Let's do a simple hack!

If you are not aware of the difference between the words 'Hack' and 'Crack', I recommend you to hear what wikipedia says. Anything you want to do in a propitiatory program like MS Windows which is prohibited by license or it is not intended to do so may be called as crack. But the word 'hacking' has a great meaning which is different from 'cracking'. You can do anything on your open source program. If you are trying to crack your Linux OS which is open source, it may be called as 'hacking'. What is I want to say is that, an open source program can't be cracked because, they provide source code and hacking (cracking!) is allowed by license. If you are trying to beat an open source program, surely it will become a part of development. So an open source program can't be beaten. Hacking is intended for fun, especially by applying intellectual skills on something and and allowed by law. If anything you find violating the law, please call it as 'crack' not 'hack'.
If you are a beginner in Linux, like me, this simple hack will really attract you. This hack is done in my pocket slax 6.1.2 which is installed on my USB pen drive. But you can do this in any linux based distro which has a boot splash screen or login screen. The only thing you need to do is,
Navigate to /boot directory. In pocket slax, it is situated in the following path:
system:/media/sda1/boot
Then you can see one or more image files with .png extension. In slax, it is 'slax.png'. Edit this picture with a suitable image editor and change as you like it. For example, type "Hacked by ". It is interesting that you see your name at every boot up. If you are interested, you can put your photograph. But it is recommended that, you should not change the size of the image. Also, you should not change the name of the image. Of course, you should copy the original image.png file to any other directory in order to undo everything you have done.

Slax- A brief review

Yesterday, I found some good stuff on the official website of Slax (It is a simple but very beautiful distro. Yes, it's build up of KDE). Website itself is very cute and everything is simple as like SUSE or Mandriva. I know some real geeks may not like the entire structure of slax, but it will be stunning those who were allured with Microsoft Windows OSs. The simplicity makes everything easy.
One more advantage is that they give a free 30MB online memory which can be easily be used like ordinary disk drives. The memory of 30MB is free for slax users for unlimited period even if you didn't use it for a long time (The info is from the official blog, the unlimited period may be varied. But they didn't commented about it yet). You can use the online memory from any machines that supports slax, or any other OS, even Windows. A 200MB iso file or tar file is to be downloaded in order to make a liveCD or USB. I installed latest version of slax (slax6.1.2) to my SanDisk Cruizer 4GB pendrive and it works fine. A live CD can easily be created, but to do USB installation, you need to work for 2 minutes.
The whole procedure can be done in your windows platform itself. Try this link.
Another fantastic feature I've seen in their website is to run an application without actually installing on our system known as 'activat'ion. Almost all general purpose applications are available as .lzm binary format which is ready for the installation without any dependencies. You can select which software you want to use from modules page. There are three options - first to download (normal download for later installation), secondly 'add to build' which helps to customize your distro before download. If you want to check whether the software listed is good, just do the third method -activate. Then you can use the software as you have installed it in your system, but actually not.

The major advantage is that it is pocket linux (handy) and can be used everywhere. But personally I felt that it has less hardware support compared to Puppy Linux. But I stil like slax because of it's greenish beauty!

Happy slaxing!