3070sta although it installed as rt2870sta.dat. I also had to rename the folder from 3070 to 2870 for it to work, something I had to do on all installations of Slackware with this module so far. This is more an observation and by no means Zenwalk's fault.



Zenwalk's forums are some of the friendliest I've ever used, and the fact that it has been going for a long time means there is a treasure trove of information, albeit sometimes outdated. You can usually get help within a day although occasionally you may feel ignored.







Zenwalk Linux 6.2 with the Netpkg package manager

(full image size: 438kB, screen resolution 1920x1080 pixels)



Salix OS 13.0.2a



There have been some disagreements in Zenwalk land last year and, as a result, the Salix OS project was formed, with the philosophy of staying closer to the original. The first release was Salix 13, and it's using the same kernel version as the current Slackware stable release, 2.6.29.6. I'm taking a look at its latest revision, 13.0.2a.



The 32-bit image at 540.1 MB still sits very comfortable on one CD. Salix, unlike Zenwalk, is also available for x86_64, and also provides its own repositories. The installer is basically the same as Slackware, ncurses without even a change of colour. Interestingly, I am asked whether I want a full install, basic or core. At this small size I go for full. The feeling I get immediately while watching the installation go by is that this is a repackaged Slackware 13 with a subset of packages and the latest patches, sticking as close to stable as possible.



After setting up users, Salix reboots automatically (without pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del) and the boot screen comes up with Salix's Bonsai tree logo in the background. Nice, no need to mess about this time. There's a boot entry for Windows although I don't even have it installed, but no big deal. Splash and login screen look truly awesome. Call me vain, and I usually do not go by looks but by functionality and stability, but this is nice, and it may be an important aspect when you have three distros that are so close.



Right, I'm in the 'testuser' account I created and the loveliness continues, the resolution has been set up correctly, clear and crisp. The layout is standard Xfce 4.6.1 with all standard panel plugins available, OpenOffice.org proper and overall pretty much the same selection as in Zenwalk. File Roller is also here again. However, Salix has opted for the somewhat lighter and faster Claws-Mail for email. Good choice in my book because it has better filtering capabilities for Usenet newsgroups than Thunderbird. Wicd is up again and -- I cannot believe it -- after inputting my passphrase, wireless works on the desktops, no compile necessary!



Installing from the repositories is handled by GSlapt or by slapt-get if you like command-line flexibility. One can find LimeWire here, games like chromium-bsu, statistical software like R and also VirtualBox. It seems to pull Slackware packages directly from Slackware mirrors, with Salix providing additional packages. Efficient. Even wbar and terminator that I have been struggling to find in other repositories are here. This greatly expands the prepackaged software available for Slackware, 32 and 64, as it's fully compatible. At the same time, one can still use the SlackBuild scripts and they should work on Salix too.



Multimedia support seemed non-existent as none of my video files in MPEG, AVI, WMV or MOV format played, and my MP3 collection was rather useless. That's when I discovered a shortcut in the menu to install multimedia codecs, and proceeded after reading the warning about patents. Codecs installed fine and my files started playing with GStreamer. I thought I might have to manually extract and dump the MPlayer w32codecs on the hard drive but no such thing. A visit to YouTube confirms that Flash is there too. An entry called Startup services is letting you adjust these but there seems to be no control panel like in Zenwalk. Not necessarily a bad thing.



There are shortcuts on the desktop to the Salix IRC channel and the Salix Wiki, this page also leads to the forum if interested. I connected to IRC for a while and there were about five people hanging out there so you will not be talking to yourself if experiencing a problem. Nice touch. All this was amazingly smooth and there is really no more to say at this point. If the old-style Slackware installer isn't putting you off you won't have any problems with Salix.







Salix OS 13.0.2a - desktop includes innovative artwork

(full image size: 1,087kB, screen resolution 1920x1080 pixels)



GoblinX 3.0 "g:Mini"



GoblinX g:Mini is the oldest of the three distributions tested, with the current version 3.0 released early October 2009. It is using kernel 2.6.27.6, more reminiscent of Slackware 12.2, although Slackware 13.0 was out at that time. It's a nimble download at 289.3 MB which should make it suitable for the more bandwidth constrained.



Looks-wise this seems to be the most customized of all three. It also offers Xfce 4.6.1 but in a more GNOME-like layout with the menu in the upper left and has plenty of plugins already set up in the panels, for example smart bookmarks to the GoblinX forum and home page. It's obvious it has been designed more as a live CD but can also be put on the hard drive, and comes with a plethora of small applications not seen in the other two, like an fstab editor, that you would not expect given its small size. It uses GTK+ 2.14 and generally package versions feel more outdated. This release seems stuck somewhere between Slackware 12.2 and 13.0 and is definitely more of a mix than the previous two in the roundup. The developers have followed their own tastes here and created something that stands out from the crowd.



The live installer provides a graphical environment in which you can choose the root partition, file system, desktop environment, language and init level. No other partitions can be specified at this time but will have to be added later in fstab. Then the LZM modules are uncompressed and dumped on your partition. On reboot the monitor resolution was detected and it looked good if slightly "old" somehow. Wireless was not working, neither on the desktop nor the Atheros chip on the laptop. Correction, iwconfig told it was actually detected, but apart from NDISwrapper if you have Windows drivers there is no graphical utility to set up the network information. You can, of course, enter the appropriate information into the text files or install wicd later but this can be difficult if you're out and about with only WiFi access in the first place.



The choice of software included is pretty standard, but this time with Audacious and XMMS for music, gxine for video, and AbiWord and Gnumeric are present for your office needs. Oh no, File Roller is here again too! What has Xarchiver done to them? GSlapt is here to handle your updates and new installations, and several tools to create your own modules and live remasters.



GoblinX strives to give us a completely free distribution and thus no codecs are included and no link to get them easily. There's one to install Adobe Flash in the menu but it didn't work for me, although now on wired connection. Despite GoblinX seemingly offering all the Xfce panel plugins you could possibly want, including one to control mpd and wmdock for WindowMaker applets, I'm now getting the idea that this is more trouble than it's worth and that Slackware proper is easier to set up. There is no control panel, but several tools like one for daemon control and a graphical LILO editor. The GoblinX web site feels awkward and it took me a while to locate the tiny shortcut to the forum further down the page. This being a Brazilian distro half the postings were in Portuguese.







GoblinX 3.0 "g:Mini: edition with the GSlapt package management tool

(full image size: 1,088kB, screen resolution 1920x1080 pixels)



Conclusions



I love them all, each in their own way, but the purpose was to compare and find a winner if you want an easy life at home and just something that works without much hassle, and I'm not going to cop out now. Xfce is a fast and potent environment that I believe can meet most people's needs, but it does not achieve its full potential in most distributions due to the underlying base. However in a well-done distro you won't need any other environment for your daily computing and benefit from a considerable speed gain.



Well, GoblinX seems quite a specialised niche distro that is severely lacking in some parts, probably enough not to bother with it when there are better alternatives. It seems to have been designed primarily as a live CD that can also be installed, but with shortcomings. It may be good as a base for your own Xfce-based live CD remaster after you've configured the networking, for those who don't want to go with Slax and KDE 3. If you ever should need support it will be a good thing to speak Portuguese. The developers were not afraid to create something with unique character, but this clearly does not make it appropriate for most users out there for easy day-to-day use at home or on the road.



No surprise, all three flew on the Dual-Core machine but things got more interesting on the Thinkpad and particularly on the old Duron Spitfire. Zenwalk was subjectively the most responsive and snappiest in use, while both Salix and Zenwalk only need seconds to boot even at this low end. As expected, neither had any problems with wireless on the Thinkpad as ath5k has been in the kernel for a while now. Zenwalk appeared the most elegant with its slick interface. Due to admittedly rather minor problems, it is only my second choice here, and once you get into Netpkg and have made it past the X.Org configuration, it makes for a very nice system with most multimedia pre-installed and newer versions of some libraries. It appeared the most 'cutting edge' among these three.



Zenwalk also includes Novell's enhanced version of OpenOffice.org with better integration for Microsoft formats and binary support, multimedia integration and native file chooser. This could be what you want, or why you'll shun it. Zenwalk also uses Iceweasel and Icedove, and I can recall some IMAP connection problems with GMail on Debian with Icedove. Personally I'd rather have the original, and this is why I'm not using Debian much anymore. On Zenwalk you could at least use the build script from Slackware and re-package your own Firefox instead.



However, one could also just run Salix and be done with it. Salix 13 wins my top notes for staying so close to the original, providing endless repositories and full use of all Slackware packages and scripts out there, unaltered software, an unchanged Xfce 4.6.1 menu and panel layout, out-of-the-box wireless, one-click install of multimedia plugins and codecs and beautiful artwork. If you would rather have a newer version of GTK+ you can still upgrade this from gnome.slackbuild.org. Whether you're an aspiring ex-Ubuntu or ex-Mandriva user or just want something light but with lots of possibilities, give Salix a chance. It's easy, very easy.



