OS Wars

Well, my favorite mini-Linux distro is finally updated. Slax, based on Slackware, will run off of a CD, USB drive, and even a hard drive. It has modules (which let you add programs like Gaim or OpenOffice.org to Slax), is light-weight, and one of the few Linux distros that will run on old computers and yet still looks good (it uses KDE). The biggest caveat to me was that it never was able to access NTFS drives (often, using a Linux live CD is useful for editing stuff on a broken Windows computer, but you can’t do that if it doesn’t access an NTFS drive), but version 6 has added ntfs-3g, a driver that lets you read and write to NTFS drives. Other new things in 6 include NdisWrapper support, so you can use wi-fi adapters, a speeded up boot time (trimming up to 30 seconds on some machines), AUFS instead of unionfs, and more.

Programs

Slax comes with KOffice, a few games, Konqueror, Kopete, Kopete, a few multimedia players, FluxBox, and of course KDE. The best part is though that you can add more, via the modules page. There, you’ll find 1687 (and counting) programs and games. My favorites are the Battle For Wesnoth, the Amarok, the and Firefox modules.

GUI

KDE is definitely my favorite desktop interface. And that’s why I’m glad Tomas (the creator) used it for Slax. Most other light-weight distros use XFCE or IceWM, but they don’t look anything like KDE. There used to be a GNOME-based Slax, but the developer has discontinued it. You can download a GNOME module for Slax, though. In addition, if you like IceWM, you can download its module.

Minimal Requirements

Basically none . You need a blank CD, and a CD burner. Or a USB drive. OK, really. You need at least 32 MB of RAM to boot Slax. You need “at least” 96 MB of RAM to run FluxBox, and 144 to run KDE. But KDE ran fine on 128 MB of RAM for me. Slax will run on Intel or AMD (i486 or higher). In other words, Slax will run on basically anything.

Installation

Slax isn’t meant for installation to a hard drive. However, you can put it easily on a USB drive. There’s official instructions, but the easier way is to use the Pen Drive Linux instructions. Even easier is the method from MySlax Creator (which also works with other SLAX derivatives such as Klax, gNOX, GoblinX and Mutagenix). However, I like the Pen Drive Linux method as you can add and remove modules easier. Unfortunately, none won’t save data to the USB drive (if you really want that, try Puppy Linux). You can use webconfig, but it won’t always work. You can add files automatically by putting them into the rootcopy folder.  You can also save the changes to a regular hard drive, but that won’t work if you’re at a friend’s house

External Links

Homepage: http://www.slax.org/
Download: Official site, USB version (unofficial)
Screenshots: Official, OS Wars: