Slitaz Revisited

[PDP-8]

Inspired by my Chromebox running an earlier version of TinyCore due to kernel size limitations, I also am running the latest version of Slitaz on it as well.

Sure, it's still running kernel 3.16.55 which just went EOL, but the bits don't die - they still boot the box.  And busybox is maintained close to the very latest.  Small things like nano at 4.8 (which I don't use, but it's there and fresh).  But this isn't about Slitaz overall even though I find it fascinating to use.

But this is more about something I think gets overlooked about Slitaz:  The "TazPanel".  Basically Slitaz relies upon Midori to do the cgi-html scripting in for many of the system utilities, such as package management, hardware support, bootlogs, and a variety of other things.

Ie, instead of relying on lua/fltk kinds of gui programming, many tools available are simply using cgi-html scripting instead in the panel.

It kind of makes me want to put front-ends on some of my stuff - maybe trying to duplicate the TC control panel stuff.  Instead of cat'ing system files in a terminal, maybe just create an html file with a link to them?

I don't know what I'd choose though:  Lynx, elinks, Dillo, Midori  -- something small that can reside outside of the big ones.

Maybe I'll have to dig out that "Learn HTML in 24 hours" book under the couch and get to work.

[nick65go]

html menu or configs sound nice, no need to compile fltk appls. but because html is basically text + few tags you can have both worlds ("graphic view" and text menu files). and yes, lynx and and dillo will be enough to use html, created by nano, which you love 

BTW, you can "learn" the basic html you need, in 1-2 hours. because you do not need all html powerfully functions, or CSS formatting.


EDIT: my idea is to use FLWM (the menu) to call sh scripts (no browser need). I think few people discussed or implemented additional menu/submenus in TC normal menus (Appls + Ondemand + System). But is it so easy. This path is hugely not exploited yet.

[nick65go]

something like in attachment.

[nick65go]

I am sure that additional FLWM menus and sub-menus can be AUTOMATICALLY created by scripts, from simple rules of *desktop as defined by freedesktop foundation. Same as they are dynamically created by dmenu or XFCE menus for program categories etc.

I am lazy, not so good at programming, so for myself I could just create them fixed/manual by categories like
browsers -> dillo, Firefox, elinks,
offices -> libreoffice, gnumeric, abiword
emulators -> qemu, tinydos, virtualbox
cdrom-appls -> mkisofs,etc
image-viewers: feh
video-audio: vlc, mplayer, xmms
pdf-tools: mupdf, flaxPDF file-managers

The advantage is that i do not have a huge and UN-sorted ondemand list.
These new menus can be also on demand conditionally. basically is ondemand splitted by categories

[PDP-8]

I've always like html programming, even if simple.  I come from the days of when documents were 90% content, and 10% markup.

These days, it's 10% content, and 90% markup.

Unfortunately, many were lead to believe that an efficient html system can only be made by html writing programs, rather than doing it yourself with nothing but say vi / nano and dillo.  Heh, remember seeing tags with "Lynx Friendly" ?

If one keeps to kiss standards, the system could be long-lived and nearly portable.

Ironically, when Chromebooks first started to appear, the dev who proposed it to Google was designing it as a small system which relied not only on the browser to do that function, but be part of the overall end-user setup, rather than rely on custom gui programming.

Makes me wonder if Slitaz introduced near that timeframe had any influence?

I'll have to think about it.  Perhaps instead of Midori as the system-level browser / programmer, I might think about NetSurf.  Dillo is cool, but maybe these 2 browsers might be easier to work with - and of course as long as they don't hog ram doing so.

[Greg Erskine]

If you are planning to run a web server to process the pages BusyBox's httpd works well for this.

What about installations without Xwindows?

What about headless installations?

For piCorePlayer, we have used BusyBox's httpd and sh cgi scripts (not bash) to generate a web interface for configuration and diagnostics. For those without a network we made a whiptail setup script.

Here's an example of what we were discussing in the ssh thread. This copies my www development to other RPi's on the network if passwordless ssh access is available.

[PDP-8]

Well, I know that Dillo looks fine with xvesa or xfbdev as long as you use good fonts, and tweak your .dillorc a little.  Dillo also works with ttf fonts if that capability has been compiled into it.

The quick hit for new users not familiar with dillorc, but just want to change overall size super quick is to merely change the scaling factor.  Still, this is not how most browser users are accustomed to dialing in their browser with an rc file.

AntiX uses it for on-board faq/docs in addition to their main browser.  Still, end users might tap into the scaling factor in the rc file if they can't read the dinky fonts on high-res monitors...  different forum so I'll stop here on that.

Currently at 3.0.5 for many years now, but one of our member recently submitted the 3.1-beta, which has also been out for many years, but usually not seen in any distro repos.  So thanks to our TC member who submitted that beta.

But I can't say if this would fit the purpose for general population use - I'm not a big html programmer, other than just the simple stuff.

Slitaz on RPI:  About 6 years ago, they released for rpi's, and development stopped and I haven't actually run it.  Might be interesting to see if they incorporated the tazpanel in that -- still downloadable about half way down this page:

http://www.slitaz.org/en/news/

Not sure if they were using bb httpd, or lighttpd.  Anyway, maybe some forgotten nuggets in that...

[gadget42]

bump.

https://www.slitaz.org/en/

https://www.gofundme.com/f/slitaz2022

https://www.slitaz.org/en/asso/#postal

[vinceASPECT]

Hello

Slitaz is bizarre, in that the desktop does not contain
a web browser app by defualt

i mean Tinycore is the same issue.......

These types of OS's  manifest themselves as www oriented
nomadic browsers for booting off pens and things.....
(but no web browser on the default desktop?)

thx
C

[gadget42]

the latest slitaz livecd we have in hand here is dated 20210411 and labeled with "rolling core 5 in 1" and "*newest weekly release"(so 1.5yr-ago)

booted it up and it has two browsers, midori and tazweb

also you can cook your own:
https://mypizza.slitaz.org/

[patrikg]

Don't start a war with that the os don't have any web browser as default.
You know that with the history, M$ Internet Explorer and Netscape.

So let "us" = user choose what web browser they want to be in the os.
Let the user download the web browser with some program.
In "Windows Server" now you can do that
with two programs, PowerShell Invoke-WebRequest and then you could use
the program called curl (now M$ is including that in there operating systems).
Ohh a forgot that in "Windows Client" you also have WinGet.



 

[Rich]

Hi vinceASPECT

Hello

Slitaz is bizarre, in that the desktop does not contain
a web browser app by defualt

i mean Tinycore is the same issue.......

Tinycore also does not include music players, video players, spreadsheets, fancy editors,
image viewers, calculators, and a lot of other things by default. This is intentional.
The basic philosophy behind Tinycore is that it starts with a small base install that you can
then expand to include the apps you want.

There is no point in including a web browser. No matter which one you include, it will be the
wrong one because there will always be people unhappy with your choice.

[gadget42]

lynx?

[vinceASPECT]

ok thanks.

that makes sense somehow  (Lynx)

OK Patrick, i didn't know MS had those tools  to grab some files off
the web

likely tinycore has something too?......wget?  (or just it's app browser)

[patrikg]

I also forget to say, that windows also has the old ftp command line program to get some files from the web.

But nowadays we don't use the ftp protocol/command because of lack of security.
And the protocol uses some tcp/ip port's that have trouble with our network setup(NAT), if you don't use the passive option.

Because the ftp protocol has both "command port" and "data port".