Screenshots Of Damn Small Linux 4.2.

I have been using DSL off and on since 2.something and it has never ceased to wow me.

In the space of 50megs these people have created a clean, multi-functional, extendable OS and they continue to improve its programs and tools. They continue to find ever more innovative ways to squeeze more programs into and more functionality out of just 50megs.

It just blows my mind, I think it's one of the coolest things about Open Source software and a world class example of how FOSS facilitates creativity.

50 megs! It still kills me..

I can't fit thirty pictures inside 50megs let alone an entire operating system..

;-)

Oh Scott, DSL is a toy. I mean, compare it to a real operating system like Windows Vista. Seven years and billions of dollars to create the finest 15 gigabytes (that's right, gigabytes! Not your wizened, insignificant little megabytes) of purest Crisco ever. And it comes with Notepad and everything. Does DSL have Notepad? No!

I rest my case.

Seriously, DSL is very amazing. I use Pyramid Linux and Voyage Linux on homegrown routers and access points, and without X or any productivity software they squeeze into 48 MB. Quite a feat to do what DSL does.

DSL is very solid. And it's easy to beef it up with the MyDSL extensions. I trade off between DSL and Debian with Xfce on my Compaq Armada 7770dmt laptop (233 MHz, 64 MB RAM). I really enjoy working with live CDs that are meant to be run that way (instead of being slow demonstrations of what an installed system will work like). I volley between DSL, Puppy and Knoppix, depending on the hardware and what I'm doing with it.

Vista Knowledge Flaunter! I knew it was 15 gigs but I didnt want to just go around scaring people with the size of my Vista knowledge.. :-)

15 gigs and you can't feasibly put it on a hard drive smaller than 100g.

I imagine the Vista install disc is DVD only. Is it more than one disc?

(Haven't done a Windows install since Win 2000.)

When I bought my new Thinkpad (T61- oo lala!) I chose hastalavista business edition, because unfortunately my work requires that I actually pay occasional attention to dommedwinduhs. As is the trend these days, I had to burn my own restore disks- a 2-DVD set. The typical all-or-nothing restore, no actual rescue tools. The last time I used a windoze rescue disk was the boot floppy that you make from windows 98. They haven't made a better one since.

I can't believe they don't ship the disks. If you don't burn them immediately, by the time you need them, you won't be able to burn them.

A big Puppy fan myself (ducks), but I can certainly understand the appeal given with DSL.

TC, You do not have to use that other OS. Make people conform to Linux, after all you are a guru in our world. helios wants you to only use Linux. Are you going to disobey helios?

The key to happiness with Damn Small Linux is running it totally in RAM.

When you boot, use the toram cheat code, and you won't have to access the CD during your session.

This even works for me in 64 MB, but DSL does make use of my Linux swap file on the hard drive. Not a big deal, since I'm using the hard drive to save my files, and using the swap file is faster than loading apps from the CD. All the "pain" is in the boot, which takes longer because the CD needs extra time to load into memory.

Like both DSL and KNoppix for their flexibility and their so-called "Cheat Codes". DSL seems somewhat usurped by Puppy, other more minimalist general distros, and such special-purpose distros as SystemRescueCD. Similarly for Knoppix with its competing MEPIS, PCLOS and (of course!) the great X/K/Ubuntus.

BTW, today is the day Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 "Etch" is updated to 4.0R2 (see http://www.debian.org/News/2007/20071227 ) Why has Knoppix NOT been updated by Klaus since almost exactly a year ago, from its current version 5.1.1 released on January 5th, 2007 ??

vainrveenr, cause it works :)

I have it booted up on my monster-in-laws computer that she shipped to me to try and bring back to life. I have almost managed to back all the garbage off of it ... that woman is a data packrat with no organizational skills. Glad that knoppix was able to mount my 80G jump drive because at a rough guess I'll end up with about 13 Gig of stuff I didnt really want to have to call her about and sort through.

In a way, it's nice to not be burning a new Knoppix disc every month or so (like I seem to do with Puppy and DSL). And since Knoppix works so well with my current hardware, I'm pretty happy with it as is.

KNOPPIX is pretty well perfected. I used it to install over top of ME last month. I know Debian was a better choice, but I had used KNOPPIX to check compatibility and an evil impulse took hold...

Debian has live CD's too -- http://debian-live.alioth.debian.org/ -- but I don't think they're designed to have a save file and be used for anything more than trying out the OS and checking for compatibility. And they don't work as installers, either.

> The last time I used a windoze rescue disk was the boot floppy that you make from windows 98. They haven't made a better one since.

Allow me to plug UBCD4WIN again (this must be the 5th time or so I've mentioned it). If you're stuck supporting Windows, it can't be beat for fixing problems, though you need a valid spare XP license to use it legally. See http://www.ubcd4win.com/ for all the necessary information.

Another huge oft-repeated benefit of DSL over the likes of Knoppix, MEPIS, PCLOS, ... etc. is its total avoidance of any bloatware. No OpenOffice.org or other semi-bloatware hogging up resources!

Can all fit onto a 50MB business-card CD, or can compile any desired myDSL Application Extensions found at http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/damnsmall/... (or from another DSL download mirror's ../damnsmall/mydsl/ folder) for an bootable ISO on a standard 80mm mini-CD. Such an imense portability benefit maybe even meets or exceeds the portability of currently touted bootable pendrives/thumbdrives!

DSL download mirrors at http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/download.html ; Robert Shingledecker's main mkmydsl instruction page at http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/index.php/Mkmydsl

I think it really depends on your hardware and how well the live CDs detect what you've got. DSL and Puppy especially don't work perfectly on all boxes. Sometimes you can fix that. For instance, DSL on one of my laptops picks 1024 x 768 resolution when it can only do 800 x 600. It's easy enough to open the DSL Panel, click Xvesa and change the resolution, then saving the configuration for the next boot. But on another laptop, I just can't get X configured properly at all in DSL; Puppy, however, works perfectly on it.

And some people want OpenOffice, KDE and all the other stuff on Knoppix. If you've got a fairly fast CPU and at least 512 MB of memory (better to have 1 GB), Knoppix runs very well.

And with DSL and Puppy, you can add MUCH software. Puppy even has a way to easily add the entire OpenOffice suite.

I use all of these live CDs, some more than others, but instead of thinking Knoppix has too much bloat, I'm eager to get Knoppix on DVD to have even more software at my disposal in the live environment.

Knoppix!

Not knowing what DSL is intended for, I checked WP, which said it's intended for older machines (PII or so) with little RAM. So I think it's silly to compare it to Knoppix, which is intended to show as much of Linux' capabilities as possible.

I mean, I could say DSL is bloated as well when comparing to Linux distributions which don't run X (there are browsers etc. running on the framebuffer instead), but that wouldn't make sense, would it?

Quoting:I think it's silly to compare it to Knoppix, which is intended to show as much of Linux' capabilities as possible.

"Running on older machines that Microsoft prefers you abandon" is a Linux capability as much as any other.

I have to agree that comparing DSL to Knoppix is not a good comparison. Like the DSL people have always said, it is meant to run on older hardware. That is one of the major factors in being able to have such a functional OS inside of 50megs in size.

In my experience DSL is best on P-1 through P-3 machines. My rule of thumb is that if it is one of those old PC's that has trouble running 95, 98 or 2000, it should run DSL perfectly.

My perfect DSL setup is to have two CD-ROM drives with at least one of them a CD-RW. The ROM for DSL to run in and the CD-RW to pull configuration files from and write/rewrite files too. That's the setup that has given me the least amount of hassle.

Quoting:"Running on older machines that Microsoft prefers you abandon" is a Linux capability as much as any other."

That's true. However, when showcasing 'as much as possible' you can't make something that both runs on older machines and runs compiz-fusion, Amarok and KDE4, so 'as much as possible' indeed presents a choice - and after that choice is made it's difficult to compare.

hkwint, I agree that CF should be included in a "showcase", putting KDE4 in at this point in time though would be less than a good idea. The two time I have played with it off of fresh daily builds I was completely disappointed. I have made my mind up not to touch it again until 2009 when some of the bugs and glitches may get worked out.

I have no real problems since I am using a gentoo deriv to "downgrading" to the much more stable and appealing KDE3.5 series, when I want or need to use KDE. Mostly I am happy with Fluxbox and it's easier to handle customization and versatility.

my .02