Slax
Shares rank 37 of 63 Linux distributions by recommenders
Recommended as a small live Linux distro for booting and rescuing files from USB or CD. Critics say its XSLT syntax adds nothing over standard XSLT.
Recommended as a small live Linux distro for booting and rescuing files from USB or CD. Critics say its XSLT syntax adds nothing over standard XSLT.
15 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 11
- criticize it
- 4
- approval share
- 73%
Recommended in 3 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 11 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 2.8 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 3 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Terser syntax makes scripts easier
“it's fundamentally exactly the same language with a terser syntax”
Comment from 1 Jun 2026 in “The SLAX Scripting Language: An Alternate Syntax for XSLT” “The result is scripts that are easier to develop and maintain.”
Comment from 1 Jun 2026 in “The SLAX Scripting Language: An Alternate Syntax for XSLT” Portable boot for rescue and backup
“it used to fit a mini cd, so it was easy to carry around and boot and backup files from machines that refused to boot by themselves”
Comment from 7 Dec 2025 in “Tiny Core Linux: a 23 MB Linux distro with graphical desktop” “Such a beautiful thing to boot into these pendrive distros and discover the world of Linux through them”
Comment from 13 Dec 2025 in “Slax: Live Pocket Linux”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Adds nothing over XSLT
“it's fundamentally exactly the same language with a terser syntax”
Comment from 1 Jun 2026 in “The SLAX Scripting Language: An Alternate Syntax for XSLT” “This isn't going to offer any improvement over that.”
Comment from 1 Jun 2026 in “The SLAX Scripting Language: An Alternate Syntax for XSLT”
Other Linux distributions people recommend
The four most recommended other Linux distributions, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ubuntu | 560 | 493 | 53% | 12 | 10 yrs116 owners | — |
| Debian | 552 | 191 | 74% | 13 | 10 yrs62 owners | Approved |
| NixOS | 454 | 112 | 80% | 13 | 2 yrs69 owners | Approved |
| Fedora Linux | 437 | 131 | 77% | 12 | 2 yrs72 owners | Approved |
| SlaxThis page | 11 | 4 | 73% | 3 | — | — |
What people said
14 of the 15 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“it saves full page snapshots for offline reading, and the content stays available even if the original link goes dead”
“Slax felt like a serious upgrade since you could install more packages after booting the CD”
“SLAX has small shoes to fill - XSLT is the data transform language no one asked for and no one needs.”
“This isn't going to offer any improvement over that.”
“At the very least, it goes against the spirit of the specification, even if there is no explicit wording forbidding it.”
“"Built on top of libxslt and libxml2" is a fairly harsh restriction in that it stops any usage of xslt 2.x or 3.x.”
“it's fundamentally exactly the same language with a terser syntax”
“The result is scripts that are easier to develop and maintain.”
“I liked it, because it used to be based in Slackware, and it had KDE as its desktop”
“Such a beautiful thing to boot into these pendrive distros and discover the world of Linux through them”
“the simplicity of being able to build a custom live USB through their web interface was amazing”
“I love the idea of this... but here is what I want - IT SHOULD WORK WITH EVERY HARDWARE PERMUTATION KNOWN TO EXISTENCE.”
“it used to fit a mini cd, so it was easy to carry around and boot and backup files from machines that refused to boot by themselves”
“gave me consistency across all of those”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.