Slax is an open source, freely distributed, small, fast, stable and modular operating system based on the highly acclaimed Slackware Linux distribution and built around the modern and eye-candy KDE desktop environment.
Availability and boot options
It is distributed as two Live CD ISO image, one for each of the supported architectures (64-bit and 32-bit), designed to be written to blank CD discs, as well as two zip archives with USB images, supporting the aforementioned hardware platforms.
When booting Slax from either a CD or USB disc, you will have the possibility to set some options. For example, you can enable persistent mode, which means that you can save system settings and downloadable files directly on the boot medium and reuse it whenever you want.
In addition, users can boot the Live CD in graphical session or in text mode, copy the entire contents of the ISO image to RAM (system memory) and run the operating system from there, ejecting the media, as well as to make it act as a PXE (Preboot Execution Environment) server.
Features at a glance
As mentioned, Slax uses the KDE 4 desktop environment, which features a single taskbar located on the bottom edge of the screen, from where users can access the main menu, launch applications, interact with running programs, as well as the functions from the system tray area.
Default applications include the Kate text editor, KMag screen magnifier, Ark archiving tool, Dolphin file manager, KSysGuard system monitor, Gwenview image viewer, Okular document viewer, KolourPaint digital painting software, JuK music player, SMPlayer video player, Pidgin multi-protocol instant messenger, and Mozilla Firefox web browser.
Bottom line
In conclusion, Slax is an amazing Linux distribution than can easily become your pocket operating system. Too bad that it can’t be installed on a local disk drive so easily.
