SliTaz Forum

mzs_47

Member

Registered: 2014-01-01

Posts: 5

Queries about the software disc and some observations.

Hi,

I recently tried Siltaz on Virtualbox, Installed it as I wanted a small lightweight test VM. I really liked the tazpanel, it is slick has many options and gets the job done.

Coming to the question, does the software disc hold all the software contained in repositories? If yes, then this is a great distro for people who have limited net connectivity or no connection at all

You ought to advertise this. As not many Linux Distros are offline friendly.

And it is shown as 6.5GB on the webpage, but when I tried downloading it, it showed around 3GB, is it 6.5 after installing or the size of whole software collection? :-?

Observations:

The download page is hard to find, as it is not available on the home page. Can it be show as "More download options" Just below the main button?

Other than that I faced one major issue on the VM, when I was using a dynamically allocated VDI, the installer could not detect the disk, whereas I used gparted to partition it. Later I used a fixed size disk and the install went fine.

Thanks for such a small yet functional OS!

Guest

Guest

Re: Queries about the software disc and some observations.

I believe the size discrepancy is due to the info not being updated when the change from version 3 to 4 happened. I don't think all the old software was recompiled for version 4.

I agree the full dvd is not easy to find unless you go looking for it specifically; perhaps it should be more easily found.

mzs_47

Member

Registered: 2014-01-01

Posts: 5

Re: Queries about the software disc and some observations.

Thanks for the reply.

Ok, when I check the packages using the tazpanel, the list is huge and takes a while to load up. I thought this was included [Correct?].

If not all this software then I hope it has most of the things necessary for a offline user.

Apart from this only PC-BSD and Debian can be used without an internet connection.

I am trying to list and blog about such FLOSS OSs, as I live in a place where Internet is scarce/expensive to come by.

It is easier to get an illegal copy of windows and software than run a free OS.

##More reasons here[I am not the author]-

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/help-broadband.html

Guest

Guest

Re: Queries about the software disc and some observations.

Most Linux distros will let you install software without being connected to the internet provided that you have one of the packages for that particular distro. you just need to read up on the package installer to find out how.

I am not used to installing extra SliTaz packages, but some one will tell you how, or read tazpkg docs.

On my regular distro, Debian based, I use 'dpkg' to install extra programs from a disk. I know for sure that .rpm (Redhat/SuSE) & .tgz (Slackware) packages can also be installed from a disk.

So you should be able to download packages to a disk, to be installed onto as many machines as you want offline.

mzs_47

Member

Registered: 2014-01-01

Posts: 5

Re: Queries about the software disc and some observations.

I should have been more elaborate.

I meant to say, who allow you to download packages in bulk with all required dependencies. So that you don't have to hunt for individual packages and its dependencies.

A offline friendly distro should be easy to update,get and install new software. Packages used on one PC should install on another.

Slackware[And CentOS] does allow you to download some auxiliary discs, however, it does not have a default package manager which takes care of dependencies like rpm/apt/aptitude. Which in turn increases the effort on a new user.

Of course it does have other community/addon package managers, but Slackware officially does not support them. [CentOS does not contain most of the desktop software, it is geared towards server use]

PC-BSD has .pbi's like mac, which you can download and share, and Debian provides MOST of the repo's software on disc. I am not aware of any of the rpm based distros which provide something like this. [We have auto package, zero install, super debs, but they did not materialize]

This was the reason why I left Ubuntu in the first place. Long story short- I had to manually download every single package and then try installing the software and then go back to fetch the dependencies and so on till I install it[Dependency Hell].. It's frustrating and takes the joy away.. I hope you understand the point here.

Let me know if you now any other distro's which fit into this criteria.

I am currently on Debian too, but planning to migrate to PC-BSD. As downloading large discs and updating them is cumbersome compared to downloading required pbis

My other aim is to help others like me who are stuck without a proper internet connection or have limited download cap/bandwidth.

Refer my posts -

http://kgibran.wordpress.com/2014/01/01/other-floss-operting-systems-which-are-offline-friendly/

http://kgibran.wordpress.com/2011/08/03/debian-the-distribution-which-is-offline-friendly/

http://kgibran.wordpress.com/2014/01/01/free-floss-magazines-and-ebooks/