Hi,

thanks to a post on infosertec.com i get noticed this distro and i wanted to test it for a little to see how it works (the review after the break,sorry for the screens, i tested it in a virtual machine )

the first thing i noticed is that is damn fast! i tried other minimalistic distributions as damn small linux but this booted all the system in less than 2 minutes from a live CD !.

the distribution include all the basic applications, but not the more used/famous of the open source world, like is a minimalistic distribution (remember that the ISO only weight 30MB)

as packet manager is using her own system, the repositories have more than 2000 apps available and as far i know, there is available a converter from deb/yum to slitaz

as browser include midori, is nice and at least it render all the pages correctly whiteout bugs, again, think that is a low resource system

as desktop manager is using openbox, is minimalistic and make the necessary functions, you have a resource monitor, network monitor, package manager and virtual desk

also there is the chance to create and set themes for the distribution, to change her visual aspect.

i wasn’t able to test the visual effects that provide for lack of time, anyway you can do it with a virtual machine as i do

the hardware support say that is very good, again, as i tested in a virtual machine i’m not sure, but the system is using the 2.60 kernel, so should work perfectly in most of the x86 machines

installation process

as expected from a system like this, the installation system is text based, there are just 6-8 steps where you set the machine name, the partition where to install it, where to install /home and the user and root password.

the process is very fast, in 3 minutes including the format you are ready to reboot, anyway in the installation process there are some glitch as:

*you can’t create a partition from the installer, you need to use the gparted (that is included), anyway i preferred at least an option to launch it from the installer

*you can define in what partition install /home but no /var, /etc etc..

*i dont see the option to create or assign a swap partition (ok that is a low resources distribution but i’d like to have some swap space anyway)

after i rebooted, i have the same system as live, all functional and nice and it consumed 60mb of memory and of 230MB of hard disk

a glitch i noted is that each time you start the system, it ask you about the keyboard distribution. this should be saved after the first boot after the installation.

conclusion:

is a nice and great system, of course focused to power users that know what are doing, at least for me a replacement of damn small linux as minimalistic distribution with desktop manager.

i don’t have a netbook but if a have one i would install slitaz as main distribution, at least for me have all the things i need, editors for development and a fast desktop manager, even for a normal user will be useful if someone with experience install it and the final user don’t require more than email, text and surf the web.

i hope this review will help you

Regards,

Shadow.