Slax 6, the latest version of the modern, small and fast Slackware-based distro Slax, was released yesterday.Slax participated in the development of sqlzma patches, where the code implements LZMA - 7-zip compression - into squashfs filesystem. Squashfs now supports bigger block sizes than before. These two enhancements transform Slax 6 in one of the best compressed Linux distributions.

SLAX is a minuscule version of the well-known Slackware Linux distribution. It is a LiveCD operating system that does not need to be installed on a computer’s hard drive as it can boot and run from either a USB or a CD drive. There is also an option to run SLAX from RAM. It is now time to take a microscopic look at this tiny distro. But first, some SLAX facts...

I never owned a USB flash drive, until recently. I needed one not just for data transfer requirements but because I always wanted to carry an operating system with me. Luckily, I came across this really small pocket operating system, Slax.

Zenwalk (formerly known as Minislack) is a Slackware based distribution. Don't let its previous name fool you: Zenwalk is more like Slackware than some of the Slackware-driven pendrive distributions, such as SLAX. In the right circumstances, there are major advantages to using Zenwalk over Slackware (or SLAX).

I’ve already reviewed some distros based off of Slackware such as Zenwalk and Slax. Along the way I’ve come to learn about some of the appeal of Slackware and why people would base distributions off of it. However, it does have a reputation as a very hard distro to install.

On the surface, NimbleX is another Linux distribution, shipping as a live CD, meant to be used primarily as a live CD, with the optional installation. It is based on Slackware and designed to fit under 256MB to allow it to be used from small USB thumb drives... Hey, why not 100%, you ask? Well, read on to find out.

So, it’s released. I have to setup the website in order to make it usable, a lot of documentation have to be written, the Build Slax feature have to be tested, but everything seems so far so good. Please be kind to the server and download Slax 6 now only if you really need it. If you don’t, please wait few hours or days, or try a mirror (it will take some time to be updated, entire Slax 6 release is over 10GB of data, because all international versions are prepared for you as well)

I had downloaded Slax a few days ago. I should say, I am very impressed with this little distro.

I decided to do something new. I used countless live CD’s in the past, but it actually never occurred to me to try something more persistent. So I dug out my old 2GB USB stick and installed Slax.