27 replies to this topic

[alisou]

Hi,
I have started this new project. The goal is same of EeeOS. ZenEee is designed to be a minimalistic custom Zenwalk-core distribution ( light-core-base, xorg, fluxbox only). The users of ZenEee will can configure and build their own system with the netpkg tool (aka apt-get from Debian). The official forum (in french) is here. For english user, you can use this section for your question and answer.

Thanks!
alisou, :-)

[vvlist]

Oh yeah! I'm excited about this! IMO Zenwalk is put together better than Xubuntu. If anyone is enjoying eeeXubuntu, they may want to try out Zenwalk on a spare computer. It's nice. Zenwalk uses the "one program per task" ideology, which I am a fan of. Check it out.

Edited by vvlist, 29 December 2007 - 02:37 AM.

[hrsetrdr]

I just put Zenwalk on an older desktop recently, love it alot! I was planning to install Arch on the eee, but I might opt for Zenwalk first, instead.

[kadath]

I'd be interested in using an Eee-focused Zenwalk distro. Zenwalk is much lighter than Xubuntu, although a little less user-friendly for new users. If ZenEee can get all of the Eee's hardware working out-of-the-box, that would be great for both new users and people already familiar with Linux!

[rayburn]

Great news, I have used Zenwalk in the past and loved it.

Thanks Alisou.

[rozojc]

I am currently using Zenwalk on my EEE. I just installed it today, and managed to get Wifi and sound working (none of which worked out of the box)... ACPI is screwed up, function keys don't work, and Zen is taking an awful long time to boot since I used MadWifi patch for the WiFi card...

I'm getting frustrated, if someone like you with more experience manages to make a fully working Zenwalk for the EEE, it would be great.

[hrsetrdr]

Quote

I am currently using Zenwalk on my EEE. I just installed it today, and managed to get Wifi and sound working (none of which worked out of the box)... ACPI is screwed up, function keys don't work, and Zen is taking an awful long time to boot since I used MadWifi patch for the WiFi card...

I'm getting frustrated, if someone like you with more experience manages to make a fully working Zenwalk for the EEE, it would be great.

Are you using Zenwalk 4.8 or 5.0? Is it custom, or the desktop version?

[rozojc]

I'm using 5.0, desktop version, I don't want to multi post, you can read my progress in:
http://support.zenwa...?topic=11201.30

Basically I installed 5.0, applied the MadWifi patch, and had to create a file under /etc/modprobe.d in order to get Wifi and Sound working...

[hrsetrdr]

I tried my 4.8 desktop image on my eee, it errored out like there wasn't sufficient RAM to load to...pretty strange. I'll download 5.0 and see what happens.

[alisou]

Hi,

«ZenEee-USB Beta1» is now installed on a 1GB usb key and I can start the eeepc. ZenEee is Zenwalk-Core-light 4.8 + Xorg + Fluxbox. The kernel is not optimized for eeepc. The kernel has not yet been recompiled. This is the reason why the beta1 is not available to the public. I work on beta2. The changes are as follows:

* Deleting fluxbox, adding xfce
* Recompiling the kernel with the eth0 driver
* Adding the windows driver for the wireless card
* Adding Iceweasel for web surfing

Beta2 version will be available in sharing.
An howto for install on usb stick will be available.

I will go see this thread on the Zenwalk forum. Thank for this link rozojc.
Also i give you this link for French ZenEee forum on Zenwalk.fr

Greetings!
alisou

Edited by alisou, 31 December 2007 - 03:36 PM.

[rozojc]

Well, I'm done with this... I was so excited about using Zenwalk on my EEE... It looks great and all.


However, there are too many things not working for me to continue wrestling with this, I will just go for eeeBuntu (not eeeXubuntu) for the moment, and wait if someone with more knowledge than me makes a particular Zenwalk version for the EEE...

[rozojc]

Quote

Hi,

«ZenEee-USB Beta1» is now installed on a 1GB usb key and I can start the eeepc. ZenEee is Zenwalk-Core-light 4.8 + Xorg + Fluxbox. The kernel is not optimized for eeepc. The kernel has not yet been recompiled. This is the reason why the beta1 is not available to the public. I work on beta2. The changes are as follows:

* Deleting fluxbox, adding xfce
* Recompiling the kernel with the eth0 driver
* Adding the windows driver for the wireless card
* Adding Iceweasel for web surfing

Beta2 version will be available in sharing.
An howto for install on usb stick will be available.

I will go see this thread on the Zenwalk forum. Thank for this link rozojc.
Also i give you this link for French ZenEee forum on Zenwalk.fr

Greetings!
alisou

Alisou, you are doing what I would like to see, however:

1. Why use the Windows driver? Asus already released a patch for MadWifi, and I did try it successfully (except for the increased booting time). Using ndiswrapper would increase CPU usage, and there are native Linux drivers...
2. WHy not base it on Zen 5.0? That way it will last a little longer before it is outdated.
3. If you could also apply ASUSs ACPI patch,it would be great as you could make Function keys, etc. work.
4. The other thing that did not work in my attempt was webcam, take a look at that.
5. Keep us posted!

[alisou]

Hi,

@rozojc
I make the distro gradually because many things are new to me. So the final version will be as follows:
* Light Zenwalk-core 4.8 + Xorg + Xfce
* Optimized kernel for eeepc (wireless, Lan, webcan, acpi drivers)
* Some applications (Icewaesel, Pidgin, ???)

I don't use Zenwalk 5.0 Beta version. For the moment, i want to use stable version of Zenwalk.

Voilà!

Quote

rozojc write:
Keep us posted!

Yes!

[vvlist]

I'm with alisou on this. Use the stable version for now. But I think using ndiswrapper isn't a good idea, especially if there's a native Linux patch. I'm so excited for this. ZenWalk is great, and IMO it's faster than Xubuntu. Keep up the good work.

[alisou]

Hi,
Here are the results obtained:

* Zenwalk-Core-light 4.8, kernel 2-6-22-9
* Xorg, Slim
* Fluxbox& Rox for WM
* Iceweasel, Leafpad
* LAN with compiled atl2 driver
* WLAN with compiled madwifi-ng driver + wpa_supplicant
* bootable USB key with grub

I am doing a new installation of Zenwalk
I will install on usb key
I will do an disk image for sharing (Beta2 version)

Voilà!
alisou, :)

Edited by alisou, 05 January 2008 - 11:01 AM.

[rozojc]

Hi,

Did you also include ACPI drivers provided by ASUS? What things work and which dont work out of the box?

[alisou]

Hi,
Asus-acpi driver and webcam driver will not included in the Beta2 release, only on Beta3 release.
a+, alisou, :-)

[vvlist]

sounds great, I'll give it a try when you release it :)

[snozle]

I'm currently usng eeeXubuntu but I'm intrigued with Zenwalk and would like to install it on my SDHC card to test for now. It seems that the beta2 was released some time ago and I was wondering when beta3 is expected. I think I would like to wait for ACPI and XFCE.

Keep up the great work, I'm looking forward to trying Zenwalk.

[skeerly]

I'm using the master boot record script from alisou's usb install how-to, http://users.zenwalk...m_usb-howto.txt and getting "26: Syntax error: Bad substitution." I wonder if someone knows what the problem is? I copied the syslink files from Xubuntu and all the permissions are root.