Power of Zen: Zenwalk 6.0 with OpenOffice 3.0.1 and Xfce 4.6

"This release comes with the biggest changelog in the history of the project to offer many new features and optimizations," according to the Zenwalk 6.0 release statement. The release is based on Slackware and uses Xfce as its standard desktop.

Zenwalk 6.0 includes the new Xfce desktop version 4.6 and is based on Kernel 2.6.28.7, which, thanks to the integrated Gspca module, supports many webcams out of the box (there having been problems with the drivers under openSUSE 11.1). Another big improvement is that the project separated itself from GNOME Office and substituted a sleek version of an OpenOffice variant instead. The developers divided OpenOffice 3.0.1 into two parts: the basic package brings Writer, Calc, Impress and Draw and the second package, accessible via netpkg, contains Math, the Darabase database system and Java support.

On the multimedia side, the Totem movie player replaces MPlayer, which is nevertheless still included in the repository. Musical accompaniment is provided by the sleek yet function-rich Exaile jukebox stream player. The release uses Wicd instead of Network Manager as the network configuration tool, and the new Zenpanel provides additional wireless. Thanks to optimized init scripts and a real-time I/O scheduler, Zenwalk 6.0 boots faster then ever. Even installation should be simplified; the claim is "20 minutes on any modern computer." Putting the system into suspend/hibernate should be easier due to an improved power manager.

A download of the release is available here.