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Last modified: 16-06-2020 |
Slax is a very light, multilingual Linux distribution based on Slackware. This article is based on release 7.0.5.
Persistent changes are no longer made in /slax/changes/ but rather /live/memory/changes
Slax modules/bundles are rebuilt Slackware packages
If you need to save a file onto the USB keydrive while running Slax, save it in /mnt/live/memory/.
We'll assume the hard drive is empty, so there's no need to multiboot to Windows:
Slax doesn't require a Linux partition. The contents of its ZIP file can be unzipped in an NTFS partition. grub4dos will take care of booting up Slax without making changes to the MBR.
Booted from USB keydrive > Software Center.
"Error mounting of the bundle, perhaps corrupted download"
Tried again: "Slax bundle is already active as 2230-chrome.sb". Rebooted, "Slax bundle is already active as 2230-chrome.sb" but found in KDE Internet menu.
"US English" is included in all releases of Slax, even if you installed a different release. Go into KDE's System Configuration > Localization, click on the Languages tab, add US-EN to "Prefered Languages", and reboot.
The orthodox way is to run "slax info", followed by "slax deactivate <module>". If it fails because the app has some process running, just remove the .sb file located under /mnt/live/memory/data/slax/, and reboot.
Before removing Firefox, be aware that Software Center relies on it...
Just add a script in /etc/rc.d/rc3.d/:
More infos:
Daemons such udisks or polkit can either be started by systemd at boot time or at session time by the display manager through D-Bus.
"Solid is a device integration framework for KDE 4; relies on udev/systemd."
# solid-hardware list
QStringList Solid::Backends::UDisks::UDisksManager::allDevicesInternal() error: "org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown"
virtual QStringList Solid::Backends::UPower::UPowerManager::allDevices() error: "org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown"
# udisks --dump
it is up to the distribution itself to ensure that UDisks is launched either before KDE is started - or is able to start itself automatically (via D-Bus autolaunching).
http://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=225&t=110110
www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/polkit
KDE Menu > Applications > System > System Setting > Hardware > Removeable Media > Check "Enable automatic mounting of removeable media" On Login / Once mounted + check all the items in the two columns (!), reboot. DOESN'T WORK: Works when booting off hard drive
"udisks provides an interface to enumerate storage devices and perform operations on them. Any application can access the org.freedesktop.UDisks service on the system message bus. On Linux, udisks relies on recent versions of udev(7) and the kernel."
"Udisks (formerly called DeviceKit-disks) is a replacement for part of the functionality which used be provided by the now deprecated HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer). Essentially it is an abstraction for enumerating disk and storage devices and performing operations on them. Udisks provides:
Actions that a user can perform using udisks can be restricted using PolicyKit. Udisks relies on the kernel and udev where possible but does poll devices which do not publish their own details. Typically a DVD device is polled" http://www.scribd.com/doc/63425975/Introduction-to-Udisks
"The udisks daemon serves as an interface to system block devices, implemented
via D-Bus. It handles operations such as querying, mounting, unmounting, formatting,
or detaching storage devices such as hard disks or USB thumb drives.
This
package also provides the udisks utility, which can be used to trigger these
operations from the command line (if permitted by PolicyKit). External tools
such as hdparm are used if available to implement extra operations, such as
configuring disk spindown times."
http://askubuntu.com/questions/145706/what-does-udisks-daemon-do-and-do-i-need-it
What is D-Bus? "inter-process communication (IPC) system for software applications to communicate with one another."
http://old.slax.org/forum.php?action=view&parentID=32326 (from markds)
"By default, Slax detects if you run it from a writable device. If yes, then all the changes you make to the operating system itself are saved and restored next time you boot. If your device uses FAT filesystem, which is most common on USB flash drives, then all file modifications to Slax itself are saved into a special file changes.dat, which is created on your boot device in /slax/changes/ directory, and grows automatically in size up to 4GB. If your boot device uses a native Linux filesystem such as ext4, then the changed files are saved natively to /slax/changes/ directory without any need for intermediate changes.dat file. If you, for any reason, do not like persistent changes, simply uncheck the appropriate boot option and your Slax will start using the default 'fresh' configuration and won't save any modifications. It may be useful also in cases you'd like to test something system-wide, since you can always revert to the default state by simple reboot (in case things screw up).
The file changes.dat is designed to work even on FAT filesystems, which are commonly used on most USB flash drives. Unfortunately FAT is limited to 4GB file size; for that reason, persistent changes can't grow more. In case you need to save more, please format your storage drive with some Linux filesystem such as EXT4 or BTRFS and install Slax to it. Slax will be able to save changes natively and will be limited only by the actual capacity of your device. Persistent Changes functionality does not (of course) affect files on hard drives in your computer. If you modify these files, they will always be modified regardless of your persistent changes settings.
The empty directory /memory/changes is writable, thus the entire AUFS mount in /memory/union happens to be writable as well. All new or changed files inside the union are copied-up to this empty directory before the system creates or modifies them. Since the directory for changes resides on tmpfs (that is in RAM), all new and modified files are stored in RAM and thus are lost on reboot.
Yet if Slax is started from a writable media such as USB device or hard disk, it recognizes that and mounts the writable drive over /memory/changes before it is joined with the other branches in union, which effectively means that changed and new files will be stored on the boot device rather than in RAM, and reboot won't erase them. This feature is called Persistent Changes and can be turned on or off by a boot menu setting. " http://www.slax.org/en/documentation.php
Boot menu: From boot menu, remove all options (Persistent changes, Graphical desktop, Copy to RAM, Act as PXE server) and replace with two options: "Start Slax" and "Run diagnostic" (to run either lshw or dmidecode and e-mail output)
Edit /slax/boot/syslinux.cfg
Also check /syslinux.cfg
http://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php/SYSLINUX
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Syslinux
You can use an unused runlevel for that, for example runlevel 4 on non-Slackware systems or runlevel 5 on Slackware systems.
After you have configured a runlevel to behave in the way you want just change the option in the bootloader to boot into that specific runlevel.
Must add to /etc/profile (with persistence) and ~/.bashrc.
cat /etc/slax-version
kded4 --version
So-called "cheatcodes" can be changed by pressing ESC followed by TAB.
A few are listed in the "Cheatcodes for Slax" section, and more are available through "man bootparam".
Edit /etc/profile.d/slax.sh, and reboot.
http://old.slax.org/forum.php?action=view&parentID=75605&anchorid=84484#postid84484
Get a Slackware or Debian package, and convert it to a Slax module.
Add/remove modules, changes settings, save to ISO: Download module files from slax website, and put them into /slax/modules/ folder. Then you have to create the ISO image, using mkisofs. I didn't find how to remove modules in Utilities or System Configuration: What is the right way
Customizing SLAX: Part 1 - Giving SLAX your own look and flavor
Customizing SLAX: Part 2 - Customizing SLAX Core Modules
Run the Software Center. If the icon was removed from the desktop, /usr/bin/softcenter.
Activating = installing.
Per Slax modules: "Slax modules do not need unpacking. They are used in the packed form. Instead of installing, Slax modules are activated. In technical terms, that means mounted and added to aufs union as a new branch.
[...] Offline module activation is performed when Slax is not running. You can activate module (a file with .sb extension) by copying it to /slax/modules/ directory on your boot device. All modules copied there will be automatically activated during Slax startup. Removing the module (the file with .sb extension) from /slax/modules/ directory will uninstall it so it is not a part of Slax any longer.
Online module activation is performed when Slax is running, directly within Slax system. You can either use Software Center to activate and deactivate modules on the fly or you can use [command-line] commands" (slax search/info/download/activate.)
If it's available as a Slackware package, open a console to convert it to a Slax bundle with "txz2sb", put the resulting .sb file into slax/modules, and reboot.
If it's not available as a Slackware package and it's only a script, http://old.slax.org/forum.php?action=view&parentID=25732
http://old.slax.org/forum.php?action=view&parentID=32106
"If an operating system is installed frugally, operating system files cannot be modified, so they cannot become corrupted. Personal files and settings can be saved, but operating system files are not modified."
http://gr8idea.info/os/tutorials/slax/index.html
It means installing Slax on a hard drive by copying the contents of a live CD/USB. If you don't need to multiboot with eg. Windows, end with running the Slax install scripts.
Third alternative to open-source driver and closed-source drivers?
How to install Telnet Server and SSH server
It's part of the standard ISO but isn't started automatically.
mkdir /mnt/usb; mount /dev/s??? /mnt/usb; copy files; umount /mnt/usb ; reboot
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