SlugOS is the collective name for a group of firmware distributions which are derived from a common source base (and therefore share common documentation as a result of that). The latest version of SlugOS (March 2009) is 5.3-beta.

More information on the latest version of SlugOS can be found at SlugOS5.

The distributions currently derived from SlugOS are:

• SlugOS/BE (formerly known as OpenSlug), which uses the OpenEmbedded package repository. It's designed for use with external disk (or NFS) storage, though a minimal installation can run from the internal flash. SlugOS/BE is big endian, uses the arm instruction set, and the glibc C library.
• SlugOS/LE (formerly know as DebianSlug), is little endian but in other respects essentially the same as SlugOS/BE. (The old DebianSlug name is a consequence of the fact that it is possible to coerce Debian packages to run on it. But the default repository is an OpenEmbedded one, and the recommended way to run Debian on the NSLU2 is now Debian/NSLU2.)

The following documentation may be helpful. Note that not all documentation has been updated for SlugOS 5, or tested to see if it remains pertinent for this most recent release. Look for the color-coded bar at the top of the page (such as at the top of this page), which will indicate which version(s) of SlugOS the article or page applies to.

• SlugOS 5 Release Notes (this is a Must Read for all users!) ReleaseNotes5x3
• How to do a basic install and turnup with SlugOS InstallandTurnupABasicSlugOSSystem
• How to use mirrored storage for your rootfs TurnupToRAID

The following articles may be helpful, but may not be updated for the new SlugOS release:

• Compiling SlugOS with the MasterMakefile
• How to Upgrade SlugOS
• SlugOS TipsTricksOddsEnds
• SlugOS HowTo's
• SlugOS SettingUpToolchain

The following article is outdated and should not be used with SlugOS 5:

• Optware package feed for Slugosbe and Slugosle.