Slax vs Ubuntu
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[edit] Support, Security/Bug-fixes & New features
Slax is "dormant" for more than one year; see [1]. Slax did not allow 64-bit machines to use the full 64 bits of processing streams, as Slax only released a 32-bit version of the kernel, as the last link also notes. A current slackware-based distribution with some of the same goals as Slax is Salix OS.
[edit] Startup Speed
Due to Slax storing files compressed, Slax's startup speed is substantially faster than Ubuntu 10.04's startup speed unless an SSD or RAID-0 is used (files in uncompressed form take longer to read from _most_ disk drives because the read/write speed of drives causes more delay than CPU decompressing & reading a file; uncompressed files like those in Ubuntu need less CPU resources than compressed files).
[edit] Downloads Size
Slax provides a customizable operating system which can be anywhere from minimal (200MB with Koffice suite and web browsers Konqueror and Firefox) to well over 9000MB if one downloads the entire full-featured repository. Ubuntu and its derivatives are as little as 170MB (Ubuntu Minimal Install) up to a 4700MB (DVD-sized) download, with more software in the repositories that can be added-on to fill more than a 20GB root partition, but typically a full-featured desktop version such as Ubuntu Mint or Kubuntu is about 700MB (to fill most or all of a CD).
[edit] Configure before Installing
Ubuntu comes in several "flavors" suited to users' varying preferences (in case users want quick performance on a slower machine, or prefer the KDE, LXDE, XFCE desktop manager). By contrast, Slax allows the user to customize which programs will be included with the operating system before downloading the system from the Slax web site. So, for example, a Slax user could choose the same web browser used with Kubuntu, and the same file manager used with Xubuntu, and the same Office suite as Nubuntu, but not the same window manager used with Fedora. With The Ubuntu system these customizations would have to be made after the fact.
[edit] Ease of Use
Ubuntu includes an installer that automatically puts Ubuntu onto your hard drive and configures it after you answer questions about the desired configuration. Slax does not have an installer.
[edit] Hard Drive Space Used
Slax runs from compressed files, meaning that the hard drive space required is no more than the download size (200MB or more). Ubuntu decompresses the files upon installation, so that a 700MB download requires about 3GB of hard disk space to install.
