As you can see (if you look carefully) from the video (in previous post), there are 5 modules currently packed in the pre-alpha version of Slax 7:
1) core module (kernel, drivers, and essential linux apps and binaries) ... 55MB, like in Slax 6
2) xorg module (only X with required dependencies and fluxbox) ... 30MB, almost the same like in Slax 6
3) desktop-libs (that's QT libraries and dependencies, GTK libs are
missing yet) ... 25MB
4) kde module (workspace, plasma and such, konsole) ... 35 MB
5) devel module (gcc compiler and such) ... 25MB
So KDE with X with QT and libs and dependencies is about 90MB. How is that possible? I simply recompiled QT and KDE base with the less possible dependencies. For example, there is no help, thus there is no dependency on some big XML libraries. There is no python dependencies, so no python needed. And so on...
Note that there are no apps yet, no utilities, and no office. I'm still trying to get all of these under 200MB in... more16 comments
The last version of Linux Live scripts dates back to the year 2009. A lot of time passed since then and the core concepts should be reconsidered.
Current approach is following:
- maintain a fixed size initrd image
- use busybox for everything
- use huge kernel (in order to support as much hardware out of the box as possible without loading modules)
- when done with booting, keep initrd in memory
The current approach has several disadvantages.
First of all, the fixed-size initrd is a filesystem (currently ext2) which needs to be decompressed and loop-mounted in memory. As long as the initrd stays available (which is forever in Slax), it consumes the same amount of memory all the time (currently 4MB). For that reason, there is a pressure to make the initrd small, which contradicts the need to include lots of useful stuff there (eg. network card drivers).
Being an ext2 filesystem in general, it is more complicated to create and maintain. If initrd is replaced by... more6 comments
In the past, I've sponsored squashfs-lzma patches in order to support 7-zip's lzma compression in squashfs. But even squashfs itself was not included in Linux kernel, so it was not possible to 'mount' Slax modules in any distro other than Slax.
The situation has changed now. SquashFS is included in mainline and XZ (lzma2) support is included in kernel as well. So I've compiled mksquashfs tool with xz support and tested the compression ratio.
I hoped to get some exciting results, however there is no excitement at all. That doesn't mean it would be bad, not at all! It's just compressing 'the same' like before :)
Using dictionary size of 250k I got the very same size (differece in about 100 kbytes) from the previously used lzma patches. The compression ratio is the same, it's not worse than before, that's good ;) And the best part? You can mount that filesystem on any distro with recent kernel. 4 comments
Slackware itself doesn't track library dependencies, however sometimes I need to know what package is required by any other package. So I wrote small script which analyzes all slackware tarbals and uses ldd to get the dependency list.
Here is a result showing all packages from Slackware64-current:
Isn't it useful to know that alsa-utils need over 40MB of other packages? Or phonon needs around 157MB of other stuff, and we are talking here about the compressed size!
It shows itself that the less-bloated clean Slackware installation should consist of these packages:
I keep asking myself several times a year, why do I keep using Slackware? Are those *buntu and *hat distributions useless? I was thinking really hard about this. Am I so dumb to learn any different distro? Wouldn't it be better? Slackware is maintained by just one main developer and if he goes bad, wouldn't I be screwed? The dependencies are so unclean in Slackware, for example 'normalize' package requiring something which requires mesa, ... that is completely mad.
However, I think I'm tied up with Slackware for two reasons.
1) startup scripts. I know how those work in Slackware and it is not of my interest to learn new and ever-changing methods of booting used in other distros (upstart? systemd?)
2) packaged software without patches. It happens just very rarely that Slackware bundles any patches for precompiled software. Packages are mostly distributed in the way the initial developers intended, without any mad modifications. I remember installing lilo in ubuntu just to find ... more3 comments
I was never a big fan of Gnome. It didn't provide any advantage over the other desktops (in my point of view), so why bother. However, I've tested gnome 3 few days ago, to give it a shot.
I don't like that the first quarter of my wide screen is filled up by extra large window title and application menu.
I don't need to chat so often so I don't prefer such deep integration of the desktop with Instant Messenger. I can imagine the huge dependencies needed due to that.
Tapping my touchpad doesn't click. I had to enable that in mouse settings.
On the other side, I love the rest. Just the way how gnome 3 removed the Start menu is brilliant. In fact it didn't disappear, it is now 'in fullscreen', called Activities. There is no fixed amount of virtual desktops, since Gnome 3 manages them itself, there's always just one empty desktop for future use; and if you move some windows to it, another empty desktop appears automatically. Ingenious.
I think that this is very usable piece ... more5 comments
In the last years, I didn't release any new version of Slax. Mostly due to lack of time, since my business and family occupies me a lot. However, there were several occasions when I regretted that. I realized that I need Slax myself at the first place.
That was the reason Slax started back in 2002, and it is again the reason why Slax should re-born in 2011. I need it. I need it so much. You know, there are situations one needs to start some Linux somewhere. Old Slax is no longer reasonable for any serious work, it's outdated, kernel doesn't support most new drivers. Hardware is so different now with all those SSD drives and TV tuners. One needs newest kernel. And one needs small Linux distro. I, at least, need it.
Linux kernel 2.6.38 now supports XZ compression for squashfs. That means the lzma2 compression is finally supported with the vanila kernel, without additional patches. It's time to start working on new Slax ;)
By the way, I saw gnome 3 and it's wonderful. Did I use KDE in the past? The future is unsure. Looking for gnome 3 for Slax, but will have to check KDE 4.6 first. Didn't use KDE since the old 4.0 days (that was one big disappointment). 1 comment
