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Hello.
1.- Do you consider that this PC may be compatible with Slitaz 4.0?
Dell Optiplex G1
Intel Celeron 432 MHz
320 MB RAM
I just tested Slitaz 3.0 on liveCD but it would be interesting to have the new version.
2.- Which are the advantages you see in Slitaz 4.0 versus another distro as Linux Puppy Wary (for old hardware)?
Thanks!
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1. Maybe. I have a PIII Celeron 950Mhz with 256MB RAM. Slitaz 4 runs fine on it.
2. Compared to Puppy? Over 3000 modern packages, the ability to convert packages from other distros and several user created packages and sites. Central control panel and an uncluttered interface.
But like I always say, try if first, then decide for yourself.
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Hi!
Thanks for your answer.
1.- I think I'll try later.
2.- Puppy Wary it's the alternative SO I'm considering for installing in hard drive and give this pc to another who makes her first time in Linux.
By now I like the clarity in the interface of Slitaz.
Am I loosing to much if I stay in Slitaz3 in spite of Slitaz4?
Is Slitaz3 capable of bring a better overall performance once installed in hard drive in comparation to LiveCD?
Thanks!
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Mostly you'll just be trading the newer features and packages for 2 years older stuff. SliTaz 3 also doesn't come with the Nvidia Xorg drivers or the general wifi drivers by default.
With some things SliTaz 3 has better support though, especially with really old systems.
Depends on your requirements I guess
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System Requirements seem to be undocumented for SliTaz.
For the record, I tried to install the latest "slitaz-rolling.iso" today and it failed because the installer didn't have enough ramdisk on a:
Celeron 500MHz with 256mb RAM
Gives a /kernel panic/. The same boot disk works fine on modern hardware, but I selected SliTaz for this ancient system because distrowatch.com says:
"SliTaz GNU/Linux is a mini distribution and live CD designed to run speedily on hardware with 256 MB of RAM."
That needs to be updated considering the installer itself can't handle it. I tried to comment to distrowatch.com about this but their system is screwed up.. the "submit review" button just redraws the screen.
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Hi xtinctionRebel
You're not totally wrong but not totally right. You should be able to install SliTaz with tazinst from the console. When you boot your live, choose base
SliTaz Rolling works fine on my old P4 1.5GHz with 256MB; but I guess it'll be a little slow with a 500MHz CPU 
In any case, you'll need a swap partition.
Last thing, very often the kernel panic is caused by an incorrect [c]root=[/c] instruction in the Grub4dos menu, check it.
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the line just before the kernel panic said "out of memory", so it is a lack of memory issue. But i didn't try a non-standard install. If I do a console install, does that mean no GUI desktop once installed?
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i'm tempted to try the tazinst install. I don't see a boot loader config in the doc you linked. It seems to assume something is already installed from which to run tazinst. Should I install Puppy linux or something, then run tazinst from within Puppy?
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the line just before the kernel panic said "out of memory"
Try to add at boot the kernel parameter mem=250Mb
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Thanks gibor. Sorry to say that does not fix it. I'm using this grub.cfg stanza to boot the ISO:
=====8<--------------
menuentry "SliTaz ISO" {
set iso_path=/slitaz-rolling.iso
loopback loop $iso_path
linux (loop)/boot/bzImage rw root=/dev/null gfxpayload=vga=normal autologin isofrom=$isofile mem=250Mb noeject noprompt lang=en kmap=en --
initrd (loop)/boot/rootfs4.gz (loop)/boot/rootfs3.gz (loop)/boot/rootfs2.gz (loop)/boot/rootfs1.gz
}
=====8<--------------
This is the last line of output when it attempts to boot:
---[ end Kernel panic - not syncing: Out of memory and no killable processes...
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maybe some memory is spent on mounting the ISO.
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In your case SliTaz may need 256+54=310Mb
Can you test slitaz-rolling-loram.iso ?
=====8<--------------
menuentry "SliTaz ISO" {
set iso_path=/slitaz-rolling-loram.iso
loopback loop $iso_path
linux (loop)/boot/bzImage rw root=/dev/null gfxpayload=vga=normal autologin isofrom=$isofile noeject noprompt lang=en kmap=en --
initrd (loop)/boot/rootfs.gz (loop)/boot/rootfs4.gz (loop)/boot/rootfs3.gz (loop)/boot/rootfs2.gz (loop)/boot/rootfs1.gz
}
=====8<--------------
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indeed that seems to be the issue. When the ISO image is dd copied to the hard drive, that works. But when grub configured to boot the ISO image file, there's enough overhead to kill that possibility on a 256mb system.
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@Bellard - i'll try it
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@bellard
Tried booting the *loram ISO from grub and it gives a different kernel panic:
---[ end Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(0,0)
Anyway, I guess I'll just have to boot the ISO the conventional way when only 256mb ram is available.
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@xtinctionRebel
the line just before the kernel panic said "out of memory"
This is message appears when you boot from the .iso file not with a full install, isn't it?
With only 256MB I'm quite sure you cannot run Slitaz (even SliTaz 4.0) from the .iso file. GRUB needs 54MB to load the .iso and this memory will NOT be freed after the boot; you can try a frugal install but with 256MB the best I got is to boot GTK only (rootfs4 + rootfs3 + rootfs2)...
About the loram ISO, I don't think it is possible to run it from its .iso file because after the boot, the system needs to access at the LiveCD but only GRUB knows the "CD" [c](loop)[/c], the kernel cannot access at it.
If I do a console install, does that mean no GUI desktop once installed?
No, this is just another way to do a full install.
I don't see a boot loader config in the doc you linked
Yes there is; see bootloader at the end of the SETTINGS section:
bootloader
Optional. Install a bootloader. Usually you should set it to auto unless you want to use an already installed bootloader on your system, install a bootloader by hand yourself or install a specific bootloader. In this case type tazinst help bootloader to list supported bootloaders.
$ tazinst help bootloader
auto Automatic selection
grub GRUB legacy bootloader
syslinux Lightweight bootloader
If you want a dual boot with Windows (hmm, what Windows with 256MB?) you must define the WINBOOT variable too:
[c]WINBOOT="auto"[/c]
But it seems to me that tazinst (as well as the installer in TazPanel) fails to create a dual boot.
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Hi,
I tried a few years ago to boot rolling ISO on thin clients wich had a single slot with a 128 Mo SO-DIMM RAM module. After replacing it with a 256 Mo, it didn't work too.
The reason was that the embedded graphic chip hadn't it's own RAM. Sometimes you can see config parmaters in BIOS for shared memory with the GPU (UMA, Sideport, DVMT), but in my case not I think.
When I tested RAM with Memtest86, I saw it was not able to test the whole the 256 Mo SO-DIMM Ram module, but only ~248 Mo.
I conclued some 8 Mo were hard fixed in BIOS, wich is a minimal for a "modern" VESA capable GPU.
So, I only succeeded to boot with the Loram ISO or "just X."...
Moreover, those thin clients were only able to boot on USB key "dd formated" (with dd command [c]dd if=slitaz.iso of=/dev/sdX/ bs=4M ; sync[/c] ), with a ISO "hybrid", or with a storage device includind maybe a PATA/IDE controller, because they had one inside, with a PATA disk slot, so BIOS was capable to boot a MBR-Dos formated disk linked with a PATA/IDE controller even thru a USB port.
So, you shoud check first if the whole of your 256 Mo RAM are really availavable when Grub or ISO boot menu appear.
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fyi, as an alternative, debian's text installer will work with 256mb even on current version.
[attachment=50064,3085]
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hello gs26,
I have this idle RAM memory consumption data from SliTaz (slitaz-rolling-core64.iso version 20-05-2020).
Before installing on HD:
$ free {Enter}
XTerm Terminal
Memory: total: 2088424 KB of RAM memory, 101276 KB in use and 1701092 KB free
Sakura Terminal
Memory: total: 2048424 KB of RAM memory, 101608 KB in use and 1700716 KB free.
LXTask Task Manager 0.1.9:
Displays CPU usage between 0% and 2%, memory consumption 93MB out of 2000MB
After installing on HD:
$ free {Enter}
XTerm Terminal
Memory: total: 1991,712 KB of RAM memory, 72264 KB in use and 1866784 KB free
Sakura Terminal
Memory: total: 1991,712 KB of RAM memory, 72996 KB in use and 1864176 KB free.
LXTask Task Manager 0.1.9:
Displays CPU usage between 1% and 3%, memory consumption 66MB out of 1945MB.
I hope this data helps you.
marcelocripe
(Original text in Brazilian Portuguese)
----------
Olá gs26,
Eu possuo estes dados de consumo de memória RAM ociosa do SliTaz (slitaz-rolling-core64.iso versão 20-05-2020).
Antes da instalação no HD:
$ free {Enter}
XTerm Terminal
Memória: total: 2088424 KB de memória RAM, 101276 KB em uso e 1701092 KB livres
Sakura Terminal
Memória: total: 2048424 KB de memória RAM, 101608 KB em uso e 1700716 KB livres.
Gerenciador de tarefas LXTask 0.1.9:
Exibe uso da CPU entre 0% e 2%, consumo de memória 93 MB de 2000 MB
Após a instalação no HD:
$ free {Enter}
XTerm Terminal
Memória: total: 1991712 KB de memória RAM, 72264 KB em uso e 1866784 KB livres
Sakura Terminal
Memória: total: 1991712 KB de memória RAM, 72996 KB em uso e 1864176 KB livres.
Gerenciador de tarefas LXTask 0.1.9:
Exibe uso da CPU entre 1% e 3%, consumo de memória 66 MB de 1945 MB.
Eu espero que estes dados te ajudem.
marcelocripe
(Texto original em idioma português do Brasil)
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