Damn Small Linux
Damn Small Linux (also known as DSL) is a GNU/Linux distribution for the x86 architecture, originally in a Bootable business card LiveCD format, it is now also capable of being installed to and run from the hard disk, a USB flash drive, a Compact Flash card, inside a Microsoft Windows or Linux host environment via Qemu, a ZIP drive, and just about any other bootable media that can contain the required 50 MB. It is ideal for use on older x86 computers due to its low memory requirements but is suitable for newer computers as well. Although the DSL project has maintained its 50 MB size limit (in order to fit on a business card sized CD), it still includes many essential desktop applications. 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.
Origins 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.
What can fit in 50 megabytes?
The current version of Damn Small Linux is 1.0.1 (April 15, 2005). In this, DSL has a complete desktop including: - FTP client
- Mozilla Firefox web browser
- Dillo web browser, patched for tabbed-browsing, SSL and frames support
- links-hacked web browser
- AxY GTK+ FTP Client
- Siag spreadsheet
- FLWriter word processor
- Sylpheed email client
- spellcheck (US English)
- some editors (Beaver, Vim, Nano text editor)
- graphics editing and viewing (Xpaint and xzgv)
- Xpdf
- XMMS
- emelFM (file manager)
- Naim (AIM, ICQ, IRC)
- VNCviewer
- Rdesktop
- HTTP Server (Monkey web server)
- FTP Server
- SSH/SCP server and client, DHCP client, PPP, PPPoE (ADSL), calculator, generic and GhostScript printer support, NFS, games, system monitoring apps, a host of command line tools, USB support, wireless LAN and PCMCIA support.
- TuxNES Nintendo Entertainment System Emulator and a few open-source NES ROMs
DSL has built in scripts for the download and installation of Debian's Advanced Packaging Tool a.k.a Apt, and Synaptic, the GUI for 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 (although most DSL users refer to all things MyDSL as extensions). As of December 7, 2004, the MyDSL servers are hosting over 200 apps, plugins, and other extensions available for installation.
The MyDSL System, or Stuffing the Penguin The MyDSL extensions and servers are handled and maintained by the enigmatic 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" (Universal Compressed ISO - extensions in .uci format mount as a separate filesystem to save RAM space). The Testing Area is for newly submitted extensions that theoretically work "as advertised", but may have any number of bugs.
See alsoList of Linux distributionsComparison of Linux distributions
External linksDamn Small Linux website
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