SLAX 7.0: The Comeback

It was the operating system I was waiting for a long time, simply because I felt nostalgic about it.

SLAX

SLAX 6 was (practically) the first Linux operating system I tried. It was the subject of the first review I wrote. Unfortunately, Tomas M, the author of SLAX, abandoned the project after version 6 was released. That is why branches of SLAX, like Porteus, sprang up.

After all this time, Tomas M. has returned to the business. The new version of his famous operating system, SLAX 7.0, was released in the middle of December 2012. I downloaded that release soon after, but, unfortunately, it took a significant amount of time before I had a chance to try the OS and to write the review. While I was doing it, SLAX went through several releases, and SLAX 7.0.4 was released not so long ago. It fixed some issues I noticed, but more about that later.

The image size of SLAX 7.0 is notably small. Depending on the language, it weighs between 210 and 220 Mb. Yes, you read it right. The full operating system weighs less than quarter of gigabyte! You can download each language version as an ISO for CD, or as a ZIP file for USB stick. The USB version also includes some other files needed to "burn" the image to the live USB itself.

I downloaded the ZIP file, unpacked it in my Xubuntu installation and clicked on the .sh file.

SalixOS: older brother of SLAX

My second advent into world of Linux happened somewhere in September 2010. It was so much unusual experience for me that I decided to put my thoughts and feeling into this blog. What was in the beginning? No, it was not Word. It was SLAX.
SLAX OS is pocket oriented Linux distribution based on Slackware. That's why my first post in this blog is named "How to put a system in a pocket". SLAX itself is very user-friendly and easy for beginners. I must admit, I was lucky enough to start from SLAX.
But today I will not talk about SLAX. And I will not talk about Slackware. I will talk about older brother of SLAX - Salix OS.

Salix OS is not intended to be "pocket size" OS. But, as I  will tell you in next few paragraphs, it can be put into the pocket.
But first of all, let me introduce Salix OS. It is Linux distribution based on Slackware and intended to be "simple, fast and easy to use". It is released in 4 options: KDE, XFCE, LXDE and Fluxbox. I am great fan of KDE, but because I am currently interested in replacement for Linux Mint XFCE, my choice this time was for XFCE edition.
Unfortunately, Live version of Salix XFCE is only available for version 13.1.2 (released in November 2010), whereas installation version has been already upgraded to 13.37 (released in May 2011). Did this stop me? Of course not! So, ISO image of Salix OS 13.1.2 XFCE is downloaded and ready to use.
What is surprisingly interesting, process of creation of Live USB is described in Salix Startup Guide. All you need to do is to copy files from ISO into USB root folder and run a script. Where have I seen similar before? Yes, it is the same approach as SLAX uses. Unfortunately, this process did not work for me, because Live USB creator script requires 63 sectors for MBR and my USB stick only had 62.
No problem, Live CD is still an option and CD-RW was burnt using same ISO image.
CD-RW is in the optical drive of my Compaq C300 laptop. Reboot. Choose to boot from CD. Let's go!

3-in-1: How 3 Old Friends Can Be Found In Same Place

Can you ever expect that three of your oldest friends which belong to different companies can be found in the same place? Difficult to imagine, isn't is? It's like accidentally finding your best school friend and your best colleague in your favorite pub just across the road from your home. Dream!
Same happened to me recently.
My first blog post back in October 2010 was about SLAX system. SLAX is like first love: you remember it forever.

Hey, can anybody still claim he does not know answers for Contest questions?

Post about SLAX was soon followed by post about Puppy. I felt in love with Puppy from the first sight. It's a pity I had to remove it from my HDD to replace with Debian Squeeze.
SLAX is based on Slackware.
Puppy (at least v.5.1.1) is based on Ubuntu Lucid Lynx.
They are definitely from different companies.
What do they have in common? They both can wear same clothes: KDE 3, Trinity.
Trinity is default Desktop Environment in SLAX. As for Puppy, Trinity was used in Puppy's additional package which I wrote about here. Actually Trinity is my third old friend. I wrote recently that I prefer KDE to GNOME, and that love started from KDE3 in SLAX.

And now imaging how I was surprised when I told there is Linux Operating System which combines all three! This is Puppy SLAX remix.
It was announced on the forum post. Disk image weights less than 300 Mb, but you still need to spend about an hour to download it even on high speed Internet connection because sending server limits downloading speed to about 100Kb/sec.
Anyway, image is downloaded and burnt to CD-RW. It's time to reboot. Let's go!

DarkDuck in Quadro Boot

I tried few dozens of different Linux distributives already and wrote my notes about them in this blog. You can see them listed on the right column of the page in Labels section. And recently several people asked me same question. So...

• How many Linuxes I do actually have installed on my computer? 

Here is my answer.

My Compaq C300 laptop is quadro-boot. 

Yes, like this Quadro Boot which you see on your right.

• Which systems do I have?

1. Windows XP. It came pre-installed on this laptop. And I reinstalled it from backup CDs when original 40Gb HDD failed and I had to replace it with new 500Gb one. I boot it from time to time, because of some specific applications which I use rarely and don't want to install in any of my Linuxes.
2. Ubuntu. This is first "serious" Linux on my laptop. I had frugal "install" of SLAX before, but then it was replaced. It was originally 10.04 LTS version, which I later upgraded to 10.10.
3. Kubuntu. This is second "serious" Linux. It was installed immediately after Ubuntu. In fact, my GRUB2 is managed from Kubuntu. Same as Ubuntu: original 10.04 was upgraded to 10.10.
4. Debian Squeeze. This OS was installed from second attempt when first failed. Previously I kept Puppy 5.1.1 on that partition, but decided to move it away for the sake of Debian testing. 

• How long will Debian OS live here? 

I don't know yet. I have plans to test new release of OS which was just released (guess which one?) If they have working Live version (and I think they have), then Debian will stay for some time. Otherwise it will be replaced with something new.

Although, I have no plans to replace Ubuntu or Kubuntu with something else at this point of time.

• Why do I have Ubuntu and Kubuntu installed side-by-side when I can have GNOME and KDE on one system and select Desktop Environment during boot?

My answer is that I want "vanilla" OS. Both GNOME and KDE have lots of their own functionality and DE-dependent applications. Having both of them in one system will mess up my understanding what is KDE and what is GNOME.

• Which of those 3 Linuxes do I prefer more?

Kubuntu. Because of KDE.

• Why KDE?

I don't know... Once I sat down and decided to put all the pros and contras of KDE and GNOME in one list. Result was quite strange... Let me think about them a little, and stay tuned... I will announce it soon

In the meantime, if you want to get any Linux distro, which I have on installed on my laptop, you can Buy Linux CDs from the dedicated web page. There are actually much more than 3 distros I have listed above.

And how many systems do you have installed? What is your preference for them? Share it!

Did Alexandre Dumas Use Linux?

Porteus system is relatively new system on the Linux sky.
It came to light when developer of SLAX, Tomas M. gave up the project. Even before that, there was a fork called "SLAX remix". Now it is named Porteus.
The name sends us to two facts.

• Portability. Porteus, as well as SLAX, is intended to be portable system. The one you carry with yourself in your pocket and can use wherever you get access to computer.
• Alexandre Dumas. If you read The Three Musketeers, or even if you have nor done this yet, you must know name of the character Porthos. He is very powerful and friendly, even though not always quick.

Does the name of this Linux follow the Dumas idea? How good was Dumas in his predictions? Let's see...
Distributive of Porteus Linux is very light. It weights under 300 MB. You can either burn it to CD, or extract files from .iso image and copy them to your USB drive. Like in SLAX, there are 2 files in the distributive which can make your USB bootable: one for Windows users and one for Linux. I found a small issue there, because Linux-oriented file (.sh) is not marked as executable, and I could not make it executable. Neither chmod nor Midnight Commander options helped. Anyway, I have Windows XP for some reasons, so .bat file was used. Finally I got bootable USB drive with Porteus system in it.
Reboot. Choose to boot from USB. Let's go!

When Old Is Better Than New, or Comparing Two Ages of Brothers

My first acquittance with Linux happened to be with Slackware-based pocket distributive of SLAX. My first blog posts, then written in Russian and then translated, were written about SLAX.

SLAX was the only slackware-based distro I have tried until recent. And then my way crossed Nimblex.

When you get to Nimblex site, you can easily tell that Nimblex is a brother of SLAX. Same multi-language web page, same "customize your..." section, same menu points. Of course, design is different but that is just a different shirts for brothers.
Download section contains links to Nimblex 2008. CD image which weights just under 200Mb. It is burnt to CD-RW. Reboot. Choose to boot from CD-RW. Let's go!

3 reasons to drop penguin and no reasons to pick up another

SLAX

I’ve written a few words about SLAX disappointments earlier.
1) First issue was not so significant for me. This is inability to work properly with Russian letters in file names on NTFS-partition and a mapped network drive at the same time.
2) The second, more serious, is instability of SLAX file system.

How to put a system in a pocket?

I wanted to introduce myself to Linux for a long time.
Back in a year 1999 I downloaded the Linux distribution (imagine the amount of CD to download via dial-up connection!), and I bought yet another disk with Linux. I even managed to install it on my computer then. All the "acquaintance" ended at the doorstep of terminal mode. I failed to launch even a slight semblance of a graphical interface. Linux only found keyboard and display from the whole range of devices I had. Mouse and, moreover, an external modem were out of the question. Of course, once upon a time I worked with DOS and Norton Commander, but still the mentality of late 90s have already been solidly busy with Win'95. So, first acquaintance failed.