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If I understand correctly, kernel currently used by Slitaz right now has gone already EOL. No more support or updates.
Also, Slitaz currently still has very old versions of glibc and some applications such as hexchat.
By chance, is Slitaz team eager to do something about it? Some time ago there was a bit of hope with Slitaz Next and Slitaz Next 64bit. What happened to them? Are they still in development?
Does Slitaz still have future?
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Hello guest_account, how are you?
You have started an important topic.
Coincidentally, on July 20, 2020, I sent an email to: slitaz-request@lists.tuxfamily.org and slitaz@lists.tuxfamily.org, with the same subject as this post, so far with no answers.
Here is the full text, in quotation marks:
"Hello dear SliTaz administrators and maintainers.
I would like to start this contact by thanking you for the excellent work on SliTaz and for making it available for free. Thank you!
The purpose of this email is to find out about the "Future of SliTaz and the forum".
I am starting on SliTaz, however, it is easily noticeable that on the forum http://forum.slitaz.org/, mr. Cee l is alone to be able to help newcomers like me.
I reported SliTaz bugs on the forum with the following headings: "Installing LibreOffice on SliTaz 5.0 (weekly) / Installing LibreOffice on SliTaz 5.0 (weekly)", "How to use AppImage in SliTaz 5.0 Rolling / How to use AppImage in SliTaz 5.0 Rolling "and" Questions about ISO packages-cooking.iso 2020-Jun-15 13:43:59 # 5.9G "in the link posts: http://forum.slitaz.org/topic/installing-libreoffice -on-slitaz-50-weekly-instalacao-do-libreoffice-no-slitaz-50-weekly, http://forum.slitaz.org/topic/how-to-use-appimage-in-slitaz-50-rolling -how-to-use-the-appimage-in-slitaz-50-rolling, http://forum.slitaz.org/topic/duvidas-sobre-a-iso-packages-cookingiso-2020-jun-15-134359-59g .
If really mr. Ceel is alone, I believe that he cannot manage the forum, the inactivity ends up causing other beginners to give up using SliTaz and whoever loses the most is the Linux community itself.
Here is an excerpt from the conversations I had with Mr. Ceel:
"Hi Ceel,
Thank you for responding.
How did we get in touch with the SliTaz developers and the maintainers of the SliTaz website?
I have suggestions for collaborating with SliTaz, but I don't know who is responsible and how to contact them.
I hope you are not alone managing this forum, if you are, please let us know.
We achieved nothing alone, together we achieved everything!
If you are alone in this forum to help newbies, like me, it is a lot of work for a single person, however if the forum fails to help newbies, the tendency, unfortunately, will be for newbies to give up before they even start, and who else what you lose with this is the SliTaz project. On Youtube, I find several videos about SliTaz 4.0 and some of SliTaz 5.0 RC-3, I don’t know if they serve as a reference for the current version. In order to help you in this forum, I will need to learn more about SliTaz, I know HTML5, I can help on the site, several areas of the documentation are incomplete or have empty pages. I do not know I will suffer punishment in this forum for leaving the links of my sites (it is not my intention), the goal is that you can access and evaluate, the site is very simple, it has my email and cell phone contact ( which wouldn’t solve it, because I don’t know how to speak English), if you can bring to the knowledge of the SliTaz developers and the maintainers of the SliTaz website that I have suggestions and can collaborate with the knowledge that I have, it will be of great help. "
SliTaz was one of the few operating systems, except Windows XP (abandoned), Vista (abandoned), 7 (abandoned), the latter being proprietary systems that do not work well on computers with little RAM and still require a lot of processing, other systems what worked was antiX 16.3, thanks to the support I had in the forum of this Linux distribution, these being the ones that managed to work on the motherboard MSI 238318 and onboard video card Via VT8237R Plus, the biggest difficulty due to the video card and the little DDR I RAM memory, available on the computer.
In Brazil we still have many old motherboards (with about 20 years of release or more) in full operation and it is increasingly difficult to find operating systems like SliTaz that consume less than 110MB of RAM and require little processing, that is incredible!
With U $ 1.00 (US dollar) quoted at R $ 5.35 (reais - Brazilian currency) and more taxes, we will have to use old computers for many years and as long as it is possible to repair them.
I would like to collaborate with SliTaz, but I don't know how?
I found the contact emails today at the link: http://www.slitaz.org/en/mailing-list.php, I hope this email will reach the administrators and maintainers of SliTaz.
marcelocripe
http://marcelocripe.eu5.org / https://marcelocripe.000webhostapp.com.
Original text in Brazilian Portuguese, translated into English by Google translator. "
marcelocripe
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Olá guest_account, tudo bem com você?
Você iniciou um importante tópico.
Coincidentemente, no dia 20 de julho de 2020 eu enviei um e-mail para: slitaz-request@lists.tuxfamily.org e slitaz@lists.tuxfamily.org, com o mesmo assunto desta postagem, até o presente momento sem respostas.
Segue o texto na íntegra, entre aspas:
"Olá caros administradores e mantenedores do SliTaz.
Eu gostaria de iniciar este contato agradecendo pelo excelente trabalho no SliTaz e por disponibilizá-lo gratuitamente. Muito obrigado!
O objetivo deste email é para saber sobre o "Futuro do SliTaz e do fórum".
Eu estou iniciando no SliTaz, contudo, é facilmente perceptível que no fórum http://forum.slitaz.org/, o sr. Cee l está sozinho para poder ajudar os novatos iguais a mim.
Eu reportei erros (bugs) do SliTaz no fórum com os seguintes títulos: "Installing LibreOffice on SliTaz 5.0 (weekly) / Instalação do LibreOffice no SliTaz 5.0 (weekly)", "How to use AppImage in SliTaz 5.0 Rolling / Como usar o AppImage no SliTaz 5.0 Rolling" e "Dúvidas sobre a ISO packages-cooking.iso 2020-Jun-15 13:43:59 # 5.9G" nas postagens dos links: http://forum.slitaz.org/topic/installing-libreoffice-on-slitaz-50-weekly-instalacao-do-libreoffice-no-slitaz-50-weekly, http://forum.slitaz.org/topic/how-to-use-appimage-in-slitaz-50-rolling-como-usar-o-appimage-no-slitaz-50-rolling, http://forum.slitaz.org/topic/duvidas-sobre-a-iso-packages-cookingiso-2020-jun-15-134359-59g.
Se realmente o sr. Ceel estiver sozinho, eu acredito que ele não consegue dar conta do fórum, a inatividade acaba fazendo com que outros iniciantes desistam de usar o SliTaz e quem mais perde com isso é a própria comunidade Linux.
Segue trecho das conversas que tive com o sr. Ceel:
"Olá Ceel,
Agradeço por responder.
Como conseguimos entrar em contato com os desenvolvedores do SliTaz e com os mantenedores do site do SliTaz?
Eu tenho sugestões para colaborar com o SliTaz, mas não sei quem são os responsáveis e como entrar em contato com eles.
Eu espero que você não esteja sozinho administrando este fórum, caso esteja, por favor nos avise.
Sozinho não conseguimos nada, juntos conseguimos tudo!
Se você estiver sozinho neste fórum para ajudar os novatos, iguais a mim, é muito trabalho para uma única pessoa, contudo se o fórum não consegue auxiliar os novatos, a tendência, infelizmente, será dos novatos desistirem antes mesmo de começarem, e quem mais perde com isso é o projeto SliTaz.No Youtube, eu encontro vários vídeos sobre o SliTaz 4.0 e alguns do SliTaz 5.0 RC-3, não sei se servem de referência para a versão atual.Para eu poder ajudar neste fórum, precisarei aprender mais sobre o SliTaz, conheço HTML5, posso ajudar no site, várias áreas da documentação estão incompletas ou possuem páginas vazias. Eu não sei sofrerei punição neste fórum por deixar os links dos meus sites (não é a minha intenção), o objetivo é que você possa acessar e avaliar, o site é bem simples, possui o meu contato de e-mail e telefone celular (o que não resolveria, pois eu não sei falar inglês), se você puder levar até o conhecimento dos desenvolvedores do SliTaz e dos mantenedores do site do SliTaz que eu possuo sugestões e posso colaborar com o conhecimento que possuo, será de grande ajuda."
O SliTaz foi um dos poucos sistemas operacionais, exceto Windows XP (abandonado), Vista (abandonado), 7 (abandonado), sendo estes últimos sistemas proprietários e que não operam bem em computadores com pouca memória RAM e ainda exigem muito processamento, outro sistemas que funcionou foi o antiX 16.3, graças ao apoio que tive no fórum desta distribuição Linux, sendo estes os que conseguiram funcionarem na placa mãe MSI 238318 e placa de vídeo onboard Via VT8237R Plus, sendo o maior dificuldade devido a placa de vídeo e a pouca memória RAM DDR I, disponível no computador.
No Brasil ainda temos muitas placas mães antigas (com cerca de 20 anos de lançamento ou mais) em pleno funcionamento e está cada vez mais difícil encontrar sistemas operacionais como o SliTaz que consomem menos de 110MB de memória RAM e que exigem pouco processamento, isso é incrível!
Com U$ 1,00 (dólar americano) cotado a R$ 5,35 (reais - moeda Brasileira) e mais impostos, nós teremos que utilizar computadores antigos por muitos anos e enquanto for possível consertá-los.
Eu gostaria de colaborar com o SliTaz, mas eu não sei como?
Eu encontrei os e-mails de contato no dia de hoje no link: http://www.slitaz.org/en/mailing-list.php, eu espero que este email chegue até os administradores e mantenedores do SliTaz.
marcelocripe
http://marcelocripe.eu5.org / https://marcelocripe.000webhostapp.com.
Texto original em idioma português do Brasil, traduzido para o inglês por Google tradutor."
marcelocripe
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@guest_account you can try independent Slitaz project like TazPuppy. Its kernel was easily swappable
https://puppylinux.rockedge.org/viewtopic.php?f=40
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Correct link: https://puppylinux.rockedge.org/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=139
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Slitaz has a lot of potential for being an extremely lightweight alternative to archlinux and its modularity, flexibility. I really want the project to live and become stable.
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mistfire,
Linux distro based on another, with sub forum on another Linux distro, will the colleague have support on the other forum?
Degraded.mind, I agree with your words, however I don't know anything about archlinux.
"Slitaz has a lot of potential for being an extremely lightweight alternative to archlinux and its modularity, flexibility. I really want the project to live and become stable."
Abandoning is not the solution!
But sharing with the interested community, the development, maintenance and administration of the distribution, I believe it is more aligned with the GNU / Linux concept.
I also want this distribution to grow and prosper.
I don't want to see SliTaz increasing the list of abandoned or discontinued distrowatch distros, see the link: https://distrowatch.com/search.php?ostype=All&category=All&origin=All&basedon=All¬basedon=None&desktop=All&architecture=All&package=All&rolling = All & isosize = All & netinstall = All & language = All & defaultinit = All & status = Discontinued # simple, how many distributions have been abandoned, so much work and time wasted, plus several users who have been orphaned by your preferred Linux distribution. This is unfortunate ...
In addition to my initial comments, I leave more questions:
Do the developers follow this forum? (I hope so)
Are the developers considering the suggestions of users and participants of this forum or not?
If solutions to problems do not come out of here, where should we look for answers?
I just hope I'm not starting on something that is dying ...
marcelocripe
Original text in Brazilian Portuguese, translated into English by the Google translator.
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mistfire,
Distro Linux baseada em outra, com sub fórum em outra distro Linux, será que o colega terá suporte no outro fórum?
Degraded.mind, concordo com as suas palavras, contudo eu não conheço nada do archlinux.
"Slitaz has a lot of potential for being an extremely lightweight alternative to archlinux and its modularity, flexibility. I really want the project to live and become stable."
Abandonar não é a solução!
Mas compartilhar com a comunidade interessada, o desenvolvimento, a manutenção e a administração da distribuição, acredito que esteja mais alinhado com conceito GNU/Linux.
Eu também desejo que esta distribuição cresça e prospere.
Eu não quero ver o SliTaz aumentando a lista de distros abandonadas ou descontinuadas do distrowatch, veja no link: https://distrowatch.com/search.php?ostype=All&category=All&origin=All&basedon=All¬basedon=None&desktop=All&architecture=All&package=All&rolling=All&isosize=All&netinstall=All&language=All&defaultinit=All&status=Discontinued#simple, quantas distribuições foram abandonadas, tanto trabalho e tempo jogado fora, além de vários usuários que ficaram órfãos de sua distribuição Linux preferida. Isso é lamentável ...
Além dos meus comentários iniciais, deixo mais perguntas:
Os desenvolvedores acompanham o este fórum? (Eu espero que sim)
Os desenvolvedores, estão ou não ponderando as sugestões dos usuários e participantes deste fórum?
Se não saem daqui as soluções para problemas, de onde devemos buscar as respostas?
Eu só espero não estar iniciando em algo que esteja morrendo ...
marcelocripe
Texto original no idioma português do Brasil, traduzido para inglês pelo tradutor do Google.
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Slitaz is a great distro we need more than ever . COVID-19 has increased laptops demand world wide raising its prices and millions of poor Children in many countries are not going to school any more. The only way for them to continue stuying under COVID-19 is by virtual education, so they all need a laptop, which they can not afford to buy. Slitaz would be the perfect solution to this problem, making possible to setup cheap old netbooks and pcs with Slitaz for them. Then it deserves Linux Community attention. This is is a great opportunity for the Slitaz Team to make a really important job. I hope Slitaz Team wakes up, the forum is waiting your response.
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I already tried Puppy and Alpine.
First one seemed ok but the heavy "puppy" theme even in its tools was excessively "sweet".
Alpine looked promising, but unlike Slitaz it turns it doesn't boot into a fully usable desktop: you need to configure and install quite a bunch of stuff beforehand. It can be done though, and in theory even setup a persistent bootable USB, but whenever wanting to update the distro and having to go through the whole process again (I live boot, I don't install to hard disk), unlike with Slitaz with which is a matter of just downloading the new ISO, write to a CD or USB, and boot.
Haven't tried this hybrid Slitaz-Puppy yet; I have had mixed experiences with hybrid distros...
@Bellard, @mojo, @Ceel:
Slitaz was excellent for all those who wanted a very lightweight yet functional Linux distro for basic everyday use such as web browsing, multimedia playing, office work, and even some gaming; and specially useful for live booting when performing rescue tasks.
And still can be a very good distro. Should not be left to die.
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I really wanted to see a 64bits version of Slitaz. I really like the Slitaz, unfortunately the development seems kinda stopped.
I don't use on a day-to-day basis because there isn't a full 64bit version.
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Guys I want to collaborate to the slitaz project too.
I wanted to make a new thread just to say this but this thread came at the right time, and I'm happy that other users understand the power of slitaz.
I've never worked on Linux sources, I'll need to ask some questions to slitaz developers too, I can't ask on other forums since the small slitaz kernel seems quite different from the ubuntu kernel etc.
This is my "portfolio":
---I study computer engineering
---I can use github
---I'm senior member and (soon) recognized developer on xda developers, I made apps and I ported custom recoveries and ROMs to android devices
---I'm good at coding in java and I've studied other languages too
Obliviously I don't pretend to become a super full-time developer on kernel, but I would like to help in some way.
If you want to see some of my last projects or you want to talk to me guys here's my telegram channel: https://t.me/mikelupdates
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Hi Folks, just wanted to check in and say what an awesome project this is. I had installed slitaz 3.0 about a year ago on an old Asus 2G Surf netbook, low ram, little space. Enjoyed playing around with it, then for some reason, I lost the charger. Eventually I replaced the charger with a charity store special last week. I tried to update the install which was looking a bit dated and it failed to boot. So I looked around at what else was available, ended up installing Porteus not Puppy. Tonite I threw in the towel, it had taken up just about the whole drive, and no working browser, package management was totally buggy and its not even recommended to install to a harddrive. So I decided to give Slitaz another go, and the 4.0 iso worked like a charm. Got up and running in no time at all, and just love the way it has a working package manager. So please keep up the good work, we need this down here in Africa!
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The problem with slitaz rolling is that they did not update the Glibc, GCC, and Xorg. Slitaz rolling has poor support on newer hardware due to outdated packages.
Slitaz Next repo was heavily neglected, there's a lot of broken packages there. despite the packages are newer.
I hope they resolved the problem on Slitaz Next Repo
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I hope Slitaz continues. I once went thru a stack of Linux Format magazine dvds trying out distributions on an old tower pc and discovered Slitaz worked so much faster than any of the others. Such a light weight system.
For those interested enough to try Puppy, the creator, Barry Kauler, now works on a different distribution - EasyOS.
Its quite different to other distributions...though still has some aspects of Puppy.
The latest is 2.4.1 30th August 2020.
https://bkhome.org/news/
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CURRENT STATUS OF SLITAZ REPO AND COOKERS
Rolling: Good but outdated Xorg, GCC, and, Glibc
Next: Suffers libffi problems and Linux source problem unable to cook GUI or GTK+
packages. Seems neglected
Next64: Same issue as Next repo but it seems heavily neglected
No one fixed the issues on Next and Next64 cookers
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I was able to install SliTaz on my Ryzen PC.
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Noticed on Distrowatch.com they have listed KaOS - a rolling distribution in their 'News and Updates'.
Wondered why Slitaz cant get a more frequent mention there...seeing it too has a rolling version..and it does get updated frequently. Ok - so its not so focused on the latest but it maintains being a small distro rather well... which is something KaOS is not so good at.
Im sure if Slitaz appeared in their update lists more frequently it would get more users ..and perhaps more helping support..??
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Just endorsing most of the concerns listed above....it would be a great pity if Slitaz goes out of the radar as I personally found it to be one of the best Linux OSs in the low spec hardware segment.
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Hi,
I registered just to add my opinion
Slitaz is nice, the package manager and overall managing is great but lacks of packages and really outdated packages makes it unfortunately not usable
It would be great if it could get a boost
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chouceleste === @@@
Hi,
I registered just to add my opinion
Slitaz is nice, the package manager and overall managing is great but lacks of packages and really outdated packages makes it unfortunately not usable
It would be great if it could get a boost
=== @@@
+1 to You, I have tried a lot of OSs on my old Compaq Presario X1000 - thise SLITAZ is one of fasters !!! Hope it will be in live !!!
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I also like Slitaz but wish rolling would update kernel & glibc. I mean rolling means it should get updates right, but now kernel is out of date.... maybe release another RC or actual release version 5 as is now so those who want to keep using it can like version 3.0 and 4.0.. but at least update rolling 32-bit one last time to 4.19 (or even 5.4) and appropriate glibc.
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+1 ...
I use Slitaz already for quite some times (just saw that one of my first posts in this forum is already 9 years old) and am still using it on a daily basis as THE operating system on a couple of machines.
The kernel is not the problem as I am running different self-compiled 64-bit Kernels of 4.8, 4.20 and even 5.3 version, all of which are functioning fine.
The problem is the lacking jump to 64-bit and a reasonable recent version of glib, which means, that more and more modern programs simply refuse to work and are even not compileable esp. due to the glib-version.
I already made several half-hearted attempts using crosstools-ng and Linux-from-scratch (LFS) to imitate the first steps described in the scratchbook but up to now I did not succeed in building a somewhat stable basis for a real "Slitaz64".
Apart from being a lot of work, I am just not able to grab the real obstacles... To my understanding WE (not "the developers", but some more of us in the community) have to perform the following steps:
1.) Build a (Cross-) toolchain with a recent gcc, binutils & Co, maybe together with recent Kernel Header files,
2.) build a 64-bit busybox with it and set up a minimal linux (there are some websites explaining how to get up to here)
3.) add (and maybe patch?) the numerous Slitaz-Scripts
4.) identify the order in which the recent versions of the numerous Packages have to be built up to a graphical desktop again (........)
5.) and keep on and on and on compiling the packages...
This means starting with Slitaz more or less from Scratch again...!
I would gladly contribute to this, (but don't solely count on me, I earn my money in aircraft maintenance, not in computer science....)
Any recommendations or experiences?
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I've just logged in (I've been on the forum for a good while) to say that the community should get more involved (like Filou said) but I don't have the time. I'm reading the book "The Debian Administrator's Handbook" (it is freely downloadable) to know Linux and Unix better. I think it might be very useful for a beginner. SliTaz might have some differences from Debian, but I don't know. I might see after I finish the book. At least I will have general insight into modern Linux distributions. Previous books I tried to read were too old (from 2005). I don't know a good bash guide, I think that would be very useful too.
I always preferred to install Debian after SliTaz (in Dualboot) as a hack, because it will usually take over configuring the bootloader and the installation process is not too difficult (it is pretty easy for everyone who knows more than nothing about computers, especially partitions and mount points, for example /swap) (AND NO COMMAND LINE). It worked just about well enough on my Celeron D, but it was still a little slow. I chose the Debian LXDE flavor, because it is the fastest. I have a much faster machine now, but would prefer SliTaz.
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I just finished my first cross-compilation of busybox 1.31.1 for x86-64 using my running Slitaz...!
As a first successful run I strictly followed the Cross-Linux-From-Scratch instructions published under
http://clfs.org/view/sysvinit/x86_64/
to build a x86-64 toolchain containing gcc 7.1.0, glibc 2.25 and Kernel 4.9.21.
My sooner attempts with the newest tools and libraries (gcc 10.2.0, glibc 2.32 and Kernel 5.10.3) failed at some point but I will try to push further in the coming days.
If you download the source files as directed on the CLFS-page, you can either go through the process step by step or use the attached file containing the same (making it executable).
The cross-toolchain should be the first step; as soon as this is up and running stable with most recent versions, we should concentrate on the wok, that already contains cross-compiling capabilities (which might need adaption, I don't know yet...).
If we achieve a stable cross-compilation x86-64 wok, and therefore are able to cook all necessary packages, the way to a x86-64 Slitaz might be ready to go....
Or - dear more experienced experts - am I totally naive and wrong ?!?
Attachment not working... so as code:
[deleted, please se below... better go the slitaz cross cooker way...]
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Cheers all,
I had to edit my last post, since the result would have been the need to have some directories under /root, which would not be desireable on the long run...
With the posted script you are in the position to build your own cross-toolchain in about half an hour without the need to type a lot...
You should have the necessary source files, downloadable from http://clfs.org/view/sysvinit/x86_64/materials/packages.html , (and only those together with the necessary patches) available in one directory that you put into the variable SRCPATH.
The rest should work "out of the box" on the recent 32-bit Slitaz CD-Image...
In upcoming posts I'll try to present my experiences with a local wok and the modifications that might be necessary...
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After installing cookutils, I edited /etc/slitaz/cook.conf concerning the following lines:
[c]ARCH="i486"
BUILD_SYSTEM="$ARCH-slitaz-linux"
HOST_SYSTEM="$ARCH-slitaz-linux"
CROSS_TREE="$SLITAZ/tools"
CFLAGS="-march=nocona -Os -pipe"
TOOLPREFIX="x86_64-slitaz-linux-gnu-"
CONFIGURE_ARGS="CC=x86_64-slitaz-linux-gnu-gcc --build=i486-slitaz-linux --host=x86_64-slitaz-linux-gnu"[/c]
with this, after setting up the wok, the first packages (like m4, pkg-config, libogg) were build successfully using the cross-compiler.
Others, like libvorbis, fail at the moment due to open dependencies (ironically, Ogg), which I will still have to resolve...
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