14

November
2017

Applications included in Slax

I am finishing last few bits of the next gen Slax release. I think the biggest difference for the end user will be lack of applications. People were probably used to a rich collection of apps in Slax, including GUI file manager, video player, instant messaging program, card games, remote desktop app, more card games, ... :-) None of this will be included in the next Slax release. I may prepare, in the future, a bigger and more feature rich version, but for now, i am sticking with the only necessary software: xterm and web browser (chromium).

There is also leafpad as text editor and qalculate as a calculator, those apps were like 200KB in total, so I added them. But other than that, only browser and terminal. I believe that everything (and I mean really EVERYTHING) is moving to the web. In most cases, web browser is the only software you need nowadays for various tasks. Spreadsheeds? online. Video player? Online. And thanks to apt-get (now included in Slax), most of the available software is online as well.

So for now, four icons will be fully sufficient.

User comments
Helder Max 2017-11-16 01:42

Make it as small as possible... and build something on top of that.
Let's see were it goes from there.
Thank you again Tomas.

shevy 2017-11-16 11:56

> I believe that everything (and I mean really EVERYTHING) is moving
> to the web. In most cases, web browser is the only software you
> need nowadays for various tasks.

Simple is ok. However had, I noticed that my own usage pattern of
software changed over the years.

I give you a short list of what I myself use:

- Editor: a fork of bluefish version 1. That fork mostly just removed
some stuff in bluefish v1 rather than add anything. It's a bit like
linus using microemacs ... but not even as sophisticated at that. :)
- Multimedia: I use mpv these days. It's like "mplayer light".
- Browser. This is difficult. I am using an old firefox version and can
not use any new version due to the new pulseaudio requirement. I
may use palemoon in the long run.
- KDE konsole: I can not live without kde konsole. I don't care about
the rest of KDE, but konsole is the terminal I use.
- Libreoffice: I think it's fine, much better than openoffice nowadays.
- Ruby: I use ruby for everything so I need it. But I guess not that
many other people use ruby. :D

I guess you are right when you say that people can get away with
using online only stuff but I am a desktop person still. I think the
above covers about ... 98% or so of my use case.

I could add a .pdf viewer perhaps but firefox allows me to view
pdf files so evince or okular are indeed not as important anymore
these days.

I think the old killer feature of slax was the easy ability that people
could have to "componentize" (well I mean, to put stuff into modules)
their own add-ons and modifications. While I understand that "the
cloud" and other remote ways to handle things, I liked that I could
simply just burn things onto a CD/DVD and have them all readily
available. But as Helder Max wrote, I agree - make it small, simple,
keep it simple, and build ... a pyramid on top of it! :D

Killy 2017-11-16 14:36

My main usecase for Slax in the past:
Put some packages and few required files (zero effort distro customization), copy to USB sticks, then use them on different PCs OFFLINE. Another good thing is that Slax was really stable and worked fine on any hardware possible.

If the low effort customization and cloning is still a thing, I don't mind the out-or-the-box software selection. This is what makes Slax to stand out for me and not the wallpaper.

Brice-symphorien Gnoboa 2017-11-17 13:00

Is slax a good platform for developers?

walt 2017-11-25 04:15

I use Slax long time, since version 6.1.2 was really ashamed, when forum closed and no way to get any help, as well all old lzm modules was trashed.
So I used both old 6 and 7 ver.
I just downloaded the new one and really confused!
No any file manager, no any guide about how to install modules. I tried modules .Sb (opera and few another) by place in "module" folder but nothing works!
I can't use much terminal, I need simply to click on the icon to run the program! so I need NORMAL desktop, not empty space!
I no Idea How to install needed modules, how to make a module with saved changes like in old ver. 6 slax,
I never found how do it in ver. 7, but at least I know how to add a module in there. 7(actually they're not many)
Now, with the new version I read that I can use many modules somehow, but no any explanation where to get it and HOW to install!!!
Is anywhere I can find this info?

Владислав Прокопенко 2017-11-29 19:42

Получается я не могу установить какие либо модули в Slax ?

Marcelo 2017-12-15 13:38

I miss a file manager! :(

ihateminimalism 2022-09-12 03:55

I'd love this distro if it wasn't so awfully, disgustingly minimalistic, even puppy linux has many apps out of the box, this distro would've ben better if it came in the 90s, only upside, it uses apt instead of weird package managers that only complicate things like puppy, abd looks nice, other than that nope... If only puppy used apt or the slack package manager...

B.h 2023-01-26 23:45

i did slackpkg install settings but nether of the apps worked