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We want it to be Simple, Small and Lightweight. That's our goal.
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30MB for wifi alone is certainly 3x what I had expected as a rough (uneducated) guess 
Seems by today's standards and world, a distro wihouth wifi is close to unusable (same applies for video) though.
Lacking either totally defeats the idea of slitaz on a stick, it turns out being unusable at the time I need it on the available hw (and I speak here from real world frustration).
Maybe we could do a wifi metapackage with everything wifi related, and leave that last choice to the user (it could even be working this way today).
Trixar how is that choice made today ? like default slitaz covering 80 90 % of supposed installed base?
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For the moment, Slitaz policies is to make a 30-40mb compressed ISO. It's sounds ideological.. but why not after all. I just want to remember that it's the image size, one decompressed, which matters and it's over 100mb.
Also, I just want to precise - ONCE AGAIN - that my idea IS NOT to grow up the image size, but just the ISO and let people produce their own fitted rootfs image with a easy Wizzard and no need of an Internet connection.
If you lend a usb key with a ready-to-boot 300 mb SLitaz on it, you have FAR MORE chance that he will test it rather than he has to download himself a tiny 30 mb and put out itself to understand a basic thing such as .. making a live usb! Moreover if tazusb doesn't always work! Why should he face such a moutain before he could see a video on Youtube?
Slitaz really deserves to be more spread in the public. Time to be realist! If people keep buying win8 crap, it's only because their so lazy. And if they say .. " Linux ? Bof.. it doesn't work " .. you know what ? They are right ! Oh yes, one can say .. bla bla .. it's because you have to do this .. bla bla ... do that ... Linux has fail to be the main Desktop OS - despites it's quality - because it was an autistic cosmos for too long ; because for ignorent people, the sentence is very clear : I cannot use it in the 10 minutes ? --> trash bin. Sad, but true.
> We want it to be Simple, Small and Lightweight. That's our goal.
... that's why I was surprised when SliTaz 4 made the inclusion of Webkit kind of mandatory. Nice as an integrated admin & configuration tool like TazPanel is, and impressive as a dedicated tiny web browser like TazWeb is, I think the distribution took a wrong turn when people decided to create something like a mini Ubuntu and in the process sacrificed for mere comfort some of the simplicity, flexibility and transparency of previous releases. The latest version of libwebkit weighs in at 30+ MB (extracted). How can such a huge lump be justified in a distro that wants to be lightweight, especially when it is only used in an auxiliary function, which is the case for people who use Firefox or Opera as their main browser?
And then there is the loss of flexibility that comes with the integration of a large variety of functions in a single interface (TazPanel). I use SLiTaz exclusively from a customized live CD and, since size matters, I remove everything from the CD that I don't need (wifi and other hardware related stuff, grub and other installation related stuff etc). But this is where the newly introduced inflexibility kicks in because as soon as I remove Parted and GParted, the dependency chain ripples through to TazPanel, which in my opinion also makes TazWeb and Webkit redundant. And then there are the two permanently open local ports and lots of other little bits and pieces that I don't want to go into now ...
So, yes, I'd also like to believe that "Simple, Small and Lightweight" is the objective. But on the evidence of recent developments I think SliTaz is moving in the opposite direction.
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libwebkit is about as light as you're going to get a web browser framework that supports Javascript and proper css. Most Distros include it now for use with their browsers and documentation tools. It's easy to say it's unneeded, but I don't see you suggesting alternatives.
As for my point, each person's definition of the three points differs and I've been in way too many arguements about what to include and what not to include. But simple math will suggest this: The more you include, the bigger the RAM usage, the slower the creation and the boot times, the less likely somebody will patiently wait for a memory whore to boot and the less impressed they'll be to use it. So what can we do? We can make a separate flavour that includes wifi drivers rather that pushing it down people's throats that doesn't have wifi (like me). I find it funny that nobody has mentioned 3G or dial up yet.
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Well, it seems that everybody is thinking about "how to make Linux more userfriendly?"
and worrying about "this don't work and that don't work" out of the box,
"how to bring Linux to newbies?" etc...
Let me speak as a provocateur:
Why should anyone (developers) be interested in that?
are we a Company?, are we earning money with that?, no, all we will get are more "help me please questions"
Bring Linux to more people? why?, I've got it and you've got it...(mostly working)..so far so good....over and out.
Why should it be in my interest to convince the World
to use Linux?..To make it a bigger Target for malware-writers?
It's much more safe for us if everyone else is using MS.
I'm free to choose which OS I like. ( take it or leave it )
regards....sixofeight
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> libwebkit is about as light as you're going to get a web browser framework ...
... I never said anything else. But in the context your statement is irrelevant. The question is whether it was a good idea to make Webkit a central and irremovable (!) element of a distro that wants to be small.
> Most Distros include it now ...
... even if that were true, so what? Most distros come on CDs or even DVDs that are full to the brim. You're comparing apples and oranges because SliTaz is decidedly not "most distros". It's one of only a handful of distros that come on an ISO image smaller than 100 MB.
> It's easy to say it's unneeded, but I don't see you suggesting alternatives.
... strange that you don't see it because the answer is implicit in my previous post and it has been debated over and over in this forum at a time when SliTaz 4 was still under development. But then as now there were some who "didn't see alternatives", who evaded the issues at hand, who changed the subject and who answered questions that nobody had asked ... and the debates somehow fizzled out without ever coming to any meaningful conclusion.
In simple terms the answer is this: There was absolutely nothing wrong with previous versions of SliTaz, which for local administration and configuration tasks sported a number of small script based tools with a friendly GTK frontend. And it was a poor decision (to put it mildly) to replace all of this with one integrated browser based frontend ... unneccessary complexity was introduced and simplicity, modularity and transparency went out of the window. If one can't remove Parted/GParted without ripping out a configuration tool that's central to the entire distro then there's something wrong with the concept of that distro.
It's hard to believe all of this happened to please a small crowd of conformists, fanboys and ex-Ubuntu users who never understood or cared much for core values such as "Simple, Small and Lightweight". I think sixofeight raises some very interesting questions in his previous post, to which I'd like to add this one: By which criteria do we measure the success of a non-commercial project like a GNU/Linux distribution? Is popularity really what a specialist distro like SliTaz should be aiming for? Doesn't popularity ultimately always corrupt core values and lead to the loss of a distinct profile?
P.S.: Trixar, in case you're going to post a reply, don't remind me again of the fact that there were some minor issues with gtkdialog in previous versions of SliTaz. I am aware of this. But these issues could have been easily resolved without such a radical change of direction for the entire distro.
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As much as i understand the way computer illiterate people look at things, this post hurt.
I absolutely love slitaz for it's minimalism, simplicity, and the way i actually isn't having the system treat me like a baby - i feel like slitaz is a "take it or leave it" distro, that doesn't care if you like it or not. (Again, this is my opinion.)
Learning to install new packages using the admin panel is just as easy (if not easier) as on ubuntu or whatever.
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moulefrite,
Your idea has its charm. But this —
Is it really difficult to copy-paste some stuff in the menu in a kind of new Wizzard panel (with Gtkdialogue or beside Slitaz Panel ?)
— this is not enough! If you are a programmer, make it happen. If not — hire a programmer for this job. Perhaps here in the forum, there is a programmer who agrees to bring your ideas to life. But the programmer can not begin to run until you can not explain in detail what you want to have. Perhaps I'll write this wizard, but I really have no idea what the settings should be in it. I really did not think of, except for the system language selection, as well as selection of the browser Firefox / Opera / Chrome / etc.
Create a prototype. Describe each item, or draw a picture of it. But if it's just a words to just talk — well, I understand that. It's okay.
Darjeeling,
Again, empty words and no single line of code!
If you're so much like SliTaz 3.0, stay with it! It's so obvious.
If you do not like SliTaz 4.0 (and, most likely, SliTaz 5.0), do not use it.
If you want to SliTaz has changed — change it.
If you do not see how it can be changed here — fork it! Work on SliTaz of your dreams, where everything matches your understanding.
No need to pour …tea on developers! Fork it and Do it better!
If you do not do this, then you're a regular windbag / troll that a much of.
Thank you for your attention.
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Hi Aleksey,
I did a full program analysis, here below x)
(Start to read from " CD with most..." )
[attachment=26518,1193]
I'm pretty sure all people will completely migrate to a full Slitaz (because Ms office and games) but, at least, will be okay to have beside a kind of fast-boot-Firefox-Slitaz. An automatic frugal install beside MacOS, Win XP,7 or 8 may be a hard challenge I guess :s
Aleksej,
I did some bash scripts for some reasons. But you know that you cannot ask a primary school student to do a math home work of university student, even in 6 months. I do some programming but with business soft's. For my eyes, neck, heart and back, it's already to much 
trixar: wifi vs 3g vs dialup
I understand the rest of the world is probably different, but,
Last time I used dialup here was in 2003. Just above 10 years ago.
I noticed also that Dell used to have laptop with a slot for 3G, they are not here anymore since I last checked; in fact, wifi has become ubiquitous here and it is really quite easy to find a free hotspot.
3G many people will get 3G access through their phone, at least here, through usb or the phone being a wifi hotspot.
I do not think slitaz should grow in any unreasonable manner, but I do subscribe to a slitaz version that would boot and run on the vast majority of hw. Which was not the case with 4.0 (5.0 was looking better... if that ever goes out).
I would think wifi is truly mandatory; so as probably dialup (since I guess slitaz might be adopted in much poorer countries where dialup is the only real option in many places, but this is just a guess of mine, I may be totally out of track on this).
I must say I am puzzled by the 30+MB for wifi you mentionned (I guess this is compressed), so not sure what solution would be the best.
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Christophe: Two things. One, I did the actual math involving the iso image size increase for wireless support. It's exactly 3.58Mb which translates to about 15Mb of uncompressed space. So wireless may be viable, but not with much more space for anything else. Two, the phrase you're looking for is third world and NOT poor. In countries like mine you pay through your ass for the internet and (free) wifi is just common in big cities. Here 3G and 4G networks are an affordable alternative considering the fact you can buy data bundles quite cheaply. This is the same for countries like Italy and Australia. Incidentally, adding sakis3g support would only require 976KB - it will also add better dialup support.
moulefrite: Show me what you got because I always understood code better than flow diagrams.
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Well done.
Then maybe we should add both wifi and sakis3G. 5MB is not that bad ! Consider the added flexibility.
Slitaz was 30MB in 2010; Moore's law = x2 every 18 months means adding a few MB to slitaz is ok.
And there would still be room for embeding some more functionalities.
The 30MB barrier should be slightly adjusted: all the new hw+sw must now be supported (or slitaz will phase out, just like DSL). Which adds to more code. Fortunately, Moore's law is on our side.
I also believe it would be feasible to add all of this to make a frugal version which once loaded and wifi driver loaded would remove all unecessary drivers, as moulefrite suggests, which I also subscribe too.
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It is not a question of "Third World", it is a question of infrastructure.
I have a decent rate for my smartphone: for $4.3 / €3.3 per month I get a 1,500MiB traffic (speed about 0.2Mbit/s), 1,500 minutes of talk time, and 1,500 SMS.
My smartphone is always with me. But in our city is not well-developed infrastructure of providing access services to the Internet. It is available but not yet covered the entire city. In the nearest big city, there are only unlimited tariffs to a cable internet connection. Speed changes depending on the price:
from €4.2 per month for 10Mbit/s
to €9.2 per month for 100Mbit/s.
(Sources of prices: http://multi.net.ua/tarifinet http://starnet.dp.ua/home/tarif/ )
I hope that soon I will have home broadband internet connection and my own Wi-Fi router, but for now I have to use GPRS/EDGE.
Trixar_za,
I wonder why you have not made a receipt for Sakis3G and do not put it to repository?
moulefrite,
This picture seems familiar to me, I have already seen it. But as far as I can remember, "then" the idea was not continued. It seems that it did not continue now.
Must understand the idea is good, but it needs to develop. Picture describes exactly the same as your messages in this topic. It is not difficult to create a folder in the ISO and put there required packages. It is not difficult to write a script that will install the packages depending on your selection.
It is much more difficult to understand the following:
[*]what settings need to be in the configurator?
[*]how to identify existing equipment?
[*]how to set up existing equipment (step by step)?
When I talked about the picture, I did not mean this diagram. I meant the draft of interface with all its labels, buttons, and checkboxes. Until there is a detailed description, I can not do anything. I just do not know what it should be; it looks like you do not know this, too.
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can we do this the other way ?
ie, do an ISO supporting all hw
then boot frugal,
once booted, remove "everything" which is unused (eg all unecessary video/wifi drivers), actually freeing space.
Would that work "blindly" ? Meaning, if the files are in use and required then the removal should just fail.
I agree this does not look "clean", but for things like video and wifi driver, maybe this would "just work"... ??
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Good idea Chris!
Just wondering if launching an ISO with ATI,NVIDIA and INTEL in the same time won't make some bugs.
But for sure, the objective should be to increase the proba that a newbie be seduced within 10 min's (so diminish to the lowest the difficulty).
Nowadays, most laptops come with usb3. So don't even need to frugal install on HD, but on cheap 10€ usb3 directly (more simple). Want boot Slitaz : plug usb , No : unplug. I can lend for a try this usb key to a friend and even sell it if he want's to keep it.
Also, I even think that a good portable Office (LibreOffice,Kingsoft or FreeOffice) could be shipped directly on the usb with the good links targeting it from the rootfs (so no heavy Image)
@TRixar, no no just code to manage pictures, not about this idea
I do not think it will. I assume there is code to sort that out. If you try to load an ati driver on an intel machine it will fail
For the frugal idea you mentionned, for windows users the easiest is to have some zip file exploding all necessary files at the right place with grub4dos (including for boot, which is pretty obvious with XP; with BCD i did not investigate but there must be a way)
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Aleksej: Making a cook receipt would be harder since I'm the one supplying the updated and recompiled sakis3g I use. I also use stripped binaries and libraries to provide the requirements in the single package - all that will need to be packed to create a package on cooker.
Christophe: Will probably be less than 5Mb and closer to about 2,6Mb considering we've included linux-wireless since SliTaz 4 (I checked today). We still need a proper networking tool to use the new drivers though. Video drivers might also be an issue considering how temperamental Xorg can be.
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christophe,
Now I have installed three video drivers on my SliTaz 4.0:
[*]xorg-xf86-video-intel
[*]xorg-xf86-video-nv
[*]xorg-xf86-video-vesa
And there is no conflict, while my video card is Intel integrated. Xorg is smart enough to make choice between these drivers and to choose correct one. They say that new XOrg is more smarter than existing in SliTaz 4.0. And that vesa driver is applicable in the most of cases. So, maybe we can run SliTaz 5.0 with vesa video drives (and let it be wrong resolution if any), then we can install proper video driver, restart XOrg and that's all.
SliTaz already have tazhw that help with installing of some sort of hardware. Maybe, in this topic we told about yet-another-wrapper around tazhw? Run it in terminal using command [c]tazhw box[/c] and see.
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video-drivers
It depends on which xorg version we will have (finally)
e.g Nvidia drivers for older grafik-Hardware won't work,(Nvidia dropped Support),with newer xorg-version.
vesa is to much limited (e.g. support for widescreen)
nv could be the Fallback driver
nouveau (if possible with slitaz) would be the best default solution (imho)
nouveau uses less cpu power,compared with nv,and isn't unstable as far as I can see.
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nouveau only works for Nvidia cards while vesa works (although not perfectly) for all. Please consider the best general configuration that will work with most people.
Chris: A self-minimizing script might be a good idea. It can free up some RAM at boot too.
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@Trixar
a usefull site:
http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/svn/x/x7driver.html
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Aleksej, your ugly little rant doesn't merit a proper response. So, just in short: You have once again failed to address any of the issues that I have raised in my previous two posts. Instead, you have been hurling abuse. Not nice! Why do you find it so hard to respond to other people's concerns, opinions, ideas or suggestions in a civilized manner?
Regarding SpaceFM in Rolling ...
A short while back I have reported a problem that I have encountered in SpaceFM when copying files from a mounted hard drive (ext3) into the live system as root ...
http://forum.slitaz.org/topic/release-date-for-slitaz-50/page/2
... but what looked like a glitch at the time is actually repeatable and I can do it any time. For example, when I attempt a quick & dirty install of Opera in Rolling and I do this ...
- select /usr/lib/opera on the hard drive
- right-click, copy
- select /usr/lib in the live system
- right-click paste
... the Opera folder ends up in /user, one hierarchy level up from the intended target folder. The same is true for any other copy procedure from the hard drive into the live system as root. Strange and dangerous, isn't it? Since SpaceFM has already been adopted by a number of other distros I had a look around for other people's reports of the same 'phenomenon' but couldn't find anything. Is it possible there's something wrong with the udevil/SpaceFM build in Rolling?
And then there's another thing: The Ignorant Guru, author of udevil and SpaceFM, seems to have disappeared since April this year. People have now become so concerned about this that a certain "someone3lse" has posted a message on the Guru's wordpress blog to enquire why he no longer responds to eMails and where he might be ...
http://igurublog.wordpress.com/
I do hope the Guru is well & happy, and that he's just taking some time off. But what if he doesn't come back? Do you consider udevil/SpaceFM in its current state fit for a SliTaz 5.0 release, even if it remains unmaintained by its original author?
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2.5 MB is not that bad, this is good news. Specially if we can reclaim most of it (and more) through self-minimization (which would have my preference compared to other solutions, since that still would allow to have/keep all sw on a stick to run on any hw).
what is the networking utility you are saying we would be missing ?
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