Zenwalk Linux 6.2 on the Acer Aspire One netbook

OK, so running Zenwalk and various other distributions of Linux running on the Aspire One is nothing new, after all, many of them originally came with some flavor of Linux. I've tried several of them, but it's been forever since I had my favorite desktop distro Zenwalk on it.

Installation was a breeze, but there were a few tweaks needed to get this distro running smoothly on the Aspire One, but it's worth it if you're a fan of Zen.

It seems as though the pciehp module is no longer available with this kernel, so you may find you have trouble getting your card readers to work.

I found this works a treat, open a terminal, su to root, and vim /etc/lilo.conf, then find the stanza containing your Zenwalk configuration, and add the highlighted bit as below... the append line;

 # Linux bootable partition config begins
  image = /boot/vmlinuz
  root = /dev/sda6
  label = Zenwalk
  initrd = /boot/initrd.splash
  append = "pciehp.pciehp_force=1"
  read-only
 # Linux bootable partition config ends

Save it, issue the lilo command, and then on the next reboot hopefully it will recognize your SD Cards on hotplug... this works on my Aspire One AOA-150, 8.9", on the left & right hand slots. Right hand SD Slot appears to only work if you have the card inserted on boot.

An additional thing the default Zen install seems to have left out was the touch pad double-tap click and horizontal scrolling. This one is an easy enough fix as well, edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf, find the Section that contains your touchpad device, and add the highlighted bits below;

Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier    "Pad1" 
        Driver        "synaptics" 
        Option           "Protocol" "auto-dev" 
        Option           "Device" "/dev/tp1" 
        Option        "LeftEdge"      "1700" 
        Option        "RightEdge"     "5300" 
        Option        "TopEdge"       "1700" 
        Option        "BottomEdge"    "4200" 
        Option        "FingerLow"     "25" 
        Option        "FingerHigh"    "30" 
        Option        "MaxTapTime"    "180" 
        Option        "MaxTapMove"    "220" 
        Option        "VertScrollDelta" "100" 
        Option        "MinSpeed"      "0.09" 
        Option        "MaxSpeed"      "0.18" 
        Option        "AccelFactor"   "0.0015" 
        Option        "SHMConfig"     "on" 
        Option        "TapButton1" "1"
        Option        "TapButton2" "3"
        Option        "HorizTwoFingerScroll" "on"
EndSection

Another annoyance was the XFCE places plugin that ships with Zenwalk 6.2 doesn't change icon size with gtk-icon-sizes hint. This bug was fixed some time ago, so simply download the latest places plugin package, extract the contents, cd into the directory, then build the package;

./configure
make
make install

That should do it, now add the places plugin to your panel and now it should follow GTK menu icon size.

While I love it and have been using it since the mini-slack days, it's probably not a distro I would recommend to people new to Linux, but if you're comfortable tinkering around, then give it a shot. m4xr8d's tutorial is a great starting point for those of you who need a little extra help. I used his function key mappings, and they work perfectly.

And of course, the gratuitous screenshots of my Zenwalk desktop on the Aspire One.

Zenwalk Desktop #1

Zenwalk Desktop #2

Zenwalk Desktop #3

Zenwalk Desktop #4