Would you like a really really small Linux, yeah DAMN Small?
Have you ever used a really small size Linux distribution? Well you will really be entertained with a Linux distribution called Damn Small Linux (DSL). I received my first ever go with DSL when I required a small Live CD for demonstration purposes and a good scientist friend of mine based in NY proposed that I try out DSL. As the name implies, DSL is a business card size (50MB) Live CD Linux distribution. Amazingly, this little Linux wonder has a complete functional desktop including XMMS (MP3, and MPEG), FTP client, links-hacked web browser, spreadsheet, email, spell check (US English), a word-processor, three
editors (Nedit, nVi, Zile [emacs clone]), Xpdf, Worker (file manager), Naim (AIM, ICQ, IRC), VNCviwer, SSH/SCP server and client, DHCP client, PPP, PPPoE, a web server, calculator, Fluxbox window manager, system monitoring apps, USB support, and soon it will have PCMCIA support as well.
The benefits of a Live CD provide you the opportunity to install DSL on your computer’s hard drive if you really like this baby. Being light weight, you can run this version on your old computer hardware, create light weight demonstrations of any software you write or simply carry it around to show it to people on a USB Pen Drive. Surely, a true Lovely little darling!
Here is DSL’s feature list:
- Boot from a business card CD as a live Linux distribution (LiveCD)
- Boot from a USB pen drive
- Boot from within a host operating system (that’s right, it can run *inside* Windows)
- Run very nicely from an IDE Compact Flash drive via a method we call “frugal install”
- Transform into a Debian OS with a traditional hard drive install
- Run light enough to power a 486DX with 16MB of Ram
- Run fully in RAM with as little as 128MB (you will be amazed at how fast your computer can be!)
- Modularly grow - DSL is highly extendable without the need to customize
You can get more information about DSL from DistroWatch [here] or from its official website [here].
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