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Releases notes

Overview

Welcome to SliTaz 3.0! Small, fast, easy to use and customize, the new SliTaz stable version is now out after one year of development.

Technical support is provided to users via the mailing list and the official forum: forum.slitaz.org

Supported Hardware

SliTaz GNU/Linux supports all machines based on the i486 or x86 Intel compatible processors. A minimum 192MB of memory is recommended to use the core LiveCD. 80MB is needed for the “slitaz-loram” flavor and 16MB for the “slitaz-loram-cdrom” flavor.

With the slitaz-loram flavor, the system is less responsive, but allows you to graphically install SliTaz on very old machines with limited resources. Once installed, SliTaz works well with a minimum of 16MB memory, but forget about using Firefox to surf the web - you'll have to use the text based ‘links’ for example.

SliTaz 3.0 provides all needed drivers and tools such as 915resolution to have support for a wide range of netbooks (Eeepc, HP mini, Aspire One, etc).

LiveCD Flavors

SliTaz GNU/Linux is distributed as a bootable LiveCD. You can use the LiveCD as a normal system or you can graphically install SliTaz to the hard drive. Installing/upgrading SliTaz retains your previous system's settings, applications and documents.

The LiveCD can also be customised and easily rebuilt both graphically or from the command line. Install your own custom set of packages, or simply use one of the preset flavors on the mirror. Then simply generate your distribution with the “Tazlito” tool.

The ISO image now uses a ‘hybrid’ system: it can also be copied onto a USB stick without formating it (using dd).

Kernel and toolchain

SliTaz 3.0 comes with a new but very well tested 2.6.30.6 Linux kernel and a complete new build toolchain from which the whole system has been built. The 2.6.30.6 Linux kernel is separated into several linux-packages for supporting additional drivers and features. This time we have also built-in some more drivers to have a faster kernel boot.

The new toolchain comprises of: Binutils 2.19.1, GCC 4.4.1, Glibc 2.10.1

UTF-8 support

With this release, the SliTaz community can enjoy full UTF-8 support. SliTaz uses standard PO files for the translation of all SliTaz related tools, boxes and utilities. With better internationalization support (russian, portuguese, chinese, and many more), contributors can now use graphical tools such as poedit to make translations using GNU gettext standards. The labs also have an i18n project to easily upload files to be included in the distribution. The locale packs have more translated application messages for the core system and some extra packages for applications such as Gimp, Abiword, Gnumeric, etc.

Xorg server

SliTaz now uses the Xorg X window system (although we will always try to provide a Xvesa flavor). With the tazx utility you can reconfigure Xorg and select the correct driver for your card. The xorg server comes with the vesa driver by default which powers most cards; although you may still need to manually configure your xorg.conf to some degree if you install some of the other drivers.

HD install and LiveUSB

The installation is fully automated and can be done graphically or in text mode. The slitaz installer now lets you use a separate partition for /home, configure the root password and chose the default user login. The installer also now supports installation from a LiveUSB session.

Full USB install is also supported using rootdelay=10 as a kernel argument (in GRUB menu.lst). The root delay ensures the Kernel has detected the device before mounting it on / (root).

Software Packages

SliTaz 3.0 has around 2300 packages in the database. A wide variety of packages have been commited and the Tazpkg package manager can now convert deb/rpm/arch/slackware/ipk packages to SliTaz native format (.tazpkg). A lot of time was also spent maintaining professional grade software such as OpenERP, MySQL, GLPI.

On the update side, mostly all the packages have been updated, including the kernel, toolchain, Xorg (7.4), GTK and Qt. The package format has also changed to support lzma for better compression and faster downloads. Packages are also checked by Tazwok to ensure the FHS is followed and packages are now built automatically by the SliTaz Build Bot: bb.slitaz.org

Core Desktop

A lot of attention has been paid the the core desktop. All applications are well integrated and a special SliTaz theme (icons, Openbox, GTK) has been created.

The core desktop provides a selection of multi-use packages for surfing the web, listening to music, audio editing, image manipulation and developing or burning to optical media. It's just one click in the application menu to find installed software by category.

Security

SliTaz is more secure and robust now and the firewall rules have been updated. A firewall can be installed using the graphical tazhw box, and serverbox can help to maintain the installed firewall. Mountbox can manage crypto devices with devmapper and the crypt setup tools allow encryption of block devices.

From 2.0 to 3.0

The SliTaz GNU/linux installer offers an update function allowing you to upgrade from a ‘2.0’ to ‘3.0’ version. To upgrade the system you first need to boot the ‘Stable’ LiveCD, launch the installer, select upgrade and then specify the partition containing the system that you want to update. The installer will then clean out the system and reinstall all the packages not present on the CD from the mirror. When this has finished you can reboot with your new version of SliTaz.

Note that the installer will keep a copy of the list of packages and a complete archive of the /etc directory (etc.tar.gz) in /var/lib/slitaz-install.

To upgrade a 2.0 to 3.0 it is also possible to use the package manager “Tazpkg” via the ‘set-release’ function, but beware this is not yet proven and may require some manual intervention. If you choose this method you must first install ‘tazpkg’ from 3.0, because the package format has changed.

People of the Project

SliTaz is proud to be an international community project. The people of the project are the ones who develop the distribution, correct the website, develop the HG repositories and write the official documentation. Passing through Switzerland, France, Brazil, Quebec, China, India, Russia, England, and the U.S.

The project also wishes to thank all the reviewers, testers, hackers and users who have taken the time to help advance the distribution.