One of the main benefits of the Slax distribution is its ease of customization. Additional software can be added and removed, using Slax modules. A traditional package manager such as Debian's APT is not required to load additional software; Slax modules are completely self-contained. However, APT is fully supported. Users can also modify the default CD image or USB drive installation to customize the packages available in the distribution on boot. Slax also allows Debian packages to be converted into Slax modules. Slax modules are compressed read-only SquashFSfile systemimages that are compressed with a LZMA compressor. The various modules are stacked together to build the complete Slax root directory. A supplemental writable layer is put on the top of the stack to implement the write functionality. The stackable file system of choice changed between Slax versions 5 and 6, as did the module file name extension.
Versions
The Slax releases before Slax 3 were known as "Slackware-Live". The latest version of Slax is 9.11.0.
Slax 5
There were five editions of Slax 5:
Slax Standard was the standard edition for normal personal use.
Slax Server supplied additional Internet functionality and came with pre-configured DNS, DHCP, Samba, HTTP, FTP, MySQL, SMTP, POP3, IMAP and SSH servers and several other server applications.
Slax Frodo was a "bare bones" edition, providing only a full-featured text-only environment, particularly focused on computers with small amounts of RAM.
Slax 6 is offered in a single version and completely relies on modules for extra features. From version 6, modules are based on LZMA compression, but some compatibility was initially provided between the obsolete.mo modules used by Slax version 5 and the more recent.lzm modules of version 6. As there have been some changes between Linux kernel versions during sub-version releases of Slax 6, however, the.mo modules of Slax 5 are now considered obsolete. Each module or package should be compiled for compatibility with the Linux kernel currently in use.
Slax 7
Slax version 7 was announced on the developer's blog. Slax 7 supports both 64-bit and 32-bit architectures, and according to its download page, "is available in more than 50 languages". It also features a stripped down version of KDE 4, a new wallpaper, and a new module system.
