Slax author's Blog (RSS)

Glad to see 32 bit Slackware version avaailable. I will try it soon on my obsolete hardware.
Thank you!

Great to see SLAX is still alive after all those years. I have not yet found the time to try this due
to reallife time constraints but I'll eventually get around to test it.

On an ad-hoc suggestion, do you know Rene? He had a linux distribution builder system in
place years ago and is still active on t2sde org. Would be kind of cool if SLAX and
T2 could join forces and integrate the best of both worlds (e. g. a general, adaptable
linux distribution toolkit for customizing everything; I remember how super-easy it was
via SLAX to customize stuff years ago already).

Hello

I'm not able to savechanges and create a ISO with the Slackware version.
Even after changing the genslaxiso to use mkisofs instead of genisoimage.

The ISO gets created, but only gets part of the changes made.
Can anyone confirm?

Thank you

The debian version will save changes but no sound. The slackware version has sound but will not save changes.

Hello!

I popped over here from DistroWatch; I thought I'd check out your distro. One thing straight away though: this blog's use of grey text on a white background is not good for the eyes (or at least for the eyes of many a person)!

Great job !
Works fine and extremely fast !
Saves works fine too,
many thanks for your job !

Sorry for totally stupid question... will be able Slax see 6TB external HDD or copy/write files on it?

It would be better to use black font, not chatgpt...

Slax 11.6.0 does not contain the "changes" folder. I had to create it manually. The persistent changes option worked fine after that. FYI, I used Linux and followed the install instructions. Hope it helps.

I hope you can develop slax that can change DE, some of my programs can't run because of default DE

Quan, have you tried to run them from your terminal? I installed Disks and Feathepad and had to run them from the terminal because they don't show up on my desktop.

It is possible to change DE by yourself:
- install Slax on a pendrive;
- delete 03-desktop.sb , 04-apps.sb and 05-chromium.sb files in modules folder;
- boot Slax connected to wired network;
- open terminal and install a DE you like (with apt for Debian based Slax);
- execute "savechanges 03-mycustomdesktop.sb";
- copy the generated 03-mycustomdesktop.sb file to the modules folder;
- reboot.
It is not sure this will work with any DE; in the past I tried successfully with Mate.

There is also an obsolete version of Slax with Trinity DE (KDE 3.5 based DE) here:
mirror.ppa.trinitydesktop.org/trinity/cdimages/slax/

A reminder: there's a Telegram channel for talks about Slax:

t.me/slaxlinux

It is unofficial and then support is limited, but it can be useful for announcements and collaborative hints.
Bye!

I have an issue; on a PC with EFI SecureBoot I can't use Slax. The problem seems related to not signed kernel. On the same PC I can run distributions with official Debian kernel.
Is it possible to have signed kernel in Slax?

I am trying to install slax on a mac computer. when I run bootinst.sh I get the following error:
./bootinst.sh: line 125: ./extlinux.x64: cannot execute binary file
Error installing boot loader.

EFI not boot on debian 64. MD5 download section missed.

A problem that has arisen when trying Slax is that it does not allow me to update the repositories, I want to use Slax since the truth is that I have seen that the performance is better than other distros that I have tried but that problem prevents me from doing so

I wonder if there are people here who use this distribution as their primary system? Or do you use it as an emergency flash drive?

I've used Slax as my primary system since 5.0.x so for more than a decade. I'm kind of atypical as far as the way I use it, I think. I have never used the changes feature, because the reason I wanted a live distro was to be able to easily boot back to a known baseline. I build the individual bundles I need separately and save them to a location on my hard disk. I boot Slax always fresh and then when booted and connected to the internet, I run a script to activate the bundles I use every day, as well as patch/tweak some config files to my liking. I leave it running for weeks or months at a time. For the lesser used bundles, I just activate them as needed from the command line. When a new release comes out, I recreate the bundles to a different directory at least initially for testing, as well as adjust my load and patch script as necessary.

Pat

There are such people =) that's great, it's interesting how you use this distribution. Question well there are times when you need to save the current state of the system for something, for example to save the history in the browser or something else or you always start from scratch ?
Did you automate your work on saving and creating new slax packages?
Why don't you like other distributions? How long have you been using linux in your daily work?

Ah yes, the browser state is all that I save. I should have mentioned that. I use firefox but the same should apply to other browsers. Long ago I started firefox, then exited it. Then I moved the /root/.mozilla directory to my hard disk (which is of course automatically mounted by Slax at bootup) as /media/sda2/linux/root_.mozilla. Now one of the steps the script I run after bootup does is:

ln -s /media/sda2/linux/root_.mozilla ~/.mozilla

Now when I start firefox, it's just as I left it. I do back this directory up now and then, and always before trying a new version of Slax (which will usually require a new version of firefox). If you use a new version of firefox, it will sometimes modify your .mozilla files so that they will no longer work, if you need to go back to the old version. Tar is your friend in that case, to save off your directory first.

For automating creating new packages, I use the apt2sb script. Search the slax google group for that. I use the Debian version of Slax and this apt2sb script builds the packages in a chroot environment with just the base Slax bundles loaded. So the new bundle (e.g. firefox-esr) has all the dependencies within it and does not depend on whatever other non-Slax bundles you might have had already loaded.

Other distributions? It's not that I don't like them. I was just looking for a live distribution all those years ago, found Slax and stuck with it. I was getting frustrated with Windows at the time because of bloat and slowness from all the necessary anti virus and other anti-malware. I wanted something that I could not really have to worry about. If something went wrong, poof, I just rebooted from my CD. Try to corrupt that, malware. I also really liked the modularity of Slax. I also use the toram boot option. This loads the small Slax distro to memory for speed, but my own bundles are activated from hard disk once the system is up. These other "secondary" bundles are thus available through Tomas' aufs magic but do not take up extra memory in my old laptop.

Using Linux in my daily work? Well, I was a Solaris system admin in a large production environment for 20 years so that may have influenced me a bit. :) They are not the same, but similar enough.

Take care,

Pat

I love slax for its size. it's perfect for VM's. Remind me of damn small linux and my heart
was filled with joy to see Slax is still alive.

With "toram" parameter,
What package I have to install to have a drive icon present in desktop ?
how can I do to have a drive icon in desktop ?

I've installed (with toram parameter) "gvfs-backend" package, and start them manually ; but nothing appear in desktop !

Help !