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Damn Small Linux

damnsmalllinux.org

31–40 of 71 posts

Re: Damn Small Linux

#31
post #23

You can run an entire, productive modern Linux, (minus a modern browser*) on 128MB of RAM and one slow core. If you push lower, you start running into issues. I would recommend having around 200MB or so of swap for sudden spikes of memory usage. An aggressive userspace OOM killer may make life easier. On Linux, if you just run SDDM that launches xfce, you will quickly OOM the system, because SDDM will stay in memory.…

Don't forget the links2 classic web browser! (still missing the and element support on x11/wayland though).

Server side rendering will collect(steal) personal info, it is a no go. The only right solution is online services to provide a web site on the side of a whatng cartel web app, if the online service does fit ofc. No other way, and hardcore regulation is very probably required.

Re: Damn Small Linux

#33
post #17
post #11

How does this compare to Alpine Linux, Amazon Linux and Slackware, including zipslack? Tiny Core Linux?

TinyCore’s “Core" is still just 17 MB and is text-based. It includes the tools to install everything else. It only supports wired networks for the most part. “TinyCore” is 23MB. It includes a minimal GUI desktop. “CorePlus” at 243 MB is internationalized, has a half dozen more window managers to choose, has wireless networking tools, and a remastering tool to spin your own. http://tinycorelinux.net/downloads.html

TCL seems more like modern DSL than DSL 2024.

Re: Damn Small Linux

#34
post #23

You can run an entire, productive modern Linux, (minus a modern browser*) on 128MB of RAM and one slow core. If you push lower, you start running into issues. I would recommend having around 200MB or so of swap for sudden spikes of memory usage. An aggressive userspace OOM killer may make life easier. On Linux, if you just run SDDM that launches xfce, you will quickly OOM the system, because SDDM will stay in memory.…

DSL is much older, and the original version came as a 50MB disk image. Current version clocks in ~700MB, again very small when compared to any modern Linux installation media. On the other hand, it seems like DSL takes a more extreme approach to slimming down i3/XFCE route, plus DSL contains Dillo which is arguably the latest modern-ish (to the most extent possible) and lightest browser in existence.

I still remember burning the dsl livecd image to a mini-cd shaped like a credit card (edges trimmed off) and using it on university workstations.

Re: Damn Small Linux

#35
post #18

I recently used it to boot a ~1996 Compaq Presario from CD-Rom to image the hard-drive to a USB stick before wiping it for my retro-computer fun :) It's kind of sad to hear "adult" people claim in all seriousness that it's reasonable that a kernel alone spends more memory than the minimum requirement for running Windows 95, the operating system with kernel, drivers, a graphical user interface and even a few graphical…

I got this insight from a previous thread : you can run linux with gui on the same specs as win 95 fine if your display resolution is 640x480. The framebuffer size is the issue

Re: Damn Small Linux

#36
post #9

The problem with old computers isn’t that they’re slow but fail randomly so they don’t need “smaller” Linux, they need more resiliency that can work with random RAM erros, corrupt disks, absurd CPU instruction failures. The size was a 90s problem.

What sorts of techniques can be used to deal with those issues?

Re: Damn Small Linux

#37
Took me a moment to understand what "DSL" relates to in this context. I thought of "dynamic scripting language" at first and was confused. But here it just means "Damn Small Linux".

Re: Damn Small Linux

#38
Back in the early 00's I used DSL in university as it has an x86 emulator included. I could plug the USB in and run Linux under Windows. Kept that on a "huge" 512MB thumb drive that cost over $100. Still have that drive and it still works.

Re: Damn Small Linux

#39
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DSL is much older, and the original version came as a 50MB disk image. Current version clocks in ~700MB, again very small when compared to any modern Linux installation media. On the other hand, it seems like DSL takes a more extreme approach to slimming down i3/XFCE route, plus DSL contains Dillo which is arguably the latest modern-ish (to the most extent possible) and lightest browser in existence.

I still remember burning the dsl livecd image to a mini-cd shaped like a credit card (edges trimmed off) and using it on university workstations.

I'm sure I burned a Gentoo stage 1 boot ISO onto one of those card-sized discs.

Re: Damn Small Linux

#40

Back in the early 00's I used DSL in university as it has an x86 emulator included. I could plug the USB in and run Linux under Windows. Kept that on a "huge" 512MB thumb drive that cost over $100. Still have that drive and it still works.

Damn Small was my first ‘home’ distro if only because it took roughly four hours to download the ISO on dialup.

Those were some… painful times.

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