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Damn Small Linux 2024

damnsmalllinux.org

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Re: Damn Small Linux 2024

#111

Post by vouaobrasil »

seemaze wrote: post #30
alchemist1e9 wrote: post #4

Fantastic 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?

I've been quite happy with Alpine Linux. You can build it up to suit your needs for desktop, server, embedded or containers, but will run quite speedily on any supported arch from a few tens of MB of memory. The APK package manager is pleasant and quick, and the package list is quite extensive.

I've used Alpine Linux also but I found it very unintuitive for a general Linux distro (I used to like configuring things like Alpine but I've lost the spark for it and now I just want something light that works. DSL used to be like that.)

Re: Damn Small Linux 2024

#112

Post by lelandbatey »

Damn small Linux was the first Linux I could actually use as a child/adolescent because the downloaded zip file included a copy of QEMU.exe (and a .BAT file to boot DSL) that I could use to get a taste of Linux with no prior experience, using a Windows computer. Growing up in Redmond WA, home of Microsoft, it felt very subversive to young me to use a non-windows operating system. I'm forever thankful for that seemingly random include in the download; I probably wouldn't have become the person I am without it.

Re: Damn Small Linux 2024

#114

Post by saltcured »

bachmeier wrote: post #11

I just checked Wikipedia, and was surprised to see the original DSL only had releases for about 3.5 years. > Though it may seem comparably ridiculous that 700MB is small in 2024 when DSL was 50MB in 2002 If you go all the way back to 2002, 50 MB for an old computer wasn't that small. I bought a new computer with 192 MB of RAM as late as 2005. My 32-bit, $400 discount laptop from 2009 has 4 GB of RAM, so 700 MB is rea…

Back in 2002, DSL was already a reaction to the CD-ROM based distributions which had bloated so much compared to the early days.

One of the first "approachable" Linux distributions circa 1993 was the Soft Landing Systems (SLS) 2-floppy disk set. One held the bootloader and kernel, the other the root filesystem. The kernel disk was swapped out during the boot process, so after that you only needed to leave the root system floppy in. Then, you could use a not uncommon second floppy drive for removable data disks. The SLS system was text console only, but I think (?) had an editor and gcc.

My first persistent installation, Slackware, was on a system with about 8 MB RAM and a 40 MB HDD dedicated to Linux. This had X Windows, Emacs, multiple dev tools, and modem based internet.

Re: Damn Small Linux 2024

#115

Post by catherinecodes »

veganjay wrote: post #113

I was looking for a lightweight OS to run on old Asus Eee PC 1005 HA, which uses a 32-bit Intel Atom N270 processor. I installed Void Linux ( https://voidlinux.org/ ). I may give DSL 2024 a try and see how it compares.

Void Linux is great for minimal installs. Gentoo fits the bill nicely too. Both allow for small init systems and, at least in the case of Gentoo, multiple bootloaders and initramfs tools.

Re: Damn Small Linux 2024

#116

Post by _whiteCaps_ »

ok123456 wrote: post #57
cromka wrote: post #35

Interesting fact is that DSL used to be 50MB because that’s how big a business-card sized CDs were. And yes, there used to be business-card sized CDs.

You still see them sometimes for drivers.

Those are slightly different - mini CDs. The ones the OP was talking about were a weird oblong shape.

Re: Damn Small Linux 2024

#117

Post by catherinecodes »

alchemist1e9 wrote: post #4

Fantastic 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?

Linux From Scratch (LFS)[1] is well known but doesn't get a lot of fanfare. It was designed as a learning tool, but the avenues for exploration are endless.

1: https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/

Re: Damn Small Linux 2024

#118

Post by myself248 »

throwaway71271 wrote: post #47
glenstein wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A different way of saying the same thing: business-card sized and shaped .

those used to make the most horrible noise when you actually use them

Only if you had one of those fancy high-speed drives. They were nice and quiet at 2x.

Re: Damn Small Linux 2024

#119

Post by hackneyedruse »

FreeFull wrote: post #96
yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Only 2.2.26 kernel tho so that's very dated The whole thing is dated; that looks like more of a retrocomputing project (mostly) than an updated version. I mean, busybox 1.00 is probably fine for what it is, but it's not exactly new. (Note that this is a clarification but not a criticism; having played with things like "how old of a distro can I shove in docker and run on a current kernel", I certainly support retro…

It would be rather difficult to fit any newer linux kernel onto a floppy, together with all the other software.

This article says

> The new goal of DSL is to pack as much usable desktop distribution into an image small enough to fit on a single CD, or a hard limit of 700MB.

Re: Damn Small Linux 2024

#120

Post by systems_glitch »

glenstein wrote: post #45
cromka wrote: post #35

Interesting fact is that DSL used to be 50MB because that’s how big a business-card sized CDs were. And yes, there used to be business-card sized CDs.

A different way of saying the same thing: business-card sized and shaped .

I hadn't seen the rectangular ones (just the chorded circle ones) until I bought a bunch and received these:

https://twitter.com/systems_glitch/status/169651986595858851...

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