How does the LiveCD work?

It can be divided into three parts. At first, Linux kernel (vmlinuz) is loaded, initrd.gz is unpacked into 4.4 MB ramdisk in the memory and it's mounted as a root filesystem.

Second phase is done by starting /linuxrc script. It's a part of Linux Live scripts, which is copied into initrd.gz during the LiveCD creation. Temporary filesystem (tmpfs) is mounted by linuxrc to /mnt and all files from /base and /modules directories on the CD are inserted into live filesystem (eg. base/kde.mo is mounted to /mnt/kde.mo, base/xwindow.mo is mounted to /mnt/xwindow.mo, etc.) Next, images specified by load= kernel boot parameter are inserted (from /optional directory on the CD) and finaly /mnt is chrooted. (/mnt will become /, so for example /mnt/bin/bash will became /bin/bash)

In the third phase, /linuxrc starts /sbin/init. It's /mnt/sbin/init in fact, but now /mnt is chrooted so /sbin/init is called (by using exec bash built-in command).

That's all. From this point, it's up to your Linux to do all other jobs, eg. recognize mouse or configure X properly.

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.  How to configure network

SLAX uses DHCP to autoconfigure your network card's IP address, route tables and nameservers. If you are on the network with DHCP server then you shouldn't have any problem. Just boot SLAX and everything will work.

The only exception is proxy. If your ISP offers a proxy for web browsing, you will need to configure it manually, because it's not a part of DHCP response. Just start KDE and click the icon for Control center. Choose Internet & Networking menu and then Proxy. Click "manual proxy configuration" or something similar.

It could happen that you don't have any DHCP server. In this case, you have to configure your network manually, by using the following commands:

ifconfig eth0 down # to drop any existing settings
ifconfig eth0 123.123.123.123 netmask 255.255.255.0
route add default gateway 123.123.123.1
echo "nameserver 123.123.123.10" >> /etc/resolv.conf

Of course, you have to know your correct IP address, netmask, default gateway and nameserver, else you won't be able to make any connection to the Internet.

It's also possible to setup a Modem connection, just run kppp in KDE, it will start a wizard. The only one thing you should know is that your modem device is /dev/ttyS0 or /dev/tts/0 (both for COM1), or /dev/ttyS1 or /dev/tts/1 (for COM2), etc.

If you are using ADSL then you could try adsl-setup and adsl-start program. If you are using wireless connection, try iwconfig.

If nothing works for you, then you will need some special configuration (which I don't know, of course), or your hardware is not supported in Linux Kernel (there is not any module [driver] for Linux). In this case, just wait few weeks/months/years, or write your own driver for it :)

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.  How to load Windows driver in SLAX for wifi card

In general, you need to load the windows driver by using ndiswrapper command. Then modprobe the ndiswrapper.ko kernel module and configure the card, like in the following example:

ndiswrapper -i rt2500.inf
modprobe ndiswrapper
iwconfig wlan0 ap 00:00:00:00:00:00
iwconfig wlan0 essid SomeESSID
iwconfig wlan0 key open 111x111x11
iwconfig wlan0 channel x
ifconfig wlan0 up

Finally setup the wlan0 interface the same like in the previous howto, either by starting dhcp or by ifconfig+route.

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.  How to save files on the floppy

It's easy with SLAX. Just boot SLAX with "slax floppy" boot command. It will automatically mount it in /mnt/floppy directory (everything you write to this directory will be written to the floppy)

If you wish to mount it manually, do the following:

mkdir -p /mnt/floppy # for the case the directory doesn't exist yet
mount /dev/floppy/0 /mnt/floppy

Before ejecting the floppy, be sure to either unmount it by the command umount /mnt/floppy or simply reboot the computer. You _must_ do one of this to unmount the floppy properly and save all cached data to it.

If you wish to replace your floppy by another one then just unmount the first one (umount /mnt/floppy), then eject the disc and insert another one, then do mount /dev/floppy/0 /mnt/floppy

All the commands I wrote have to be executed at the command line, or in terminal emulator (konsole, xterm, etc), or by using K-menu/Run command.

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.  How to save/restore settings

To save your settings, run "configsave" command with one argument - the storage location. So type for example configsave /mnt/sda1/slaxconf.mo to save your configs in USB flash drive into slaxconf.mo file. It will save all changed files from /root, /etc, /home and /var directories. Note that that network settings (assigned IP address, etc) won't be saved because they are not kept in any file. If you wish to save network settings then add apropriate commands to /etc/rc.d/rc.local. This file will be saved/restored, and it's executed automatically (so your network settings will be set up).

To restore your previously saved backup, use "configrestore" command. You can also save settings to the root directory of your existing disk partition (for example to /mnt/hda1/slaxconf.mo). All settings found in the root folder of any of your disk partitions ( under the name slaxconf.mo) will be restored automatically when SLAX boots.