Slax author's Blog (RSS)

I recently ran a system update on Slax-2,8,0. Chromium was updated & added a good few megs. Not sure how much - I added git & clone at about the same time. I was not too worried about the extra megs, next to the other additions it was not significant. Of more concern was the fact that it added an extra Chromium icon to my xLunch which I couldn't get rid of. I will have to work on that one. I don't like unnecessary clutter on my desktop.

Thank you for this good and fast Linux distro.
I tested today with QEMU and works great.
Best regards.

How can I migrate from Slax 9.8.0 to this latest 9.9.0 release without reinstalling the packages I did install upon my 9.8.0 version? What is the safest way? I'm pretty sure this question must have been asked on this site. Could you give me a link pls?

Thanks for the release, Thomas!
One day I will definitely buy a free Slax :).
It's worth it.

I'd like to know how to add the files libimobiledevice and libmuxd (others, too if necessary) so I can use my iPhone as a USB wired network device. Help, please?

Great to see another release. Thanks for this amazing and uncommon distro.
I was wondering, have you considered replacing Chromium with Iridium (Free Software) or Brave (Open Source)? Chromium has many privacy concerns which are not great to have.

Otherwise, not bad the way it is evolving.

Thanks guys :)

@foxtrot.mike
Check /usr/share/applications for chromium.desktop file, remove it to get rid of the unnecessary icon

@Oleg Anishchenkov
Easiest way to update is to simply copy new version over the old one (entire slax directory). It should keep your changes, but make sure to have a backup in case if anything goes wrong.

@Jeff Garrison
You will most likely need to compile those from sources, first use "apt install git build-essential" to install developer tools and then you can clone the repos and compile it.

@john2009w
From what I've seen chromium is an open source version of Chrome browser, thus I do not see any privacy concerns. Can you maybe specify particular ones?

Thanks Tomas! A very quick reply & useful tip on dealing with redundant icons. Just have to make sure that I zap the right one... I am learning a lot with Slax. ;-)

Hello Thomas, thanks for the new release. With version 9.9 after updating I see 60 core packages to be upgraded, is that correct?
Also I noticed fonts to be less crisp and clear on slax than on other distros, is there a way to fix that?

Is there any way to install slacks together in windows? so that there is a choice when loading

Well, even if it's open source unfortunately it has code from Google, which tries many things to gather data about user activity.

It even tried to install a binary from Google to listen in on microphones:
https://news.softpedia.com/news/google-s-chromium-on-debian-is-listening-in-on-your-conversations-484914.shtml
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jun/23/google-eavesdropping-tool-installed-computers-without-permission

So it seems Chromium and even linux versions are not good for privacy.

More discussions:
https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/34tc2f/how_safe_is_chromium_privacy_wise/
https://github.com/prism-break/prism-break/issues/169

This page also gives an idea on what was there on Chromium and what Iridium disabled:
https://github.com/iridium-browser/tracker/wiki/Differences-between-Iridium-and-Chromium

Iridium has Google safe browsing turned on by default, but it does not directly tell Google which pages I am browsing. It gets the website list in cache then uses it ( https://github.com/iridium-browser/tracker/issues/131#issuecomment-394428596 ). But it can be turned off from settings.

It seems there are many features which we take for granted that try to spy on what we do online. For example, the translation feature in Chromium is very useful and easy to use. But it has to read the content of every page I visit in order to determine if it is in foreign language and show the popup to offer to translate the page.

This is really frustrating ...
I want to install a *.deb package on 9.9.0
So I've installed software-properties-common to install GDEBI
When I try to apt-get install gdebi - it returns a bunch of errors:
gconf2
libgksu2-0
gksu
gdebi
Google search didn't help either.
How the hell do I install a deb package on Slax ??

@Vadim
In order to build a bundle to access the scanner capabilities on my Brother printer/scanner, I needed to do the following:

apt-get update; apt-get install --yes sane-utils
dpkg -i brscan4-0.4.2-1.amd64.deb

The sane-utils are just a scanner package and not important to the example. But basically I just did dpkg -i followed by the deb filename. This was in 9.7 or 9.8. I haven't rebuilt the bundle yet for 9.9 so I can't swear that it still works.

I am not sure why this happens. Anyway, "apt install gdebi" properly installs the gdebi package, regardless of the errors, so you can use "gdebi" command still.

The issue was with the GUI component of Gdebi.
I installed gdebi-core without a problem, but the *.deb package I was after didn't go in. Found a work-around by adding an alternative library (debian-multimedia)
All good! :)

would be nice to have installed as default light image viewer, very light gtk based is Viewnior, has only one libexif dependencies only few KBytes,

Hi, i have a question. How to setup russian language in slax 9.9, and how configure keyboard layout indicator on panel?

Harpagon, see https://slax9.blogspot.com/p/slax-9.html - in Russian :)

Dobrý deň prajem, Slax 9.9.0 mi sformátoval disk a bios dal na heslo. V dvoch prípadoch na HP 6720s. Čo s tým????????

@Ivan Vrab
Slax nic neformátuje ani nenastavuje nic v biosu......

Too bad, non systemd free...

And over 147Mo of ram used at startup...

where is slax2hd ??? i need it desperately

Zdravim,

mam problem s instalaci wine-i386.
Zadal jsem v xterm: apt wine
Po stazeni 13 souboru to napise chybu: E: invalid operation wine.

Jak se kopiruje text z Chromia a do xterm a opacne ? ( ve Windows se to dela pres schranku)

how i can load slax with GRUB?
Please..

English:
I have a problem with installing wine-i386.
I wrote in the Xterm: apt wine
After downloading 13 files it have written the error: E: invalid operation wine.

How to copy text from Chromium to Xterm and vice versa? (in the OS MS Windows it was over the box)

@Lars Beigon
The correct command is: apt install wine

Copying text is different than you are used to ... in order to copy text from one window to another, simply mark the text with mouse in the first window (there is no need for Ctrl+C), then switch to the other window and click mouse wheel or press Shift+Ins to paste.

I really like Slax and have been a long time user, planning to install it on a friend's computer. Many thanks for the great work, Tomas.

In spite of the speed and light weight of Slax, I would still love a working hibernate function.

I notice that hibernate is working alright in the derived distro Porteus which is also nice and fast. Obviously, the live scripts in Porteus mount the devices at an early point in time, making my swapfile (which is on a different partition) available before the "resume from hibernation" process tries to find the hibernation image.

In Slax, this does not work. I also notice in journalctl that, for instance, zram becomes available at a later stage than the "hibernation image not found or could not be loaded" message.

Does anyone have an idea of what should be modified in the live scripts to enable mounting the partition with the swapfile early enough to be found by the "resume from hibernation" process?

As I wrote, I also like Porteus - the biggest issue is the Slackware base, though, thus the lack of good package management; installing non-standard packages is painful.

The move to Debian in Slax (seeing the irony in the fact that Slax moved while Porteus still uses Slackware) was a useful one: having aptitude available and being able to easily install packages!

Anyway, any ideas/hints about my hibernate question?
I am not as knowledgeable to correctly edit/modify the live scripts. Thanks.

Hello. I'm really looking forward to using Slax, but am getting an error.

Could not locate Slax data.

I used dmesg and found two things that stand out.

AMD_Vi event:
IO_PAGE_FAULT

and

Random: blkid: uninitialized urandom

Not sure if these are the cause or not, but would appreciate any help.

Thanks

I figured it out. I have a Gigabit motherboard, which has issues booting into Linux.

I like your distro, and I am using it, but I have a big big problem. I am using TDE (Trinity) version of slax, and when I try to connect via wifi, when I am finishing the network configuration and I click "connect and save", the following error appears on screen:

Unable to save network connection!
Potential causes:
- Insufficient permissions
- network manager not running
- DBUS failure

When I connect via cable, there is no problem, and everything works o.k. This only happens in wifi connections, i have never got connected via wifi.
Hope you can help. Anyway, Thank you.

Tomas M: please add to slax viewnior image viewer its minimalistic and active developed.

My screenshoot of slax http://www.abclinuxu.cz/desktopy/vesel-20190521

mate desktop please

@ Aneryan
Not tried for mate, but while in slax persistant mode and changes folder empty, I added LXDE desktop by apt install lxdm lxde and clicking lxdm rather than light desktop manager, then rebooted into persistant mode which displayed lxdm login screen giving me choice LXDE or other as guest or root, so I logged in LXDE as root, did savechanges /06-LxdmLxde.sb creating a module in root which I copied to backup partition and to slax folder (or modules folder) and then emptied changes folder then rebooted all OK. With other desktop environments, apt install synaptic then can search mate and lxdm or specific desktop manager for mate. I understand that lxdm works for a number of desktops. I did the same as above with trinity slax (link offered above) first adding pcmanfm into trinity then lxdm lxde giving me a working trinity/LXDE dual Slax64 with LXDM login screen, then reinstalled wifi.

Hi Tomas,
is it possible to encrypt the persistence file, require password for unlocking it, and if no password is provided, start SLAX in vanilla state?

Thanks,
O.

Good work, as always
If you need the information
The last Virtualbox 6.0.8 cannot be compiled with slax 9.9 debian kernel.
I have checked that Virtualbox 6.0.8 with previous slax is compiled ok.
I have tried twice with clean systems both
Have a good day
Bye

I have also been unable to get any version of Virtualbox to install. Always ends in the error below.

[ 1004.439400] vboxdrv: disagrees about version of symbol cpu_tlbstate
[ 1004.439403] vboxdrv: Unknown symbol cpu_tlbstate (err -22)

I am fairly new to linux, virtually no experiance at all. I have installed slax 9.9.0 successfully. This is on a machine in my shop and I need wifi support to have internet. I have a realtek rtl8811au usb wifi adapter. It comes with linux drivers and an install.sh script to automatically install the drivers. When I run the script it decompresses files then errors out with 'Bash: Make: Command not found' kind of lost as to where to go from here.

Thank you, Tomas for bringing us this wonderful debian-based modulized distro. I have compiled nearly 30 modules that allow me to use R, Python programming, and LaTeX, etc. with a full-fledged linux environment on Slax.

I once used Slax for a while when its code number was still at 6.0 (forgive me if I am wrong), based on Slackware. I remember at that time there was a boot up cheat code setting for modules selection (kind of fork setting). I wonder if this can still be achieved for the coming versions.

I am now using Slax on different machines, one of which is a ThinkPad. This machine requires an alsa.conf setting to using PCH instead of its HDMI audio card (detected as the first card to use). But on other machines the sound cards are detected fine. I am thinking of putting sound card settings in different modules for choosing at the boot up stage. If this is possible, it would be convenient to change among different machines.

Thank you once again for your excellent work!

Hii :D, Can someone answer my question?

I am new to slax, I have been using it for less than 2 weeks and I do not know much about this system. My question is if it is possible to change the user interface, for something like xfce or cinnamon ...

Indenpendently if it is possible or not, thanks for the attention!

Hi, Tomas M. Thank You, for this great Distro, with the end of Ubuntu 32 bits support i think Slax became the best solution, I'm trying to use as the main distro in an old hardware, i'm already install a bunch of program (wine, smplayer, evince, libreoffice, Steam, qbittorrent, audacious, synaptic, dosbox) every thing is working great, but i'm having a problem with the program camorama, i just can't install it keeping returm me an error of dependencies, could you help me please?

Good Vibes From Brazil.

I like to know how you configured the image that enable most of RAM to be used for Live File System? As you know most Live images split RAM into half in wasteful manner for mount points that have no need for 4GB or 8GB with RAM of 8GB and 16GB respectively. SLAX does the Live File System split far more intelligently. I have been searching for a few years how to change the split of RAM 50/50 to something very much as you have done. Would you care to explain how you configure the Live ISO image you created to a clearly more intelligent split of Live File System?

I inadvertently turned off the taskbar. I can find no way to get it back ! What am I missing? Thank-you

lokarin i have tried to answer on youtube