Hi mol --

I'm not sure I understand completely: how can Midori, PCManFM and MPlayer link together more than they do at present, by calling each-other through file associations/plugins? I can't see anything that can be done at distro level without complete rewrites.

Bear in mind that with each of these additions it is only the repository that grows, not the ISO/live environment. We can pick-and-choose what we want in our desktop or ISO without restrictions of hard-coded choices or wishing 'software X' was available to us in the repos. This opens the project up to more and more specialist uses, like arcade game emulators or kiosks.

Moreover, I don't think a majority of users could agree on which web browser, desktop, file manager, audio *and* video player they'd like. Do you and every other user have Opera, Quod Libet and SMPlayer like I do?

BTW, I have SliTaz as the only OS on both my netbook and server. This is because it has everything I need (with a couple of converts) and is much faster & lighter than anything else. SO much so, I can run VirtualBox on my netbook and it doesn't die!

I would have to agree with seawolf. The thing about Linux is the freedom of choice. If we limit the choice to only 1 application per function, we're pretty much killing SliTaz's potential here.

BTW, I also prefer to only use SliTaz - even with all it's faults, it's still pretty powerful and with time and patience you can get just about anything to work with it. Still I'd want to see them fix the known issues like user creation (the skel folder) and proper drivers for some things build in... but I doubt the latter will happen :P

The fact that slitaz is the way it currently is can be its greatest appeal. Whilst i would say that better integration between applications would appeal to and benefit some users, thats why you started this discussion right?,  it would take major work to do that for, as you implied, a 'guest OS'

take the applications you mentioned which arent owned by the slitaz team. They would need to be altered for better integration, that would mean distrubuting the modified source too.

Now, as those applications are updated (by the owners) to fix bugs or maybe even security issues. The Slitaz Team would then need to take the new source, check it's stability against the OS, modify it, compile again and further test it. Creating a massive amount of work for small(ish) changes.

Thats only if they are open source and released under the GNU. The original owners might simple deny the Slitaz Team permission to alter those applications.

So to avoid legal issues, loads of software rewrites everytime they are updated and remove Slitaz's dependancy upon other projects willingness to share.

The operating system would need to be altered in an attempt to integrate the features you mentioned directly in the OS...once again creating a massive amount of work. This method would probably not be so 'clean' either since im guessing the applications you mentioned dont have the nessesary 'hooks' for integrating them more than they currently are.

although nobody (as far as im aware) is stopping slitaz's users from trying, for me this is the appeal. Your not having particulaur changes forced down your throat by a company trying to please the majority of its users.

Slitaz is the canvas upon which we users can paint, the repository is our paint tray.

I tend to agree on some of the issues raised by mol - not sure whether Slitaz would want to compete with Ubuntu, PCLOS etc. I use Slitaz on my older machines and must say very impressed with its speed, look and feel and performance. Also, I can never dream of running these machines with any othe OSs. So, Slitaz has a niche market and perhaps there is merit in the idea that any development should be very focussed. This of course has the problem of Slitaz development lagging behind the developments of other major distros - is it a bad thing? Not sure....Hoever, expecting Slitaz to out perform all other distros in all different hardware environments is a bit too much to ask...I think.

Just my two cents worth.

SliTaz is getting there though. It's lighter and more up to date than DSL. It's also less cluttered than Puppy. I don't know why I like it. I guess I like the idea of an OS that's both fast and simple. I can actually understand and modify the files the system uses daily. I can even tell the system which daemons to run or not. Also it's fun working out why something isn't working.

Anyway, I don't really think SliTaz was meant to compete with Ubuntu and PCLinuxOS, since those two were made on Debian and Mandrivia cores that have been around for years, not to mention both those distros have big teams and user support base behind them. If a problem pops up, it can probably be fixed by several people there.

I think we're still growing and we're slowly getting a user base. If SliTaz focuses on better built in support for many things while fixing it's common problems (/etc/skel/ folder and user creation to name a few), it will probably be one of the best lightweight desktops around.