SliTaz GNU/Linux is a

lightweight Linux distribution A light-weight Linux distribution is a Linux distribution that uses lower memory and processor-speed requirements than a more "feature-rich" Linux distribution. The lower demands on hardware ideally result in a more responsive machine, and allow ...

, community-based, suitable for use on older hardware and as a

Live CD A live CD (also live DVD, live disc, or live operating system) is a complete booting, bootable computer installation including operating system which runs directly from a CD-ROM or similar storage device into a computer's memory, rather than lo ...

Live USB A live USB is a portable USB-attached external data storage device containing a full operating system that can be booted from. The term is reminiscent of USB flash drives but may encompass an external hard disk drive or solid-state drive, thou ...

. SliTaz stands for "Simple, Light, Incredible,

Temporary Autonomous Zone ''T.A.Z.: The Temporary Autonomous Zone'' is a book by the anarchist writer and poet Hakim Bey (Peter Lamborn Wilson). It was published in 1991 by Autonomedia and in 2011 by Pacific Publishing Studio (). It is composed of three sections, "Chaos: ...

" according to the boot screen.

Features

SliTaz uses the

Openbox Openbox is a free, stacking window manager for the X Window System, licensed under the GNU General Public License. Originally derived from Blackbox 0.65.0 (a C++ project), Openbox has been completely re-written in the C programming language ...

window manager A window manager is system software that controls the placement and appearance of window (computing), windows within a windowing system in a graphical user interface. Most window managers are designed to help provide a desktop environment. They ...

. Additional packages are added using a program called "TazPanel". This is due to the specific

package format Package format is a type of archive containing computer programs and additional metadata needed by package managers; an instance of this type of archive is called a package. While the archive file format itself may be unchanged, package formats c ...

that SliTaz uses (tazpkg). It can still use packages from the more popular distribution though, as

Debian Debian () is a free and open-source software, free and open source Linux distribution, developed by the Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock in August 1993. Debian is one of the oldest operating systems based on the Linux kerne ...

, by means of first carrying out a conversion of these different packages. By default, SliTaz offers no

persistence Persistence or Persist may refer to: Math and computers * Image persistence, in LCD monitors * Persistence (computer science), the characteristic of data that outlives the execution of the program that created it * Persistence of a number, a ma ...

, however it can still be added if the user wishes. The choice of the filesystem/

bootloader A bootloader, also spelled as boot loader or called bootstrap loader, is a computer program that is responsible for booting a computer and booting an operating system. If it also provides an interactive menu with multiple boot choices then it's o ...

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 The Intel 486, officially named i486 and also known as 80486, is a microprocessor introduced in 1989. It is a higher-performance follow-up to the i386, Intel 386. It represents the fourth generation of binary compatible CPUs following the Inte ...

x86 x86 (also known as 80x86 or the 8086 family) is a family of complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architectures initially developed by Intel, based on the 8086 microprocessor and its 8-bit-external-bus variant, the 8088. Th ...

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 The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems. X originated as part of Project Athena at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1984. The X protocol has been at ...

. SliTaz can even run in 24 MB of RAM and a little

swap memory In computer operating systems, memory paging is a memory management scheme that allows the physical memory used by a program to be non-contiguous. This also helps avoid the problem of memory fragmentation and requiring compaction to reduce fra ...

. SliTaz can be booted from a Live CD, Live USB, floppy disk, or a

local area network A local area network (LAN) is a computer network that interconnects computers within a limited area such as a residence, campus, or building, and has its network equipment and interconnects locally managed. LANs facilitate the distribution of da ...

(

PXE PXE may refer to: Science and technology * Pentium Extreme Edition, a variant of the Pentium D microprocessor * Preboot Execution Environment, booting computers via a network * Pseudoxanthoma elasticum, a genetic disease Other uses * Proof and Exp ...

), or can be installed, requiring approximately 80 MB of hard disk space.

TazLito

TazLito (Taz Live Tool) is the LiveCD creation utility in SliTaz GNU/Linux.

Common Operations

Check Root

Check to ensure UID is zero (i.e., TazLito was run by root or root sudoer).

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 (that is, one does not create/modify the directories used by TazLito) 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 (that is, one does not create/modify the directories used by TazLito) the directories existence implies it is populated properly.

Generate initramfs

# Executes scripts for packages altering the root file system # Hard links redundant files in the root filesystem to save space # Runs cpio to create the initramfs, compressing with lzma or gzip (or no compression)

Release history

As with any

Linux distribution A Linux distribution, often abbreviated as distro, is an operating system that includes the Linux kernel for its kernel functionality. Although the name does not imply product distribution per se, a distro—if distributed on its own—is oft ...

, 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 systemd is a software suite that provides an array of system components for Linux operating systems. The main aim is to unify service configuration and behavior across Linux distributions. Its primary component is a "system and service manage ...

BusyBox BusyBox is a software suite that provides several List of Unix commands, Unix utilities in a single executable file. It runs in a variety of POSIX environments such as Linux, Android (operating system), Android, and FreeBSD, although many of the ...

's init and

udev udev (userspace ) is a device manager for the Linux kernel. As the successor of devfsd and hotplug, udev primarily manages device nodes in the directory. At the same time, udev also handles all user space events raised when hardware devices ...

, 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 DistroWatch is a website that provides news, distribution pages hit rankings, and other general information about various Linux distributions as well as other free software/open source Unix-like operating systems. It now contains information on ...

published a review of SliTaz GNU/Linux 1.0: A 2022 review of SliTaz 5.0 in

Full Circle magazine ''Full Circle'' is a free distribution Portable Document Format magazine that was founded by Ronnie Tucker in April 2007. It is released on the last Friday of every month in PDF, EPUB ebook format and also on the Issuu electronic publishing plat ...

concluded:

Gallery

File:SliTaz-GNU-Linux 1.png, SliTaz 1.0 stable desktop. File:SliTaz-Ver2.0-screenshot.png, SliTaz 2.0 stable desktop. File:SliTaz-Ver3.0-screenshot.png, SliTaz 3.0 stable desktop. File:Slitaz-4.0.png, SliTaz 4.0 stable desktop. File:Slitaz-cooking-20101104.png, SliTaz 5.0 preview desktop.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Slitaz Gnu/Linux Independent Linux distributions Light-weight Linux distributions Linux distributions Linux distributions without systemd Live USB LiveDistro Operating system distributions bootable from read-only media Rolling release Linux distributions