I’m using SliTaz to design a high performance audio server. Though it’s a challenge for someone like me, who’s familiar with Windows and new to Linux, to get this machine going, SliTaz is looking like the ultimate OS for building a music computer. I would appreciate any advice you can offer about how to slim down SliTaz; the goal of the slimming is to improve audio latency performance by reducing memory and CPU usage from unessential processes and OS activity. This is typically done by removing/disabling functions or adjusting those that are essential (for better performance) and occasionally by installing tools that allow further tweaking and adjustment and similar approaches.
If I understand correctly, unlike Windows, Linux and SliTaz don’t have a registry and processes, drivers, etc, loaded in the background, unless they’re supporting something that’s already running. I have an Ubuntu OS on the machine to handle ripping CDs, Internet access and downloading cover art. The SliTaz boot section will only play music files and will not connect to the Internet, play video, have WiFi / remote control or other frills. However, the things it does have to do include:
Booting and running without error or hang-ups, playing music files with Alsa and MPD players, playing music from CD drives, thumb drives and hard drive, playing music files with a variety of DACs and Sound cards, ability to clone/image the OS (I would probably do this in Ubuntu, with Clonezilla), and occasionally install new software.
From the top processes dashboard I see about 25-30 items and I’m guessing many of them aren’t essential to keep the machine running or playing music files, but it’s hard to tell which package the process is connected to, and which processes are essential. I don’t see a lot of mechanisms to configure the machine, outside of the package manager, but I’d be interested in knowing if there are. As an example, I will probably go with XVesa for the GUI; assuming the screen is viewable, 16 colors should give the best sound. I have a lot of XOrg packages installed by default, so I’m led to wonder whether I should remove those with XVesa running or if simply having the machine while it’s in XVesa mode doesn’t have any effect on the machine.
I’m interested in any advice those of you out there can offer about groups of default packages that can be removed or are essential, anything I should install, as well any ideas about the goal stated above, to improve latency performance through the memory and CPU usage.
Thank you for your feedback.