SliTaz GNU/Linux is a mini distribution and live CD designed to run speedily on hardware with 256 MB of RAM. SliTaz uses BusyBox, a recent Linux kernel and GNU software. It boots with Syslinux and provides more than 200 Linux commands, the lighttpd web server, SQLite database, rescue tools, IRC client, SSH client and server powered by Dropbear, X window system, JWM (Joe's Window Manager), gFTP, Geany IDE, Mozilla Firefox, AlsaPlayer, GParted, a sound file editor and more. The SliTaz ISO image fits on a less than 30 MB media and takes just 80 MB of hard disk space.
To compare the software in this project to the software available in other distributions, please see our Compare Packages page.
Notes: In case where multiple versions of a package are shipped with a distribution, only the default version appears in the table. For indication about the GNOME version, please check the "nautilus" and "gnome-shell" packages. The Apache web server is listed as "httpd" and the Linux kernel is listed as "linux". The KDE desktop is represented by the "plasma-desktop" package and the Xfce desktop by the "xfdesktop" package.
Colour scheme:green text = latest stable version, red text = development or beta version. The function determining beta versions is not 100% reliable due to a wide variety of versioning schemes.
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Latest November 2025 version is a tiny 54.3 MB ISO and is at the extreme 'lite' end for resurrecting very old hardware,
Not as small as Tiny Core, but more usable IMO. I transferred the ISO to a 2 GB USB stick and booted an old core 2 duo Dell machine with it in legacy mode - doesn't appear to support UEFI booting which is not common on very old hardware anyway.
Picked up the wi-fi automatically and while claims of it being able to run in 256 MB of RAM can't be verified, it does have a very low resource footprint that should make it possible to run on machines with very limited RAM.
As a last resort for getting ancient hardware to be useful again, can't fault it, but I suspect I got lucky with it recognising my wi-fi and you'll probably need a wired connection to get online on a lot of machines.
Long time ago I used SliTaz-3.0 on my very ancient home pc, as on my Lifebook I installed Slitaz-4.0 and parallel the cooking version. It was not everything working "out-of-the-box". But with the helpful documentation and the great support from the SliTaz forum nearly everything could be managed. And after this, I really loved to work and play with this amazing OS.
After my Lifebook got broken and I was travelling a lot, There was no time and no opportunity anymore to stay with the SliTaz team. Several times I had a look onto the SliTaz website and gladly saw, there is still activity, even without getting new releases.
Now after returning back home, I lloked closer again to this really nice and impressive distro. And I am really impressed of the help of the members. At the moment I work with a convertible with the poor and cheap baytrail board. Originally there was WIN 8.1 on it. Then I swiched to WIN10. But as the support ends in october, I tried several Linux distros and just a view ones recognize all of the hardware of this convertible. I had to figure out, how to boot the 32bit uefi in combination with the 64bit processor. And allof this could be managed with the assistence of the kind and friendly SliTaz team. Tere is new work on a "current" version of SliTaz with the Linux-5.10.238 kernel. This is, what I try now and how I'm impressed, how it works on this convertible. It's an amazing speed, very less battery consumption, no bloatware. The size of the iso is Just around 100 Mb, with everything I need for the beginning.
What more should I expect out of this? I'm really amazed and happy to get back to this great distro.
I cant belive what a quick system it is, how compatible it is, how much software is bundled into such a tiny package. I love this distro, and every few years when I come back to it I am so glad to see it is still developed. It's one of linux's gems for sure,
For me for getting old computers back online, doing a first diagnostic of them, and for rescuing data I have found some very useful scenarios for SliTaz. It is also more than capable of being run as a daily driver, and it's quite funny to watch a 15 year old celeron PC out-doing a brand new i3 running windows and all its invasive bloatware.