Is there a way to restore my system operationnal very fast ?
I would be tempted to reinstall (i even have a fairly recent snapshot of the / fs done from windows) but at least I would like to be able to get a list of installed package before i proceed.

In which case, i would try an "upgrade" with the hope it will capture most of the configuration that was done.

the trickiest configuration I would like to have back would be the printer one (with cups)
I have a parallel printer and even though I made it work, it has been a little bit challenging... and i need my printer.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts before I proceed

I do not have knowledge of zsh but for the work emergency you can boot a live cd and use puppy to print (at least with my usb printer, puppy printed within minutes of first boot).

http://www.puppylinux.org

I looked at zsh.tazpkg receipt
When you install zsh.tazpkg
"Do you want Zsh for /bin/sh (y/N) ?
if reply is yes then symlink /bin/sh to busybox is deleted and replaced with symlink /bin/sh to /bin/zsh
When tazpkg remove zsh see if symlink /bin/sh-> busybox is restored.

tux@slitaz:/etc$ ls -la /bin/sh
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root            7 Jan  3 03:09 /bin/sh -> busybox

I found after installing,replying yes,and then removing zsh.tazpkg that /bin/sh -> /bin/zsh was still present, now a dead symlink since /bin/zsh was removed.

Delete dead symlink to removed /bin/zsh:

root@slitaz: rm /bin/sh

New symlink to default shell:

root@slitaz: ln -s /bin/busybox /bin/sh

Thanks for your help
I have had a number of problems occurring
like the package box or the sytem control box that refused to open
and a few others
i ended up reinstalling, though i may have had a faster way to do that
it has been painfull because even the upgrade did not work so i had to reinstall the package manually
I will try to document a few problems that i had, but i am currently in a rush to complete a project....

about zsh, it seems to me that the uninstall should put the link back. It is a very nasty problem since i ended up not even being able to login, so it forces to log from the cdrom :(

What occured to me is that pidgin does not play sound (it is missing a command to do so) what command do you guys use to play sound in pidgin ?

Tx

Pidgin sound support is disabled on the package receipt for ./configure options

--disable-gstreamer \

Slitaz has many packages but to keep depends and build depends to a minimum functions are disabled under configure options. It's all about keeping the distro as small as possible,either by reducing the functionality or by splitting out the program or modules into multiple packages.In some situations upgrading a package will result in reduced support or features by design.When slitaz 3.0 came out alsaplayer wouldn't play flac music files anymore. Searching http://hg.slitaz.org/wok-stable/ found flac support in the updated version of alsaplayer was disabled to eliminate flac-dev as a build depend. I force installed the previous version of alsaplayer from the slitaz 2.0 repository to get flac support.

The package receipts can be searched and viewed for tazpkgs here:
http://pkgs.slitaz.org/search.cgi

i do not understand your answer.
I understand we try to keep the distro small. I am very happy with that but would lke to add sound to pidgin.
Pidgin asks me for a command to anter in the sound menu, what command should i use in the corresponding screen ?
Thanks