What’s new in Slax

The reworked desktop

Click the green launcher button at the bottom left, tap the left Super key, or press Alt + F2. Start typing to find an app, or browse by category.

The Slax launcher has a search field, application categories and colorful icons; small download arrows identify optional apps

See a little download arrow?

Click a marked app and Slax downloads, installs and opens it for you. You’ll need an internet connection. You can also install apps from the terminal with apt.

Windows and workspaces

Alt+Tab shows seven open windows, with the text editor highlighted and ready to switch to

Alt + Tab previews

Hold Alt and tap Tab to preview the windows on your current workspace. Release Alt to switch, or hold Shift as you tap Tab to go back.

Six app icons in the taskbar, with File Manager fourth showing live previews of two windows

Peek from the taskbar

Windows from the same app share a taskbar icon. Hover over it to see live previews, then move over a preview to peek or click to switch. Drag app icons to rearrange them.

Four workspaces

Press Alt + F3 to see all four workspaces together, or jump straight to one with Ctrl + F1 through F4.

Explore workspaces

Desktop files, keyboard and sound

The keyboard menu offers English, Czech, French, German and other layouts directly above the taskbar

Keyboard layouts

Click the language indicator in the taskbar and choose a keyboard layout. Select Show all to see more options. Slax remembers your choice so you can switch between that layout and English using any of these shortcuts.

Ctrl + Shift
Alt + Shift
Super + Space

Slax also includes fonts for reading Chinese and Japanese text in apps, along with color emoji.

A Website folder and a Notes.txt file next to each other on the Slax desktop

Files and folders on the desktop

Keep the files and folders you’re working on right on the desktop.

Volume control

Click the speaker for a volume slider, scroll over it, or use the media keys. Slax remembers your volume when you mute and unmute.

Built-in tools

Slax AI Assistant

Describe a task in your own words. The assistant can inspect your system, investigate problems and run commands. Sign-in and internet access are required.

Meet the assistant

Partition Manager

See the space available on your disks, then create, resize or format partitions. Review the changes before applying them, all offline.

Explore Partition Manager

Installation, boot and saved sessions

Slax Installer

Prepare a USB drive or add Slax alongside your existing system with the graphical installer for Windows and Linux.

Meet the installer

Named sessions

Keep your files and settings on a writable drive. In the session chooser, F4 duplicates a session and F6 renames it.

Explore sessions

Secure Boot, recovery and virtual machines

Secure Boot

The signed bootloader and kernel let Slax start with UEFI Secure Boot enabled on compatible PCs.

Recovery and VM tools

LVM, LUKS encryption and tools for filesystems including XFS are included for disk maintenance and recovery. VirtualBox, VMware and SPICE integration supports features such as automatic resizing, clipboard sharing and shared folders when enabled by your host.

A note for module users

Slax 2026.11 uses a signed Linux 6.12 kernel and OverlayFS. You can still include .sb modules before boot, but loading and unloading them in a running session with slax activate and slax deactivate requires AUFS and is unavailable in this build. Installing with apt and keeping your changes in a persistent session still works.

Take the new Slax for a spin

The whole desktop, in a 512 MiB ISO

Get Slax 2026.11

Want the technical details? Explore the commit log or read the boot and USB guide