Even if Slax is running from a read-only media such as CD/DVD, it still provides fully writable root filesystem (with changes stored in memory), allowing you to install additional software from online repository or other sources. Unless you are using Presistent changes, everything you install is kept in memory only and is lost after you reboot. The tools to add software to Slax as well as tools to make the changes permanent are described below.
Slax based on Debian fully supports apt command, which is a powerful command-line tool suitable for tasks such as installation of new software packages or upgrading of existing ones. For example, in order to install vlc video player, simply execute apt install vlc and you are all set up, Slax will download the requested package including all libraries and other dependencies which are necessary to run it. If you are unsure what package name to install, you can search using apt search your_keyword . Keep in mind that apt will automatically download its database of available packages when you run it for the first time. If your system is continuously running for several days, you may need to run apt update manually from time to time to ensure the database is up to date.
Slax based on Slackware supports slackpkg command with slackpkg+ extension, which provides the ability to install precompiled software from official Slackware repository as well as several other unofficial repositories, especially slackonly repo which includes precompiled packages created for slackbuilds.org. For example, in order to install MPlayer video player, simply execute slackpkg install mplayer and it will be downloaded and installed. Slackpk does not resolve dependencies so you need to do that manually. If you wish to see what libraries are required to run mplayer, use showdeps /usr/bin/mplayer . You will get list of missing dependencies including packages which contain them. Keep in mind that you need to run slackpkg update before first use.
If you prefer to add software to Slax manually, you can do so by downloading and compiling source codes from the internet. Just remember that in order to be able to compile source codes in Slax, you will need to apt install build-essential , which provides gcc compiler, make, and other tools necessary for that task, or install the tools in any other way. If you are downloading sources from github using git clone , you may also need to install git.
If you are running Slax from a writable media, your changes are stored permanenly and there is no need for any further steps. However, if your are running Slax from a read-only media such as CD/DVD, or if you selected to disable Persistent changes feature during boot, there is still a way to save your changes by creating a module. At any point, when you have your desired applications installed and configured, use savechanges command to save all modifications made to the current system into a module. The command requires one parameter, which is a path to file where the changes will be saved. So for example, use savechanges /tmp/mychanges.sb . All modifications you made to the system will be stored, except of some predefined files and directories such as temporary files, caches, and so on.
Once your changes are stored in a module, all you need is to include this module in your Slax and it will be automatically activated during boot. Copy the .sb module to /slax/modules/ directory and reboot. If you are running Slax from a writable media such as USB drive, you can copy the module directly to /run/initramfs/memory/data/slax/modules/ , which is already mapped to your USB disk. If you are running Slax from a read-only media such as CD/DVD, you may need to re-generate the ISO image by using genslaxiso command.
If you wish to examine the contents of your module or modify files in it, you can use two commands available in Slax: sb2dir to convert your module into a directory, and then dir2sb to convert it back into a .sb file. Important thing to keep in mind is that a module converted into a directory is stored in memory (technically the directory is overmounted with tmpfs), so you may find it impossible to remove that directory with rmdir, even if empty (you will get EBUSY error). Use rmsbdir command to remove the directory created by sb2dir.
Note that these commands worked a bit differently in older Slax versions, so make sure you are using Slax 9.6.4 or newer.
If you have a Slax module (.sb) and you wish to activate it while running Slax, without rebooting, you can use slax activate command. Similarly, you can deactivate any module with slax deactivate . However, if any of the files from your module are open or used, deactivation will not be possible, so make sure to kill all processes which may use the files from your module before you attempt to deactivate it.
© 2026 Tomas Matejicek