Zenwalk Beta Version 4.6 Was Released

Zenwalk has been working hard since their latest Live 4.4.1 release and now they proudly announce the latest beta version of Zenwalk 4.6, Red Pill. Among the improvements and upgrades brought to this new version, there are also many bug-fixes made in different fields, such as the CD/DVD tools or the print system. The kernel is said to be faster than the previous one and the native suspend should work more correctly and faster, as suspend2 has been removed.

Highlights:

- kernel 2.6.21, with kvm support
- new toolchain featuring new glibc and gcc, which means that most of the packages were rebuilt
- XFCE 4.4.1 with nre plugins, and system notifications
- Firefox 2.0.0.3, Thunderbird 2.0.0.0
- improvements in the base system and admin tools

As the older installer was pretty heavy, the developers thought of simplifying it, and it seems they've eventually managed to do it. Among other improvements, I could also count faster boot times, resulted from a highly optimized init system. This release also includes improvements of the kernel side, counting headers and config scripts already taken in and configured. A notification daemon has been added, and thus the system will now alert you about events such as CD/DVD plugs and USB keys status. The XFCE desktop environment enjoys now a new packaging layout in order to better manage the applications and libraries set it contains. A kernel update is foreseen before the final release of 4.6 will be available, but till then, Zenwalk developers expect beta testers feedback on Red Pill in order to find and solve any other bugs or malfunctions.

Zenwalk Linux is the new name for the older Minislack Linux project. Based on Slackware, Zenwalk is wanted to be a rather simple, yet robust distribution meeting all the criteria any good and complete desktop environment should, in the limits of a small size distribution that fits on a single CD.