SliTaz

SliTaz is an independent micro-distribution, assembled from its own package base rather than another distro's, that fits a working graphical desktop into an image measured in tens of megabytes. It runs comfortably from RAM, boots quickly on very old or very small machines, and uses its own lightweight package manager, tazpkg, with a companion toolchain for building packages and remastering the system. The default environment is a frugal Openbox-based desktop with a small set of applications chosen for size, backed by a surprising number of extra packages in the repositories. Development alternates between stable releases and a continuously updated cooking branch. The project has francophone roots and a small, long-running community. SliTaz makes sense when the machine is tiny, the bandwidth is scarce, or the goal is studying minimal system design. An OpenFactory browser VM spares you hunting for period hardware just to try it.

Select a version of SliTaz to try online: