Distro#16 Slax 6.1.0

Slax is a LiveCD system, based on Slackware. When I booted it with default option, there is a driver issue because of wrong driver version. But, the VESA mode is ok to use, just the resolution is too small for these days.

Boot-time for my hardware took about a minute. The desktop environment is KDE 3.5 and Kernel is 2.6.27.8. I checked the website, its build system is very convenient to compose your own of packages, but adding dependencies needs some clicks. I added NVIDIA 96xx driver, Firefox, pppoe-kemo, and removed KOffice. The final is about 198 MB and only took 4 minutes or less to download, the download speed is very fast. I used external USB harddrive this time, because I want it can be able to store data/session.

Screenshot of Slax' builder

I unpacked tarball to disk and ran ROOT/boot/liloinst.sh instead of bootinst.sh (for FAT-only) because the partition is ext3. It provided a clear message about what would be done:

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
                        Welcome to Slax boot installer                        
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

This installer will setup disk /dev/sdb to boot only Slax from /dev/sdb1.
Warning! Master boot record (MBR) of /dev/sdb will be overwritten.
If you use /dev/sdb to boot any existing operating system, it will not work
anymore. Only Slax will boot from this device. Be careful!

Press any key to continue, or Ctrl+C to abort...

Flushing filesystem buffers, this may take a while...
Updating MBR to setup boot record...
Warning: /dev/sdb is not on the first disk
Warning: The initial RAM disk is too big to fit between the kernel and
   the 15M-16M memory hole.  It will be loaded in the highest memory as
   though the configuration file specified "large-memory" and it will
   be assumed that the BIOS supports memory moves above 16M.
Added Slax ? *
Disk /dev/sdb should be bootable now. Installation finished.

Read the information above and then press any key to exit...

This time it's in text-mode. I ran xconf, then startx, the video driver didn't work, kernel module wasn't load, because that package is for kernel 2.6.24.5. So, I set up PPPoE and downloaded the driver from NVIDIA, and deactived the module and removed it from USB hd. After running the installer, startx gave correct result. After rebooting, it also gave the correct one.

I started to explore Slax, the following screenshot is the Module Manager:

You can use it to add or to remove a module. On the website, you can directly activate a module (not in Firefox).

 Accoding to this feature list, the persistent changes to whole root filesystem is achieved by AUFS filesystem. In this current install, it took about 450 MB disk space, and around 200 MB memory in use. I think speed isn't an advantage of Slax, but portability is. By my estimation, there should be over 1100 modules (including multi-versions of a module) that you can activate on your system. The boot-time is not fast, but it's acceptable becuase it's not just a LiveCD.

Lastly, the screenshot

Distro#15 Kwort Linux 2.4.1.1

The CD image is less than 500MB. After booting from CD, choosing keyboard layout, and partitioning, then selecting swap and root file system locations. As of formatting, ext2/ext3/ext4 are the options, I chose ext4. After that, I made a sound “ah!!” because the GRUB in Fedora is still not supporting booting disk. In this partition table, I don't have /boot, therefore GRUB stays in root file system. I can only cross my fingers. Now the files is getting installed.

The architecture of Kwort Linux is i486. Kernel is 2.6.28.7. Kwort is Slackware-based and uses Xfce. The version of Kwort is 2.4.1.1.

After 7 minutes, installer asked about boot loader, LILO. I chose simple installation of LILO and use of frame buffer console.

After installation is done, it boots, and there are more settings, such Xorg settings. Here I chose to boot into graphical login. Then I logged in as root and created new user, and reboot.

It booted into SLiM, took less than a minute. After logging in, I launched the Settings from Xfce menu, then the Kwort Network Manager. For eth0, there is a special tab PPPoE, I set my account and chose the connection type ADSL from Basic tab. But it didn't work. So, I went to the irc.oftc.net#Kwort and asked. The package for PPPoE, rp-pppoe, was missed in CD image. The people on IRC room are very kind to help me.

As of writing, you need to wait for next release, 2.4.2, if you need PPPoE. They have built the package for me. There is also a bug in Kwort Network Manager's script, it will be fixed in 2.4.2 as well.

While chatting with the developers, they keep simplicity as the philosophy. Kwort is actually 7 years old, the developers were trying to learn from it, then it became a hobby. They want to bring developers and normal users closer. You can easily get in touch with dev-team via Google Group or IRC.

Lastly, the screenshot

Distro#13 Topologilinux 7.0.1

Topologilinux lets you install alone with existing Windows, but you can also install as normal Linux installation. It's Slackware-based and for i486 only. I downloaded 7.0.1 DVD, which is released on 2009-01-10.

I booted it with install-real option. The instructions say that I need to do disk partitioning and the installation setup was mostly copied from Slackware 12.1. I fdisk /dev/hda, and create two partitions, root and swap, then run setup. The boot loader is LILO. The installation process is just like Distro#8 Slackware Linux 12.2, but I chose GNOME as default window manager this time.

After rebooted and logged in as root, I typed setup to configure, which leads to add new user and setup X, sound system.

After rebooted and logged in as normal user, I tried to set up PPPoE via Network, but I couldn't my setting didn't get saved. So, I used pppoe-setup. Now, I need to install official nVidia driver. I rebooted with runlevel 3 for installing the driver by typing Linux 3 in lilo. Since the kernel is not 2.6.27, which needs a patch, therefore it went smoothly.

The Mixer applet complains that it couldn't find the sound device, it's resolved by adding normal user to gropup audio. Adobe Flash wasn't installed by default, I downloaded and installed, then watched No Pants Subway Ride 2009.

I think this is it for all. It actually runs like Slackware, it is. As tradition, a screenshot:

You can be this is written and published on Topologilinux.

Distro#4 Absolute 12.1.07

A Slackware-based distro for i486+ architecture focuses on lightweight, easy installation, desktop purpose, stability and security.

The words above is what I see from Absolute Linux's website. I haven't tried Slackware, therefore I can't tell if it is better after I install Absolute. There are two install CDs, only first one is necessary, second one has kernel source and some usual applications, e.g. OpenOffice. You can read a list of packages at download page. There is also a Step-by-Step page has many screenshots about installation process if you want a peek at the process.

At 0458, I booted up from cd, chose AUTOSETUP to install, which used reiserfs as default file system. Started installing packages at 0501. At 0510, configured for modem/mouse/network/startup services/timezone/etc. 0513, pressed CTRL+ALT+DEL to reboot. The whole installing process took only 15 minutes, that is the fastest I have installed. Quite amazing.

After logged in as root (we will create one normal user later) and startx, the resolution is incorrect, 1792x1344. Window manager is Icewm. The startup sound is kind of weird.., then you will read a First Run info for Absolute document in Firefox. xrandr doesn't report the correct one. I decided to download the official nVidia driver. PPPoE is able to be set up (pppoe-setup) right away and lynx is available to download the driver. I don't have kernel source, I guess the only way (I don't know if kernel is patched, therefore I wouldn't download from kernel.org) is to download the CD2 entirely. So far not so good, I wouldn't recommend anyone this distro, LFS is more easier than this. After downloaded the CD2, there is a .txt, which denotes "This is the complete and unmodified source code for the Linux kernel."

I unpacked it, a slack-desc is right there. Obviously, a package manager is in this system, but I don't know what it is and nothing is mentioned on the website (Later, after installed nVidia, I found out that info is written in the First Run info or this Getting Started, sorry Absolute. But what if the user never can get into X?). I got the information from Slackware's website. I ran installpkg kernel-source-2.6.24.7_abs-noarch-1AL.tgz, the nVidia driver installer built the driver. Oh yeah! nVidia green logo!

Now, I am following the first time info. First thing is to install optional multimedia packages from main menu. The dialog says that may take a half hour to install. Mean while, I created a normal user and check what I have in main menu. The file manager is ROX. The Documentation submenu collects documents of Slackware, Absolute, Icewm, ROX, other apps, etc. Firefox is 3.0.1, Flash works out-of-box, also has Asian fonts. There are many utilities I haven't seen before. The optional multimedia packages finally installed after more than an hour, downloading took too much time. I then reboot to count the booting time, that takes 40 seconds, that is longer than I expected.

Generally, Absolute is quick and easy to install, that's all the features I can name for it. Lastly, a screenshot

and a weird penguin (a result of waiting installing multimedia packages)