The take-along operating system
By: Russ Ethington Jul. 11, 2006 02:30 PM
by ScuttleMonkey, Sun Jun 25, '06
by special contributor Walter Kruse on 2004-01-08 06:55:52 UTC
Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Sun Jun 25, '06
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/06/25/1628254
"According to DistroWatch, Damn Small Linux (DSL) is currently the most popular microLinux distribution. Linux.com (Also owned by VA) takes a look at why this might be the case, and how you can best take advantage of it. From the article: 'What began as a toy project to stuff the maximum software inside a 50MB ISO file has matured into a refined community project known for its speed and versatility. DSL includes the ultra-lightweight FluxBox window manager, two Web browsers, Slypheed email client and news reader, xpdf PDF viewer, XMMS with MPEG media file support for playing audio and video, BashBurn CD burner, XPaint image editing, VNCViewer and rdesktop to control Windows and Linux desktops remotely, and more. If they could do all this in 50 megs, imagine what they could do in more space. Last month the DSL developers released DSL-Not, a.k.a. DSL-N 0.1 RC1. It's 83.5MB of DSL coated with GTK sugar. Yummy!'"
> Last month the DSL developers released DSL-Not, a.k.a. DSL-N 0.1 RC1. It's > 83.5MB of DSL coated with GTK sugar. Yummy!
Actually, looks like DSL-N is more than just GTK sugar, from its web page http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/dsl-n/ , DSL-N features a modern kernel with more hardware support, in addition to more apps http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/dsl-n/f/viewtopic/3.html, like MPlayer, Gaim, and gFTP.
It's also worth mentioning that the original DSL uses a lightweight GUI toolkit called FLTK [fltk.org] and Lua for its tools, interesting!
aymanh
> I had an old unused Pentium II machine running Windows 95. I reformatted the > hard drive, installed DSLinux and used it as a file server/CVS > repository. It had some glitches but essentially it's like having a new low > end PC for free.
If you have a laptop, you have a computer you want to use for more than a server. DSL is just the right thing if you have low RAM. If you have 128 or more MB of RAM, just run Mepis or Debian Sarge.
> I wonder if the DSL project can be forked to create a "Damn small server" > project, so anyone can set it up on an old machine, enable some services, > hide it in a corner, and use SSH/VNC to administer it.
Have you looked at Smoothwall yet?
I like DSL and I've used it extensively, but I cannot deal with having to get online to connec to an on-line download server before having Samba. That just sucks. Sure, you can carry it on a thumb drive as an extension, but it would be so much easier if it was part of DSL.
I was really disappointed after downloading DSL-N and finding out it still has this same disappointment.
Now, please, somebody make a fool of me. Show me I'm wrong. Tell me there is a way to do a samba connect without downloading anything with DSL or DSL-N.
Personally, I carry a flash drive around which will boot on any system supporting USB-ZIP (read the readme.USBKEY file in the syslinux archive for how to do this and why you have to — but, simply put, very few even modern BIOSes support USB-HDD even today.)
It's a 512 MB model, but, I have to squeeze things in there because I have to store a lot of data, a copy of my browser for those systems that force you to use an old version of Firefox (IE is dead to me) and so on. I LOVE having a handy little live linux distro that can boot off of it and be used to repair/diagnose a lot of problems among other things. I can't afford to have some huge 1 GB large image of Ubuntu or something though on my little flash drive, so that's where a linux distro following this philosophy comes in.
Honestly though, I am forced to admit I didn't really like DSL that much (remember, with linux distros it's all a matter of opinion and, as they say "to each to his own." I don't like it because it isn't good, I don't like it because it just isn't the type I want.) Personally I used Finnix http://www.finnix.org/ (site's a little slow these past few days or so) which has much more up to date packages. It's one of the many live distros that follow the same sort of philosophy DSL follows. Squeeze handy stuff in there, remove unneeded clutter. It's my hope that we see even MORE distros like this in the future, not less.
Nazo-San
by rapidweather on Sunday June 25 (http://www.rapidweather.com/)[]
I got my start remastering DSL, often winding up with 75 MB or so once I put Firefox, etc. in there. I then switched to Knoppix 3.4, using the 2.4 kernel to support older hardware as mentioned. Here is my Getting Started Guide http://www.geocities.com/rapidweather/getting_started.html, also have a technical blog here http://rapidweatherlinux.blogspot.com/ There are some screenshots available there.
One post that I need to draw your attention to is the one about "testcd" [blogspot.com] for Knoppix remasters. I did run into problems with some versions of DSL using isolinux, in that they would not boot on many of my older computers, due perhaps to the "testcd" problem. It is extremely important that any knoppix remaster pass that test, or there will be complaints concerning no-booting on boxes that used to run the distro flawlessly in an earlier syslinux version.
For that reason, DSL often offers syslinux versions alongside isolinux versions. I don't feel that I have to, since I pass "testcd" 100%, and mine boots on all my older boxes, in addition to the newer P4 ones.
One clue that I did take from DSL is to include lots of custom-made applications, found nowhere else. That makes a remaster different, and not just a re-arrangement of stock applications.
I do have a bright yellow boot: command line against a black background, making it easy to enter long cheatcodes when trying out a new build. So many knoppix builds have a pale gray boot: command line with black background, very hard to see what you are doing!
Also, see the main screenshots page link in my signature, below.
I've played with Damn Small Linux, but anymore I pretty much just take the time to roll my own LinuxFromScratch.
DSL is a nice demo, but the Knoppix structure makes it a real pain to customize.* Say you want a different version of Perl or Xorg, or want to modify the bootloader and kernel to display a full screen banner image/logo, it's a whole heck of a lot of work to rip out the original components and replace them with your own. Rolling your own distro from scratch only requires a bit more work, and you have better control and a better understanding of what's going on.
If any DSL experts have advice on how to make these customizations easier, I might give it a try again.
green pizza
I managed to get DSL working on a 256MB USB key. Then I installed their package for OpenOffice, which was 75MB all by itself. OK, my USB key is now 50% taken up by DSL+OO, and half empty for my files.
Then I did nothing more than
dd if=/dev/sda1 of=DSL_OO.image
and stuck in other 256MB USB keys and did:
dd if=DSL_OO.image of=/dev/sda1
and was able to hand out $25 "thank you" tokens to speakers at our local Unix User Group (www.cuug.ab.ca) that consisted of a bootable USB Linux with full OpenOffice functionality. Ran fine on 256MB PCs with all software loaded into RAM - OO starts faster on these old machines than much faster ones that have to pull OO off the HD.
In short, you could ALWAYS pump up DSL with a good selection of softare they've made available in packages. It only starts off at 50MB.
rbrander
DSL is nice, but it's got a 2.4 kernel, PuppyLinux (one bone) fits in 25M and gives you a 2.6 kernel with all the accompanying hardware support goodness. To me that makes DSL very 2003, it's playing catch up in my books.
It has a 2.4 kernel because it still supports older hardware. 2.6 does not. It doesn't even support some not-so-old hardware that 2.4 did, as I've elarned from personal experience.
From dsl N http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/dsl-n/f/viewtopic/3.html
Kernel 2.6.11 and modules
Mozilla Suite 1.7.12, browser,mail,irc,etc.
Mplayer 3.3.5 audio and video
Leafpad 0.7.9 editor/notepad
Abiword 2.2.7 wordprocessor
Gnumeric 1.4.3 spreadsheet
gTFP 2.0.18 ftp client
gaim 0.77 IM client
Xpdf 3.0.0 pdf viewer 10.Emelfm 0.9.2 file manager 11.Xpaint 2.7.6 paint program 12.Cups 1.1.14 printing 13.unionfs supported as an optional boot parameter 14.MyDSL system of extensions 15.Frugal Installs 16.USB Pendrive Install
> To me that makes DSL very 2003, it's playing catch up in my books.
Update Your Books.
by MrCopilot
Problem is that the more features (ie. bloat) you lose the smaller your potential userbase becomes. One man's feature is another man's bloat… You could have a distro with only the things one person wants but then someone else might see it as lacking in some essential area…
That's one of the reasons why all modern OSes are so large, they all strive to attract as wide a userbase as possible. They want to appeal to EVERYONE.