Alsa reverted, Slitaz distro

ALSA reverted
I have reverted ALSA to version 1.0.16, from 1.0.17rc2/3, as I got something weird happening. I don't know what it was, but sound was not working and 'absvolume' hung and could not be killed.
The 2.6.25.9 kernel has the ALSA 1.0.16rc2 drivers, so I have stayed with those.

The 1.0.17 rc2/3 doesn't improve my laptop anyway. For ALSA 1.0.14 (in pup 3.01) sound works on my laptop, with 1.0.16 and 1.0.17 sound does not work but does if I run the ALSA Wizard. So, I have to try and figure out what the Wizard is doing that is not being done (or is done wrong) at bootup.

Slitaz distro
Dogone sent me a pm recommending the Slitaz distro, it being very small (25MB). I had a play with it. Puppy could also be made that small, by taking stuff out. Slitaz uses Xvesa for graphics, and only has about 3MB of modules (compared with 18MB in Puppy). Slitaz does not have wordprocesor or spreadsheet applications, but I suppose you could install them.

The thing is though, to get down to the size of Slitaz I would have to take out a lot of infrastructure, and it is stuff that has been carefully chosen as necessary for all the uses that Puppy will be put to. Like the range of multimedia libraries and applications/plugins for example.

My PCMCIA modem could not be used, as there was no 'serial_cs' module.

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Comments

SliTaz...
Username: ANOSage
...is a very competent project as I've been saying on the Forum for some while. It's not always and not everyone that wants the bells and whistles all the time. There is a massive market thirst for a tiny distro, say between 20-50Mb .iso . The early version of SliTaz had a very effective, if curious, text-based package manager, but the newer 'cooking' version has improved access via the GUI. Their selection of packages shows considerable thoughtfulness - just enough without over egging. Notwithstanding, like Puppy, the developers are not only exceptionally skilled but are also very friendly and obliging (wrote me a gperiodic d/l within 24hrs). They also speak fluent French and German! When I first raised the topic on the Forum, I suggested that these folks might be particularly amenable to a co-operative effort between yourself and maybe MU? One immediate and obvious improvement both parties (Puppy & SliTaz) might consider is removing Seamucky and Fireflox permanently in favour of one of the 16 alternatives offered in : http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=30794 by puppyluvr.

Slitaz...
Username: dogone
"This was my first encounter with Slitaz. I was immediately impressed with the polish and obvious attention to detail. Nothing immediately gave away Slitaz's tiny footprint and I was already impressed when I began exploring some of the best small applications around - many of which could certainly complement or enhance Puppy. Minefield, the Firefox 3.0 based browser, is one. I urge everyone to download the Slitaz live cooker iso and scour it for goodies. If Puppy and Slitaz could benefit one another, I'd like to see a relationship developed.

SliTaz Full Poweroff
Username: GeoW
" SliTaz does a full poweroff on my comp Intel D850MV, P4/1.5GHz, 256MB RDRAM, 16G HD All versions of Puppy I have tried require use of the power button on the comp - unless i use acpi=force which has very bad side effects for me. I looked at the SliTaz scripts hoping there was something I could use. It looks like they use the same busybox powerofff that Puppy uses. I am at a loss - kernel option? busybox option? GeoW

Poweroff & LZMA
Username: ANOSage
"I recently raised the issue of poweroff for what I had hoped would be the final time! Can't retrieve the link as the Forum is down again - has been slowing up all day and part of yesterday. I've read the requests for LZ almost as frequently as power off fix! I guess when you're close to the coalface, etc, etc.

Poweroff in Slitaz
Username: GeoW
" Yes Sage I read that post - you requested that Barry please work his magic one more time. I second that. I am merely trying to add helpful data. SliTaz has the solution, you can download a cooking version, the answer is there somewhere, and SliTaz is small enough to improve the odds of finding it. GeoW

beta 2
Username: joe c
"slitaz is too slight for me, it's the only distro i've tried that can't find my wired eathernet and like most does not shut down my pc. DSL boots up and I am connected to internet and is the only small distro that shuts off my pc, unfortunatly it's too dam small for me. Barry I think you have done a great job with Puppy, as long as you can stay under 100 mg I think you'll have a lot of users. joe

Slitaz Distro
Username: WN2A
"I'd encourage anyone to use a GNU/Linux distro over M$, regardless. To me, Puppy is complete enough to be effective for all my requirements. But the real difference between Puppy and the other distros is the community and the Forum! Tnx!

Tags: puppy