Damn Small Linux 2024
damnsmalllinux.org
Damn Small Linux 2024
1–10 of 185 posts
Re: Damn Small Linux 2024
#2I'd put this dillo fork:
https://github.com/dillo-browser/dillo
On games, sgt-puzzles and bsdgames fit well, among nethack/slashem, DCSS and OFC Frotz too plus a few libre games (Spiritwrak and such). Slashem+BSDGames+3 adventures for Frotz would weight less than 20MB I think. Compressed, about 7.
BTW, I'd ditch XMMS for Audacious; a Pentium 3/4 today would be more than enough to run it.
BTW Visidata it's huge, use sc-im+Gnuplot.
On browsers, felinks supports Gopher and Gemini too. Gopher has nice stuff as gopher://magical.fish, Gemini has similar places too.
Re: Damn Small Linux 2024
#3I remember DSL fondly. It was a marvel then, and maybe now in retrospect even moreso -- that so much functionality could be packed into such a small footprint.
Conceptually the need still exists today, even if the whole landscape has changed in the meantime. I'll look forward to trying this out!
Re: Damn Small Linux 2024
#4Fantastic to have another option with modern tools! great work that will be appreciated by many. Between this, Puppy, and Tiny Core Linux so much old hardware can be put to potential use. I’d also mention Finnix as an excellent rescue image solution. Any other awesome projects for limited hardware and Linux use that should be more well known?
Re: Damn Small Linux 2024
#5Also by using Musl and Alpine as a base the amount of software you can put in 700MB it's huge.
With 700MB, IceWM and ZZZFM you could fit half a CD even with all the X.org drivers installed and you could fit Abiword, Gnumeric, Seamonkey, Dillo and so on with ease.
Offering an alternative with Linux-Libre will be interesting too, as often the Libre kernel works faster than the vanilla one, and legacy computers have all the drivers working. Propietary drivers won't work anymore such as Nvidia which some of the older ones might not even compile with DKMS.
Re: Damn Small Linux 2024
#6I played around with DSL a lot back in 2009 or so, it ran great on old PCs I salvaged from the garbage.
> Hats off to Puppy Linux for staying one of the few that still offer a full desktop environment in a small size.
Don't forget SliTaz too, it's still tiny:
> Root filesystem taking up about 100 MB and ISO image of less than 40 MB.
Re: Damn Small Linux 2024
#7Woah, now that's a name I haven't heard in a long time!
It says that it fits on a CD, but how about the other requirements? e.g. how much RAM is needed, and what kind of instruction set does the CPU need to support? is a 386 enough or do you need 486/586/686 level instructions?
Re: Damn Small Linux 2024
#8I used DSL back around when it was released (and 64 MiB flash drives were common) to get around my school's network filtering. I think this was one of the reasons they hired new IT staff the following year, because the technique caught on even with the non-nerdy crowd.
Re: Damn Small Linux 2024
#9Cool! DSL replaced LNX-BBC for me some time in 2005. Glad to see development has resumed.
In a similar vein, I think there's a Slackware-based release of Slax again!
(posting this from a ThinkPad T61 running Slackware 15)
Re: Damn Small Linux 2024
#10> keeping otherwise usable hardware out of landfills
while i like this idea in theory, in practice the energy efficiency and lower electricity costs of newer hardware mean that in terms of both cost and environmental impact it would probably be better to recycle the old hardware and buy something new in most cases.