Zenwalk Linux 5.2 XFCE on a Dell Dimension L866r

Well to get things started here on wordpress I might as well post these notes that I wrote that cover the key points necessary to install Zenwalk Linux on a Dell Dimension L866r (PIII-866, 382mb PC133).  I wish I had these notes when I was attempting this setup, as it would have saved me many hours of trolling through the web and a frustrating amount of trial and error..

I worked on this system for a Windows-user friend of mine and, after wiping their virii infected Windows ME install, my primary objective was to find the most user-friendly, fastest distro with the best Flash player performance.  This isn’t an easy feat due to the sorry state of Adobe’s one-man Flash for linux project – he’s doing a great job, but seriously, Adobe should get their priorities straight, especially with the increasing low-end linux based netbooks that are flooding the market.  So anyway, I tried several distros of linux on this system and found Zenwalk using XFCE desktop manager to be without a doubt the best, speediest, user-friendly desktop linux – with the smoothest full-screen Flash video playback.

Here’s my cheatsheet:

Dell Dimension L866r w/Dreamwalk Linux 5.2 xfce

1. Install Zenwalk
2. > netpkg upgrade
3. Download Win98 drivers for Wireless RTL8185 (LINK)
4. Install Windows Driver using Ndiswrapper (LINK): > Ndiswrapper -i driverfilenamehere.inf
5. Make sure driver shows up: > Ndiswrapper -l
6. > Ndiswrapper -m
7. > Depmod -a
8. > Modprobe ndiswrapper
9. Wireless Settings: DHCP, Wep hex ##########

I ran into an annoying issue where the desktop would show up at the correct resolution but when you booted and hit the GDM login screen the resolution was too high and the screen would pan around when you moved the mouse to the screen edge..  The desired resolution was 1024×768.  The solution was:

To fix XFCE GDM login screen panning:
Edit /etc/Xorg.conf ; modes:
Delete 1280×1024 (or every resolution that is higher than your desired resolution)

Then there was an annoying bug that caused XFCE to restart every time the xterm terminal was launched…

To stop xterm terminal from restarting XFCE (intel video issue):
XFCE desktop settings; disable compositor

Note that the following section might nolonger be necessary…this was necessary using the Flash player 10 beta and they probably fixed it by now.  Of course, just in case you run into this problem:

To improve flash player performance by installing Flash player 10 – to make it work it’s necessary to:
> ln -s libcurl.so.4 libcurl.so.3
Personal preference:  Install gphoto to replace gkview

canon sd1000 works!

NOTE FOR PUPPY LINUX:
To get rtl8185 wireless working:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=144470#144470

And that’s it, hope this information can help someone out!  Zenwalk Linux ran beautifully without any problems after this setup.  Amazingly the wireless worked far better in zenwalk than it did in Windows!  My friend recently got a new Dell P4 3ghz system and actually missed her old Zenwalk 866mhz computer.  I guess Windows XP immediately began giving her troubles haha..

Well, I fixed that computer up too..  But that story I’ll post next time