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Slitaz Newbie Guide

SliTaz "the OS"

Introduction

SliTaz is an OS available in many different actual versions and a lot of obsolete versions available for very old hardware possibly working better with old software as such. The actual versions include very small “text only versions” (just enough to start or fashioned fully to work in text mode) as well as starting directly in graphics mode. SliTaz always proposes a stable version of the OS as well as a version being in constant development in which the newest packages are to be found for testing purposes. The users have to decide which way they prefer: Graphics or not, and/or stable or testing.

Slitaz is free

The next consideration is how to get and (begin to) use SliTaz. As SliTaz is distributed directly, it is completely free (but not the non-free proprietory code downloadable from distributors using a download script recognizable by the name «get-something»; you may download these using the SliTaz script but you have to respect all of the possible conditions imposed by the owner), you can get SliTaz for no cost and do whatever you want with it. You can get it provided as is and all that you decide to do with SliTaz becomes your responsibility. Please be fair to the authors if you change something in his/her work or if you use it for other purposes as originally intended.

Get Slitaz

You will probably begin to use SliTaz by getting it online. You can also proceed differently by building SliTaz from Scratch. This way is also documented but probably rare among the fans using the distribution.

There are 3 ways to get SliTaz stuff online:

  1. download a SliTaz base distro directly from an internet network complete with a very short bootable application.
  2. download a Slitaz base distro online as a first step and then activate it using one or more steps.
  3. complete the environment by adding packages also downloadable online.

Support

Apart from software; SliTaz offers a complete scope of services:

  1. http:www.slitaz.org : information and news concerning the activity of the SliTaz community.
  2. http:doc.slitaz.org : complete documentation on SliTaz Linux which realizes a specimen of Linux with all its main functions and without major concessions: Slitaz uses «root», «password» and «user» like most other serious Linux versions. All the stuff is detailed in the SliTaz Handbook. It can be considered as a short, but complete reference for all Linux beginners (especially if they do not work with SliTaz on a daily basis). The SliTaz doc also includes Guides being more orientated towards SliTaz and specific tasks.
  3. http:forum.slitaz.org : discussion point for the SliTaz community in many languages.
  4. http:scn.slitaz.org : SliTaz Community - read more at the web page and look on the top right hand side of the page to discover yourself the other branches of the community. Please note the IRC channel as you can often get help directly on it!
  5. http:mirror.slitaz.org : SliTaz Mirror - where you will find a lot of ISO files to start your adventure with Slitaz.

Activate SliTaz

Using a Slitaz CD (internet start as well as traditional ISO start) or a Slitaz floppy (only internet start), nothing else to do! If a prepared Slitaz CD / Floppy is in the CD / Floppy drive before the PC starts, only start the PC and follow the instructions on the screen!

Before you start, you can also insert an USB memory with prepared file system «ext3» into one of your USB connectors. This memory will automatic be the place where your data will be saved (Linux users say “home”).

More easy can be nothing else!

If this kind of handling can't be used, SliTaz offers a lot of solutions adapted to about other starting problem and wishes!

The next chapter will introduce you to do something else!

Start SliTaz with Grub2!

Master Boot Record (MBR)

In each PC one of all drives (if more than one) is the Master, and contains the MBR where the initial start following each shutdown is defined. In probably the most PC's is this special record occupied by the Microsoft starting software. That software define usually that the PC can only start Microsoft- or IBM-DOS or -Windows (but divers rare PC's propose a real Dual Boot).

It is not possible to jump with the Microsoft software directly into an other OS!

But it is possible to rewrite that software, a BootLoader, to do it (and over that preserve eventually the access to Microsoft- or IBM-DOS or -Windows or her free or not clones like freeDOS or ReactOS or more than one or two OS's).

Grub2 is the GNU actual standard boot loader

SliTaz proposes Grub2 in his repositories. If not already available on your system, to install it, you need a valid Linux partition with a directory /boot (both can else be empty), and then enter following command in the console:

tazpkg get-install grub2

Continue in the command line with (to install grub to your MBR)

grub-install /dev/sda
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

This main mode of Grub2 installation happens generally after the installation of SliTaz itself (in case of SliTaz, or of the other linux distribution if installed by an other distribution).

Why speak on that now?

Because it is the first step what happens using SliTaz before Slitaz starts itself! Also bootable CD's or floppies contains her own a little different boot loader. Perhaps you have Grub2 already pre installed from a precedent OS installation? In this case you only have to adapt your Grub2 installation! And can directly use Slitaz without some CD or Floppy at the next start! If not, you just need to start Slitaz once time through an other way (CD, Floppy, USB installation etc.), if needed, adapt the partition of your hard disk, install Grub2 on the wished partition, and continue…

And you will see in the next chapter, that Grub2 is very flexibel and don't need some OS installation at all. It can start some ISO files, or frugal OS versions, as well as full installations.

More! The new Grub2 does not need some valid configuration at all: It includes a tiny command interpreter and it would be possible to start somewhat on your system step by step using individual commands if you perfectly know how to do that and which parameters you have to enter (it is probably the best way to make your system inaccessible to all other people excepted real freaks!).

Adapt a Grub2 installation

WARNING: There are 2 usage of Grub2.

Some distros (for ex. Debian, Ubuntu, etc.) use an extended one and require from you, that you don't edit manually yourself the file /boot/grub/grub.conf! If you continue to use that distro, please read the instructions given in the doc of that distro because that distro will probably overwrite automatic all changes you are making manually if you don't respect the prescribed way!

Some distros use an simple usage of Grub2 and allow the direct adaptation in the text file /boot/grub/grub.conf . In this case, you will adapt your Grub2 installation by changing the text in the text file /boot/grub/grub.conf. It is the configuration file for Grub2!

Typical contents of Grub2 as used in SliTaz

I have 3 active Slitaz versions on my hard disk. The first one, actual base version (full operable not really graphic linux), release 4.0, only ab. 7.2 Mb ISO, will be started directly as ISO file without some other preparation:

menuentry "SliTaz, ISO start, on /dev/sda5" {
set root=(hd0,5)
set isofile="/slitaz-4.0-base.iso"
loopback iso $isofile
linux (iso)/boot/bzImage from=$isofile ramdisk_size=6666 root=/dev/ram0 rw autoexec=startx changes=s512.dat
initrd (iso)/boot/rootfs.gz
}

The second did be prepared to have a concatenated file rootfs.gz (it's ISO file did contain a splited one) and is after that classic «frugal»!

menuentry "SliTaz, frugal, on /dev/sda5" {
set root='(hd0,5)'
linux /slitaz/bzImage pdev1=sda5 psubdir=slitaz
initrd /slitaz/rootfs.gz
}

This last one is for a full installation:

menuentry "SliTaz, full, ext4, on /dev/sda3" {
 linux (hd0,3)/boot/vmlinuz-3.2-slitaz root=/dev/hda3 ro vga=normal 
}

Note: Take care that all file names and paths are real and correct written! Take care to write correctly CamelCase names that linux users love to use! Esp. here for ex. in the name bzImage !!!

Typical jobs for Grub2

 
en/guides/newbie.1359286789.txt.gz · Last modified: 2013/01/27 12:39 by oui