ZipSlack was a specially compiled release of the Slackware

Linux distribution A Linux distribution (often abbreviated as distro) is an operating system made from a software collection that includes the Linux kernel and, often, a package management system. Linux users usually obtain their operating system by downloading one ...

which was designed to be lightweight and portable. It was distributed in a

ZIP Zip, Zips or ZIP may refer to: Common uses * ZIP Code, USPS postal code * Zipper or zip, clothing fastener Science and technology Computing * ZIP (file format), a compressed archive file format ** zip, a command-line program from Info-ZIP * Zi ...

archive along with the Slackware release. Installing ZipSlack only required obtaining the archive and unzipping it to the place where the user wished to install it, which means that ZipSlack did not require one to go through the process of reconfiguring existing

partitions Partition may refer to: Computing Hardware * Disk partitioning, the division of a hard disk drive * Memory partition, a subdivision of a computer's memory, usually for use by a single job Software * Partition (database), the division of a ...

to try or install it.

Details

ZipSlack used the UMSDOS filesystem under

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

, which means that it actually ran on top of the

FAT In nutrition science, nutrition, biology, and chemistry, fat usually means any ester of fatty acids, or a mixture of such chemical compound, compounds, most commonly those that occur in living beings or in food. The term often refers spec ...

filesystem, originally widely used by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

operating systems, and commonly found today on various types of

removable media Expandable storage is a form of computer storage that is designed to be inserted and removed from a system. Some forms of removable media, such as optical discs, require a reader to be installed in the computer, while others, such as USB flash dri ...

such as ZIP disks,

SuperDisk The SuperDisk LS-120 is a high-speed, high-capacity alternative to the 90 mm (3.5 in), 1.44 MB floppy disk. The SuperDisk hardware was created by 3M's storage products group Imation in 1997, with manufacturing chiefly by ...

USB flash drive A USB flash drive (also called a thumb drive) is a data storage device that includes flash memory with an integrated USB interface. It is typically removable, rewritable and much smaller than an optical disc. Most weigh less than . Since firs ...

s, and Secure Digital cards. The last release of Slackware which contained ZipSlack was Slackware 11.0. Slackware 12.0 did not contain a ZipSlack setup within its distribution,Slackware 12.0 distribution
Retrieved November 6, 2007. although this change was not mentioned in its release announcement.Slackware 12.0 Release Announcement
Retrieved November 6, 2007. The most likely cause of this is the lack of UMSDOS support in

2.6, as support for this filesystem type has been removed from the official Linux sources after some discussionUMSDOS discussion on the Linux Kernel Mailing List
Verified on March 23, 2022. regarding it on the Linux Kernel Mailing List. ZipSlack was quite lightweight, excluding a great deal of the software considered “normal” on an installation of a

-based distribution today. For example, in ZipSlack, the

X Window System The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems. X provides the basic framework for a GUI environment: drawing and moving windows on the display device and interacting wit ...

was not present by default, nor were any

GUI The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...

-based web browsers. However, since ZipSlack was essentially just a miniature installation of Slackware, users were able to use the Slackware

package management system A package manager or package-management system is a collection of software tools that automates the process of installing, upgrading, configuring, and removing computer programs for a computer in a consistent manner. A package manager deals w ...

to install whatever packages they may need.

Minimum requirements

As downloaded, ZipSlack required approximately 100

megabyte The megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. Its recommended unit symbol is MB. The unit prefix ''mega'' is a multiplier of (106) in the International System of Units (SI). Therefore, one megabyte is one million bytes o ...

s of disk space and an Intel 80386 or compatible

CPU A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, and ...

. ZipSlack was able to run with as little as four

s of memory, with an add-on supplied by Slackwar

However, at least eight megabytes—preferably 16—was the recommended minimum requirement;''fourmeg.txt'', from the Slackware 11.0 distribution
Retrieved November 6, 2007. possibly more if the

or other

software is going to be used with it. The UMSDOS file system needs to be hosted on a FAT filesystem, not NTFS.

Caveats

The archive which contained the ZipSlack distribution was too big to be decompressed with a

16-bit application 16-bit microcomputers are microcomputers that use 16-bit microprocessors. A 16-bit register can store 216 different values. The range of integer values that can be stored in 16 bits depends on the integer representation used. With the two mos ...

such as the older versions of

PKZIP PKZIP is a file archiving computer program, notable for introducing the popular ZIP file format. PKZIP was first introduced for MS-DOS on the IBM-PC compatible platform in 1989. Since then versions have been released for a number of other ...

for DOS systems.The Slackware Linux Project: Frequently Asked Questions (“I can’t unzip the file – it says I don’t have enough memory!”)
Verified November 6, 2007. Instead, software such as a 32-bit DOS version of

Info-ZIP Info-ZIP is a set of open-source software to handle ZIP (file format), ZIP archives. It has been in circulation since 1989. It consists of 4 separately-installable packages: the Zip and UnZip command-line utilities; and WiZ and MacZip, whic ...

(compiled with a

DOS extender A DOS extender is a computer software program running under DOS that enables software to run in a protected mode environment even though the host operating system is only capable of operating in real mode. DOS extenders were initially developed ...

on Linux, or

WinZip WinZip is a trialware file archiver and data compression, compressor for Microsoft Windows, macOS, iOS and Android (operating system), Android. It is developed by WinZip Computing (formerly Nico Mak Computing), which is owned by Corel, Corel Co ...

, 7-Zip, or another similarly capable utility on

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

needed to be used. Alternatively, the system could be booted on a live-CD version of Slackware, and the standard zip utility provided with the distribution used.

References

External links

The ZipSlack portion of the Slackware Web Site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zipslack Light-weight Linux distributions Slackware Linux distributions

Details

Minimum requirements

Caveats

See also

References

External links