Zenwalk aims to be a vanilla Slackware system

Feb 8, 2016 01:03 GMT  ·  By

The Slackware-based Zenwalk 8.0 Linux operating system entered development just two weeks ago, when the development team announced the release of the first Beta build.

On February 7, they were happy to inform users that a second Beta release is available for download and testing. This is a small build that only implements support for creating unprivileged user accounts during the initial setup of the distribution, prior to the first X11 login, via a graphical user interface.

This makes it much easier for newcomers to create as many user accounts as they want or need before logging into the Zenwalk 8.0 operating system, and it's also a handy tool for experienced users, as they don't need to switch to a tty2 to create the users accounts.

Zenwalk 8.0 Beta 2 now ready for testing

That's pretty much it for this second Beta build of the upcoming Zenwalk 8.0 Linux operating system. In the rest of the announcement, the developers brag about the fact that the distribution aims to be and is a vanilla Slackware system that's much easier to set up than the upstream OS. Add to this the fact that you can even transform a regular Slackware installation into Zenwalk by installing a set of packages from the "z" series.

"Also, some reviews let me think that I have to clear something about the distribution: Zenwalk is and wants to be a vanilla Slackware system with very few modifications at system level," developers explained. "Zenwalk is not very much easier to install than Slackware, just easier to setup at desktop level (can save you hours, maybe days for some)."

Zenwalk 8.0 Beta 2 is now available for download, and you can take it for a spin if you want to help the developers discover and fix bugs. Just please try to keep in mind that it's a pre-release version, not suitable for deployment in production environments where stability is of the essence.