SliTaz Forum

What do you want out of SliTaz?

(46 posts) (28 voices)

• Started 12 years ago by Trixar_za
• Latest reply from christophe
• This topic is not a support question

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1. 

   Trixar_za
   

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   @Sebastian I use SliTaz 3.0 as my base distro with a dual boot copy of Windows XP for stuff that doesn't work in with Wine.

   I'm starting to think SliTaz can't be simply defined like TinyCore could. This is probably why SliTaz looks and feels better than TinyCore to begin with. It aims for simplicity, beauty and small size rather than just simplistic small. Not that I think we couldn't learn something from TinyCore - we could for example create a copy of SliTaz with just OpenBox, PCManFM and a simple panel running with nothing else installed - a lite version from which people can add what they want without having to remove a lot of stuff they don't want.

   I also think we need to split up the jobs for SliTaz. People can do multiple jobs, but by splitting them up into groups, we can set up goals for each. I was thinking grouping like documentation writers, packagers, kernel compilers, busybox compilers, bug fixers, graphic designers (for themes, wallpapers, etc) and tool makers. That way we can focus on each specific tasks with set goals we want to achieve. It also means we separate the workload into something each of us can manage with our free time. I think part of the problem with why we failed to release SliTaz 4.0 was because we all tried to do all of these at once or just one at a time. This meant that pankso was stuck doing everything and SliTaz as quickly grown beyond a one-man or few-men project.

   I tried using other distro's kernels. It doesn't work all that well for the simple reason that SliTaz wasn't designed for it. This means we have to make our own and use our own packages yet again (it's inescapable it seems).

   We also can't be like other distros since nothing comes close. I doubt we'll ever be like Slax or Puppy with a state saved file. I don't really think that's the point since SliTaz isn't mean to be a clone of other distros. I also think we should stick to simple packages, but allow larger more complex packages to exist. Maybe even (*gasp*) some proprietary drivers like those used by Wifi cards. Another thing I was thinking about was the use mode modules and services loaded by default. For example, Puppy comes with usb_modeswitch installed with the cdc_acm and option modules loaded by default. What does this mean? It means I can plugin in my cellphone or 3G Modem and I can connect to the internet using a simple dialer program. It's a small touch and it works wonders when seen. As for the overhead? Probably about 150kb extra for the iso so it might be worth adding ;)

   Posted 12 years ago #
2. 

   michaelbischof
   

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   ,, Not that I think we couldn't learn something from TinyCore - we could for example create a copy of SliTaz with just OpenBox, PCManFM and a simple panel running with nothing else installed - a lite version from which people can add what they want without having to remove a lot of stuff they don't want."

   I think that is a very good idea, but one must have one browser at least. Then one has immediate access to the forum and the documentation.

   Posted 12 years ago #
3. 

   Anonymous
   

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   Trixar_za: agree 100%
   been fiddling around and yea, nothing like slitaz.

   trix if you could pop a mail to me i have some ideas i would love to
   hand over or atleast some thoughts: ztealmax@gmail.com,

   Cheers
   Ztealmax "Martin"

   Posted 12 years ago #
4. 

   Bellard
   

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   @Trixar_za, @michaelbischof
   ...SliTaz with just OpenBox, PCManFM and a simple panel running with nothing else installed...

   You want to create a new flavor between http://hg.tuxfamily.org/mercurialroot/slitaz/flavors/file/tip/justx and http://hg.tuxfamily.org/mercurialroot/slitaz/flavors/file/tip/core-basic

   Do it ! it's easy. Using both examples above or http://pizza.slitaz.org/
   See http://hg.tuxfamily.org/mercurialroot/slitaz/tazlito/raw-file/tip/doc/tazlito.en.html#rebuild-flavor

   Then send your custom.flavor to the mailing list...

   The rolling is built with a flavor and 2 commands : http://mirror.slitaz.org/iso/rolling/slitaz-core.log.html

   Why nobody creates flavor ?

   Posted 12 years ago #
5. 

   Claudinei Pereira
   

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   Tazlito is a strong SliTaz tool, maybe it's possible to create a website or SCN section with user contributed flavors and ready to use ISO images, like:

   SliTaz FlavorName flavor- description (contributed by ContributorName). DowloadLink.

   The first one can be the "SliTaz Lite flavor" suggested, with the mentioned packages and tazweb.

   Posted 12 years ago #
6. 

   Anonymous
   

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   Yea i like that idea something like slitaz-gamer.iso or slitaz-studio.iso ;)

   Posted 12 years ago #
7. 

   kultex
   

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   @Bellard is it possible to get compat-wireless.tazpkg for 3.0 and cooking - it was available for 2.0 and improved the standard wireless drivers quite a lot. most problems beside slitaz is not booting to X are wifi problems.

   then to improve printer compatibility: what do you think about system-config-printer http://cyberelk.net/tim/software/system-config-printer/ quite small and improves setting up a printer quite a lot.
   I think it should be included in a "userfriendly" iso which includes UMTS, powermanagement, printer support and wicd instead of networkmanager...

   and as an idea for slitaz-modular:

   I use different rootfs.gz like one with only kino to cut videos, one with gimp and scribus to layout flyers - so the consumption of Ram is low and you still have a very quick os....

   Posted 12 years ago #
8. 

   michaelbischof
   

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   @Bellard

   Ok, ok, give me 1 week. A slim piece of slitaz needs, as I said, at least a useful browser for the reason that I have given.
   A slitaz for the potential use of newbie pupils is not that slim. I must have a more common browser, a pdf-viewer, an office application above abiword, and an html-Editor like Kompozer and, living in Germany, an access to a German-language linux user group for the basics. Slitaz-Forum is for a minority only (Gymnasium pupils), sad, but true.

   Well, I will try both, as flavours, of course. The concept of kultex is correct: to have slim variations of rootfs.gz for special purposes. This concept is nerd as conditio sine qua non, though. Would not work with the masses.

   Posted 12 years ago #
9. 

   xoanan
   

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   Right now, what I want out of Slitaz is a good learning environment, which in some ways, it is anyway. One of my goals is to take whatever threads I like from here and put them in an organized file of some sort, like a book of fixes.

   Printing can be challenge though. I do know that HP works fine with Ubuntu but Lexmark, and a few others don't work as well. That could be a project in and of itself.

   Posted 12 years ago #
10. 

    Anonymous
    

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    I want it stable, with no fancy stuff, and easy. I am no distro expert, but I am sure you'll find that most distros try to be fancy, and I don't like it. And the ones that aren't fancy are completely bare-bones, and for experts only, thus more work I don't want to do. Then you have stuff like Lubuntu or Debian, well Lubuntu is shit because it bloated, and Debian is fine, but still not easy. Probably the closest popular distro to slitaz's demographic(old PCs) is Puppy linux, which is great but they also do LOTS of fancy stuff. So that is how Slitaz fits in the grand linux scheme in my eyes, it definitely has its place.

    I would also like to address repo size by saying a large one is over rated, sure it is nice to customize beyond recognition or "try things out", but as a person who has been there and done that, all it really is is a way to waste time when you are bored. I say Slitaz focus on a basic number of Core Applications, that will suit most peoples computer needs. The standard Slitaz release does this fine, except for the fact that some are not stable(midori). And we should vote on them.

    Also while it is kool that Slitaz can say it is 30mb in size, I don't think Slitaz should be afraid to get larger, especially in the name of stability or usability.

    Also someone mention whether anyone only used slitaz, well I only use slitaz.

    Posted 12 years ago #
11. 

    Trixar_za
    

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    Key Master

    Here's what I like about SliTaz:
    * It's small, it's fast and it's not bloated. For me to make SliTaz everything I need it to be probably takes an hour of my time with me installing more than I remove (I probably remove probably 5 applications I don't use). Try that with anything else.

    * I can update it quickly, even on an slow dial up connection. 30MB on a slow dial up connection takes about 20 minutes to download. Puppy about an hour (120MB). I shudder to think how long it would take to download the massive 700MB Lubuntu CD...

    * It's not ugly. In fact, SliTaz looks pretty good compared to other light distros (save maybe the current Lupu Pyppy theme which is about par with ours).

    * But most importantly, it works... most of the time :P

    I've been thinking. Puppy still tries to hold on to a older kernel version to keep compatibility up with older hardware. So I thought... why couldn't we? Why can't we use the old kernel version SliTaz 3 used, fix it up (like add Bluetooth support) and rebuild the majority of the packages on it. Most new applications and libs should still work and we'll get a working kernel again, which does fix the one major issue holding back SliTaz 4. We could probably also move it to use the udev method that makes cooking's drive detection work.

    Just a thought though ;)

    Posted 12 years ago #
12. 

    Anonymous
    

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    Hi everyone,

    First time posting. I have been using slitaz for a couple of years now, and would like to put my two cents in on what I like about it and what I think could use some improvement.

    Completely agree with Trixar on the small, compact and fast aspects of the distribution. One of my favorite things about this distribution is the incredibly low resources used on a default install and how fast everything run from RAM. It demolishes the other distros in this respect and is my distro of choice for virtualization client and host (virtualbox). The ability to easily roll your own flavors is awesome. I also love that for my main install (programming and scientific computing) I can install full packages of replacements of builtin busybox tools like awk/sed where needed and additional packages like R/numpy/etc. Everything is up and running quickly and easily with tazpkg and the distribution destroys other distribtions in terms of resource use and performance even after I have installed all the programs I want.

    Claudinei had some great suggestions for the development pipeline and regarding user submitted flavors. For the dev pipeline a Wok=>Testing=>Cooking=>Release on a time schedule will give more usable and up to date package selections. I like the idea of identifying more used packages so that they can take higher preference for those wanting to improve the distro in general (although I would like to help improve the distro from a scientific computing standpoint). I also agree with Trixar that the kernel doesn't *have* to be the most up to date as long as we include patches for the most useful functions (eg bluetooth)... And splitting up groups (kernel, busybox, bugs, art, tools, documentation etc) with a leader of each group would be great... That way if someone comes to the site and says "I want to help with X." They can be given some "getting started helping" directions and a leader contact -- maybe with more of a wiki based site.

    In my opinion keeping the core system compact with the available package base 1) up to date (but not bleeding edge) in cooking and 2) rock solid in stable release should be priorities.

    One other thing I have had problems with in the past that I think should be a priority is the availability of a searchable list of packages, files in packages, dependencies, etc.

    To sum up I would say, in my opinion, priorities should be:
    1) compact system
    2) regular release cycle to update tested package set
    - identify package set for cooking - separate and prioritize the core system
    - set testing / freeze / bugfix / cooking release dates -- revert to old
    non-core packages to avoid major bugs (inability to use system / data loss, etc)
    - identify package set for stable - separate and prioritize the core system
    - set testing / freeze / bugfix / stable release dates -- same revert to old
    non-core packages plan even for minor bugs
    3) a place for user flavors and a working package search site

    Thank you guys for making this an awesome distribution! Regardless of the delayed release this is still the most usable, reliable and efficient linux distribution out there!

    Posted 12 years ago #
13. 

    zealkaiser
    

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    I have been struggling with slitaz for about more than 1 year.
    First I tried slitaz on my laptop(Intel Core2 Duo with 4GB ram)
    1. First of all what I got was a blank screen. So I booted into text mode and installed xorg-xf86-video-intel package. It worked but then I never boot into graphics mode. I have to login as root in text mode and then type slim to get graphics. But startx and X never works. Only way is to use slim. Even after all that I never get the right resolution. Generally I get 1024x768 resolution instead of 1366x768. I have to quit xorg and type slim again and again until I get the right resolution.
    2. Bluetooth didn't worked. But after following the guide it worked.
    3. Touchpad didn't worked. To do so I have to boot slitaz with boot parameter i8042.nomux=1 i8042.reset and then install xorg-xf86-input-synaptics package to make it smooth.

    Then I tried Slitaz on my netbook(Intel ATOM with 2GB ram)
    1. Again I didnt get the right resolution. But after installing xorg-xf86-video-intel it worked
    2. Touchpad was moving very fast. I installed xorg-xf86-input-synaptics. It worked but whenever I touch touchpad with two fingers mouse cursor starts moving randomly on screen.
    3. Bluetooth never works. I tried installing bluez, blueman and other related packages. Bluetooth got detected, I can search other networks pair with them but sending and recieving files always fails.
    4. Still not getting sound.
    5. Wifi didn't worked. Installed broadcom-wl module. After little trying I got my wifi card detected. I can see wifi networks and connect with them. But cannot surf internet. Strangely when I ping I get results but when I open site in midori, tazweb, and retawq, sites never open.

    And the biggest drawback I find in slitaz is that I can not retain my changes and to do so every time i have to regenerate iso. Since I have to work around lot of tweaks reatining my changes is must. Right now my rootfs.gz is about 300MB and takes 1GB ram. I have to think several times before generating iso because it takes so much time as it is too big in size.

    I have worked around several problem but still I am not satisfied.

    But surely slitaz has something in it. Although I have ubuntu, fedora, openSUSE, linuxmint, I still prefer slitaz.

    So, I would love a slitaz which is minimalistic but modern. As today netbooks are increasing and lot of people have laptops instead of desktops, I would slitaz with in-built support for latest hardware and smooth performance. As netbooks have limited resources slitaz can be the best option for them but only if it works out-of-box on them. I have little knowledge so I managed but new users might not be able to do so.

    I want slitaz to be
    1. Modern i.e. supporting all the hardwares specially netbooks and laptops
    2. Minimalistic which it is already
    3. Nice looks. Although slitaz looks better than puppy and tinycore but still inspirations can be taken from Lubuntu
    4. Easy so that new user can easily use it.
    5. Some work around to retain the changes

    In the era of 3G/4G and high speed broadband we can increase the size of slitaz atleast I guess we can afford a size inbetween 50MB and 100MB

    Posted 12 years ago #
14. 

    stuvxz
    

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    Congratulations for this wonderful project. I am a college student. My only machine is a very slow and low memory AAO110L. I have tried most of the small distros that run in memory. Slitaz is my favorite. I wish stuff most of us use daily could be easier to get going, stuff like, Flash, Java, spreadsheet, text editor, Skype, all that. I know nothing about linux, I am aware that this distro is not intended for the purpose I need or for people like me. But SliTaz could be a real lifesaver. Thank you for this OS. I hope I will be able to use it as my sole OS soon.

    Posted 12 years ago #
15. 

    Filou
    

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    On most of the beatiful advantages of SliTaz (footprint, speed, flexibility, versatility) there isn't anything to add. I fell in love with SliTaz so much, that when my wife needs a windows-only embroidery program for her embroidery-machine I start XP in Virtualbox under SliTaz for her. So, guys, from my point of view you are exactly on the right track.

    Instead of blowing everything up ever more with more and more eyecandy I just need a system, thats fast and reliable.
    With a frugal installation (that is quite easy to produce using tazlito) you are on the safe side when surfing the internet or plugging in any device that might contain virae.

    What else?

    Since I like fiddling around as a hobby I just got a WeTab for my birthday last week (300 €). So now I am trying to achieve a fast and stable SliTaz with multitouch support and all those easy to use packages on it. Maybe with this speed and low resource needs the WeTab might step up in the direction of the IPad some more ??!? WeTabOS already improved a lot, or so it seems on reading the fatal impression reports from last year...

    SliTaz as a free tablet-alternative to iOS and Android appears really attractive for me...

    On the way I might be missing one thing: compilation of generic linux-programs often leads me to dependency problems where I strand searching for suiting libraries. Maybe an dxtended library-database would be helpful?

    Posted 12 years ago #

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