Damn Small Linux is a minimalist, business card size live CD/live USB (with a hard disk installation option) designed for older computers. Version 1.0 has been released. Our intro article is here.
Damn Small Linux 1.0 Released
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
I really love this distro, I have it running like clockwork on an old 66mhz Pentium..fully usable too!
Do you know how to install this distro onto a CF card so you could make a silent desktop using Via mobo?
It really is amazing how much it can do for its size. I mean it really is fully functional! Cool stuff.
I wish this thing would work on my athlon64 3000+ asus a8n-sli dx system. I keep getting a blank screen whenever it tries to run the window manager. Shows the boot process OK, but just blacks out when goes to show the graphical desktop.
This is sort of dissapointing to me since dsl was the first distro I ever tried, though I tried it on an ibmthinkpad back then. I get nostalgic just thinking about it.
Anyone know how to iron that situation out?
I found this, it might help you…
<quote>
Does the boot option “vga=normal” help any?
You can try the “xsetup” option in DSL-0.7.3 at boot time,
For example ” dsl xsetup vga=normal ”
and bypass the automatic xserver startup.
Play with the choices, and if you get a black screen again,
use “ctrl-alt-bksp” to get you back to the shell prompt..
Then type “xsetup.sh” to try other choices..
I hope you find one you like…
73
ke4nt
</quote>
I’ve tried replacing Xvesa with their package of the X11. Didn’t work. Vesa gives me a headache. Great distro though.
I’ll take a shot at it later tonight.
Just got a 512MB usb thumb drive today.. Time to try out DSL on it.
I have DSL 1.0 running on my old laptop (Hitachi Pentium 133 MMX, 96 meg of ram), and this is the best think that ever happened to it. USB was never supported and the plug blocked off running Windows 98 which is what it shipped with, but it works great with DSL.I use my Linksys WiFi card and everything works great. I also run it in a virtual PC on my new Mac Mini with no problems. I have been using it since 4.3 and I think it’s one of the best distros around.
For Damn Large Linux….
Bigger and more resource hungry than longhorn…Just like a hummer!
My hardware awaits..
MrX
Bigger and more resource hungry than longhorn…Just like a hummer!
My hardware awaits..
MrX
Me too. Here I sit on a P4 3Ghz with 2 Gigs of RAM. When can I have a Linux distro that will put that hardware to work?
“I wish this thing would work on my athlon64 3000+ asus a8n-sli dx system”
why would you wish that….overkill don’t you think ?
Why does X11 still not work on some computers ?
Unbelievable.
too bad there is no PPC version.
Gentoo should cure any idle cpu and free ram =)
“I wish this thing would work on my athlon64 3000+ asus a8n-sli dx system”
“why would you wish that….overkill don’t you think ?”
But of course, Jerry.
However, I would like to optimize it on my own computer so that I can have a highly portable personalized OS that I can use on practically any x86 computer I come across. And it’s a fun distro to tinker with, as it really is a minimalist system, but has tons of functionality.
Also, this is my only computer at this time.
I’m glad they’ve stuck to it. I like DSL. I’ve run it to recover data on various computers and have used it on various laptops that were lacking hard drives. I look forward to getting it on a usb stick too. I think DSL is one that can be booted from Qemu. I’m very intrigued by the Qemu-on-a-stick portable computer idea.
I have a suggestion. Install Windows XP. I’m certain it will support all your hardware.
You wouldn’t get bluescreens or blackscreens for that matter.
I’ve already got Fedora Core as my system.
Windows is one leech I don’t need in my life.
Though if your comment was sarcasm… good stuff.
I’m currently running Fedora Core 2 mostly, with some usage of Mandrake 10, Ubuntu Warty, and Mepis 2003.10 on other partitions. I’ve also used Knoppix 3.4 and SuSE 9.0 live CD. But Damn Small Linux appears to be an entirely new Linux experience.
I just ordered the CD from the DamnSmallLinux.org website, and I can’t wait to pop it in.
Since there has been a lot of talk about many Distros getting really big, and some being slow on older hardware, I’ve always been intrigued by the idea of a lightweight, small, fast Linux distro, that still offers lot’s of functionality, and can run fast on old hardware. Damn Small looks like it does the trick.
I’ve checked out the screenshots at LinuxBeta, and it also looks like the extra utilites, DSL control center (to configure stuff) and MyDSL (to add extra software on the fly), are quite cool.
Finally, it looks like a very nicely optimized, polished Fluxbox desktop.
I can’t wait to play with this new toy.