Damn Small Linux
Damn Small Linux is a Linux distribution for the
x86 architecture, originally a bootable business card
LiveCD. It can be installed to, and run from
hard disk,
USB flash drive,
CompactFlash card,
Microsoft Windows or
Linux emulated host environment via
QEMU, and
ZIP drive. It is capable of running quickly on older x86 computers due to its low memory requirements and small size .
Encyclopedia
Damn Small Linux is a Linux distribution for the
x86 architecture, originally a bootable business card
LiveCD. It can be installed to, and run from
hard disk,
USB flash drive,
CompactFlash card,
Microsoft Windows or
Linux emulated host environment via
QEMU, and
ZIP drive. It is capable of running quickly on older x86 computers due to its low memory requirements and small size .
Origins
Damn Small Linux was originally conceived and maintained by John Andrews, but has grown into a large community project with many contributors, most notably Robert Shingledecker for the creation of the MyDSL system, DSL Control Panel, and much more.
Although Andrews originally based DSL on Model K, a 22MB hack-down of
Knoppix, DSL is now based on
Knoppix proper, allowing much easier remastering and improvements.
Features
The current version of
Damn Small Linux is 3.0.1 '. In this version the programs that are included are:
- Web browsers:
- Mozilla Firefox
- Dillo web browser, patched for tabbed-browsing, SSL and frames support
- links-hacked web browser
- Sylpheed email client
- HTTP Server
- AxY GTK+ FTP client
- FTP Server
- SSH/SCP server and client, DHCP client, PPP, PPPoE , calculator, generic and GhostScript printer support, UnionFS, games, system monitoring apps, a host of command line tools, USB support, wireless LAN and PCMCIA support; NFS, FUSE, SSHFS support.
- Office:
- Text editors:
- Graphics editing and viewing:
- Xpdf
- XMMS, audio player
- emelFM
- naim
- Virtual Network Computing viewer
- Rdesktop
DSL has built in scripts for the download and installation of Debian's Advanced Packaging Tool , and
Synaptic, a GUI front-end to APT. Additionally, Damn Small Linux provides on-demand download for large programs such as
OpenOffice.org and the
GNU Compiler Collection as well as smaller apps like
XMMS by means of the MyDSL system, which allows users the convenience of 1-click download and installation of apps . As of December 7, 2004, the MyDSL servers are hosting over 200 apps, plugins, and other extensions available for installation.
Boot Options
Boot options are also known as cheat codes. Automatic hardware detection may fail, or the user may want to use something other than the default settings. For this, DSL allows the user to enter one or more cheat codes at the prompt before booting. If the user does not enter a cheat code, or if no key is pressed before the timeout, DSL will boot with its default options. Cheat codes affect many auto-detection and hardware options. Many cheat codes also affect the GUI. The list of cheat codes is available on the Knoppix mirrors, and can be seen at boot time.
The MyDSL System
The MyDSL extensions and servers are handled and maintained by Ke4nt and hosted by many kind organizations, such as
Ibiblio and Belgium's Belnet. There are 2 areas of the MyDSL servers - regular and testing. The "regular" area contains extensions that have been proven stable enough for everyday use and is broken down into different areas such as "Apps", "Net", "system", and "uci" . The Testing Area is for newly submitted extensions that theoretically work "as advertised", but may have any number of bugs. A nickname of this among DSL developers is "Stuffing the Penguin".
Scripts
Due to the innovation of the new 5-way install scripts. 5 way offers booting into DSL from
pendrive:
- QEMU - DSL In linux
- QEMU - DSL In Windows
- Native - DSL from USB port
- Native - DSL from CD Boot
- Native - DSL from floppy
Versions
Xbox Version
Damn Small Linux was also ported to the
Xbox, which is made possible due to its low memory requirements. It can be run as a LiveCD on a modded Xbox or installed to the Xbox hard drive. It will automatically boot into the X11-based GUI, where you can use your Xbox controller to control the mouse pointer and a virtual keyboard to enter text. X-DSL has a fluxbox-based desktop, with applications for email, web browsing, word processing and playing music. It can be customised with new applications by downloading myDSL extensions. This gives it the memory advantage over other current XBOX Linux OSes.
Other Versions
- Frugal.iso install is basically the equivalent to running the CD compressed image on a hard drive partition except it is booted with the lilo bootloader by default. You also have the ability to assign boot time options and automate backup restore. For memory savings, there is the option to have a persistent /home and /opt directory on a partition. This is a way to run a practically bulletproof system. It also s itself to simple upgrades. There are different flavours: lite, grub and usb.
- DSL-embedded . The .iso inside the embedded is easily upgradable to the latest version
- DSL-syslinux iso.
- DSL-pendrive usb, in usb-hdd and usb-zip flavours.
- DSL-N, a larger version not constrained by the 50MB limit of business-card CD's. Uses GTK+ 2 apps and is currently around 85MB.
One can use different floppies to boot: bootfloppy
.img and bootfloppy-usb.img
See also
- MiniLinux
- Feather Linux
- Puppy Linux
- Comparison of Linux LiveDistros
External links
-
-
-
- [ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/damnsmall/current/pdfdocs/FrugalHowto.pdf Frugal Howto] .
- - Installing Damn Small Linux on a USB drive from Linux
- - from Windows
