SliTaz Doc

Desktop

SliTaz Core and SliTaz Firefox start a graphical desktop: LXDE built on GTK3, with the Openbox window manager, the LXPanel top panel, the PCManFM file manager, and LXTaz, a set of small tools written for SliTaz. It starts in a few seconds and uses little memory.

Login and session

The SLiM login manager starts X at the end of the boot. On the live system it logs the tux user in automatically. On an installed system, automatic login is set in Settings > Accounts or with:

# trame user autologin set tux
# trame user autologin set off

To boot without the desktop, add screen=text to the boot options, or empty LOGIN_MANAGER in /etc/rcS.conf on an installed system. The SLiM settings are in /etc/slim.conf.

LXTaz tools

In the Dash, Enter launches the first result and a right-click on an application adds it to or removes it from the favorites; an application can also be dragged onto the dock. The favorites are listed in ~/.config/lxtaz/favorites, one .desktop name per line. The tools are the packages lxtaz-dash, lxtaz-dock, lxtaz-ctrl, lxtaz-logout, lxtaz-welcome and lxtaz-files.

TazTerm terminal

TazTerm is the SliTaz terminal: a light GTK3 terminal that splits its window into panes. Sakura and XTerm are also installed. F1 shows all the shortcuts; the main ones:

The settings are in ~/.config/tazterm/tazterm.conf. TazTerm can also open a pane for a local AI agent (Ctrl+Shift+A), see tazterm help.

Keyboard shortcuts

Volume and brightness keys work out of the box. Openbox shortcuts are defined in ~/.config/openbox/rc.xml, in the <keyboard> section; run openbox --reconfigure after editing it.

Dark and light theme, wallpaper

SliTaz-Dark is the default theme, with its own icons and the DejaVu Sans 11 font. The Dark mode switch of the quick settings changes the whole desktop to SliTaz-Light and back: GTK applications, window borders, panel, terminals (TazTerm and Sakura) and wallpaper, and the icons when slitaz-icons-light is installed. Finer settings are in lxappearance (GTK theme, icons, font, cursor) and obconf (window borders). The icon themes are the slitaz-icons-dark and slitaz-icons-light packages.

To change the wallpaper, right-click the desktop and open the first entry of the Desktop Effects submenu, the desktop preferences (pcmanfm --desktop-pref). The SliTaz wallpapers are in /usr/share/images/.

Sound

The volume keys and the slider of the quick settings change the volume. SliTaz Core uses ALSA directly; SliTaz Firefox adds PulseAudio, which Firefox needs. From a terminal:

$ trame audio set 60
$ trame audio mute toggle
$ trame audio devices
$ alsamixer

alsamixer shows every control of the sound card: unmute a channel with M. With PulseAudio, pavucontrol chooses the output per application. Recent Intel laptops need the firmware-sof package, already on the x86_64 desktop images. If a sound card hangs the boot, add sound=no to the boot options.

Applications

SliTaz Core has the desktop, the system tools, the L3afpad text editor (l3afpad), the GPicView image viewer and the TazTerm terminal, and no web browser: you add only what you need. SliTaz Firefox adds Firefox ESR, the DeaDBeeF music player, the mtPaint paint program, Galculator, GParted and the Xarchiver archive manager.

Everything else is a package away (see Packages). Some suggestions available on both architectures:

# spk-add firefox-official
# spk-add abiword gnumeric mpv gimp

Local AI

A light system leaves the memory to what you run, including language models that work on your machine, without any online service:

• llama.cpp (x86_64): runs GGUF models with llama-cli or as a local server with llama-server.
• navette (x86_64): a code editor driven by a local model through llama.cpp.
• picolm and qwen3c (i486 and x86_64): very small inference engines in C, for 1B models on modest hardware.

# spk-add navette
$ navette pull --list
$ navette pull <model>
$ navette "explain this script"
$ navette doctor

TazTerm can open a pane for a local agent next to your shell (Ctrl+Shift+A).

Default applications and autostart

The default file manager, browser, editor and terminal are set in /etc/slitaz/applications.conf, and for one user in ~/.config/slitaz/applications.conf. They are read by the browser, editor, terminal and file-manager commands. tazbox tazapps edits them with a dialog. When no browser is installed, browser offers to install one.

Programs started at login are .desktop files in /etc/xdg/autostart/ for everyone and ~/.config/autostart/ for one user. To disable a system entry for yourself, copy it to ~/.config/autostart/ and add the line Hidden=true.

Screen, keyboard layout and Xorg

The keyboard layout and the screen are set in Settings (trame-gui), or from a terminal:

# trame keyboard xkb set fr
# trame keyboard xkb set ch fr
$ trame display list
$ trame display set-resolution eDP-1 1920x1080
$ trame display brightness set 60

The keyboard layout is saved in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/40-Keyboard.conf. A resolution set with trame or lxrandr lasts until X restarts; to keep one, add a Screen section with Modes to /etc/X11/xorg.conf.

The X server is Xorg 1.12.4 with the vesa and fbdev drivers on the images. Other drivers are packages named xorg-xf86-video-*; tazx auto selects and installs one. Xorg reads /etc/X11/xorg.conf and /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/*.conf, its log is /var/log/Xorg.0.log. There is no OpenGL hardware acceleration in SliTaz 5.1.

Other window managers

JWM, Fluxbox, IceWM, dwm, PekWM, spectrwm and Xfce are available as packages. Set WINDOW_MANAGER in ~/.config/slitaz/applications.conf to the command that starts your session, for example jwm, and log in again.

Accessibility

SliTaz 5.1 has no screen reader on the desktop. For low vision, the SliTaz-Light theme, a larger font and a larger cursor can be set in lxappearance. Packages that may help: espeak (text to speech), yasr (console screen reader with speech-dispatcher), xvkbd and florence (on-screen keyboards), magnifier, redshift.