October 1, 2005

A re you one of the disgruntled people thinking of bidding goodbye to paid (read cracked) Operating Systems (OSs) but not sure how to get started with Linux?

Answer: Slax, a free OS can be downloaded off the net and burnt as a live CD, ensuring you do not mess up with the hard drive partitions while installing. At the same time, you can learn a Linux-based distribution.

Here’s how to get started with Slax.

1. Download Slax from . There are some special versions available in addition to the standard one. The one we are going to discuss is Slax Kill Bill (or Slax KB) which is of 188MB.

2. Use a CD burner, for example ‘Deep Burner’ () which is free, to record downloaded ISO image file on a blank CD. Open the burner, select ‘Burn ISO Image’ and press Next. Using ‘Image File’ section, select the ISO file and press Burn ISO.

3. Re-start the computer after setting it to boot from CD drive.

Slax takes over when the computer starts this time. Hardware auto-detection and other activities are performed which is completely automated and, thus, requires no user intervention.

Once the process is completed, an ASCII image of green flower (Slax logo) appears, along with login, password and starting Slax commands written on screen as quick help.

On the bottom left of the screen, a prompt is displayed. Type ‘root’ to login. Then a password prompt will appear, type ‘toor’ — the default password.

Once you are logged on, type ‘startx’ to start KDE — the graphical user interface of Slax. It first sets up environment showing initialization progress by turning dull icons to full-coloured, one by one. Just when things are ready to roll and the Start button appears at bottom left (like Windows), you hear a welcome sound clip. Your sound card has just been auto-detected and performed its successful live test.

At the task bar, you will see something resembling Windows Quick Launch: icons of terminal program Konsole, a web browser Konqueror, a music played JuK, a media player KPlayer and an IM named Kopete. Mutli-desktop shortcuts appear soon afterwards, and a very familiar system tray on the bottom right with language selection, volume control, screen resolution control and clock appears.

If you took Slax to be just another distro, then start digging up the system tray options to truly appreciate it. Starting with KMix, the volume control tool tip tells you the percentage of master volume. Mute is one r-click way, single click opens up master volume slider and d-click opens up KMix main window where the volume for 5 input and 6 output mediums can be set.

Move to screen setup icon where 20-odd resolutions pop up for instant setting. If you change to a different screen resolution, a timer sidebar starts asking you to either accept or reject the newly applied setting.

What is more, you can r-click the screen icon, select Configure Display and set power management options. Stand-by, suspend and power-off threshold time settings are not propriety features for sure.

Slax comes with a bundle of utilities from Office applications to internet tools, but if you start comparing the user interface and range of options, especially in Office area with Microsoft offerings, consider the huge cost difference. Only then will you be able to really appreciate the effort of free applications.

To take advantage of all the available tools, you need access to your storage devices (that is, hard disks, CD drives, USB disk etc). Explore the system icon on desktop (checkout storage devices), or use /mnt/ path by first selecting Root while in any file or save dialog box. USB disk is auto-detected and can be great if you are planning to work completely without accessing hard drives.

If you happen to be a terminal-happy nerd, start Terminal, change directory to root path, and checkout contents of /mnt (using ls or dir). Here you will see mounted drive paths, like HDA01, CD-ROM and USB. Explore them further to view the content of your drives.

What makes Slax easy and fun to use is its smooth fonts, nicely coloured environment, good hardware detection and stable performance. The only shortcoming is that you become an ardent shortcut keys user with fingers fixed on Windows keyboard settings.

All over the world, both in the developed and developing countries alike, open source is now considered as a major alternative to the expensive proprietary OSs. In fact, there are enterprises that prefer low-cost (or free) OS solutions.

writer’s e-mail: nizar.ali@ gmail.com

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