SliTaz


SliTaz GNU/Linux is a lightweight Linux distribution, community-based, suitable for use on older hardware and as a Live CD or Live USB. SliTaz stands for "Simple, Light, Incredible, Temporary Autonomous Zone" according to the boot screen.

Features

SliTaz uses the Openbox window manager.
Additional packages are added using a program called "TazPanel". This is due to the specific package format that SliTaz uses. It can still use packages from the more popular distribution though, as Debian, by means of first carrying out a conversion of these different packages.
By default, SliTaz offers no persistence, however if the user wishes. The choice of the filesystem/bootloader used with slitaz is then of importance however; persistence being only available with ext2 and ext3 filesystems and the syslinux or extlinux boot loader.
Another useful tool is TazLiTo, with which users can create their own LiveCD based on selected packages or even based upon the current system state.

System requirements

SliTaz GNU/Linux is supported on all machines based on the i486 or x86 Intel compatible processors. The Live CD has four variants of SliTaz, requiring from 192 MB of RAM for the Core system to 48 MB for a text mode and X Window System.
SliTaz can even run in 24 MB of RAM and a little swap memory. SliTaz can be booted from a Live CD, Live USB, floppy disk, or a local area network, or can be installed, requiring approximately 80 MB of hard disk space.

TazLiTo

TazLito is the LiveCD creation utility in SliTaz GNU/Linux.

Common Operations

Check Root

Check to ensure UID is zero.

Check Root File System

Looks for the existence of an etc. directory in the root file system directory. N.B., this does not do any further checking to ensure anything is actually in the directory. However, if TazLito is used for all LiveCD creation operations the directories existence implies it is populated properly.

Verify Root CD

Looks for the existence of a boot directory in the root CD directory. N.B., this does not do any further checking to ensure anything is actually in the directory. However, if TazLito is used for all LiveCD creation operations the directories existence implies it is populated properly.

Generate initramfs

  1. Executes scripts for packages altering the root file system
  2. Hard links redundant files in the root filesystem to save space
  3. Runs cpio to create the initramfs, compressing with lzma or gzip

    Release history

As with any Linux distribution, the route of development of SliTaz is mainly determined by the coders themselves. For SliTaz 5, some major changes seem to be the swapping of systemd by BusyBox's init and udev, hence avoiding safety risks, and more implementation of Qt. An implementation of x64 and ARM architectures are currently under development.

Reception

Dedoimedo reviewed SliTaz GNU/Linux 1.0. and commented:
Dedoimedo also reviewed version 2.0.
DistroWatch wrote to DistroWatch Weekly a review of SliTaz GNU/Linux 1.0:

Gallery