DSL Talk

You all know that the last 5 years have been tough for us tech types. First we had the dot-bust, then we have the sucking of jobs to South Asia. It has been tough for us US based tech workers...

So, what does she expect? We aren't going to be having good times now are we? Oh well. So, now I need a divorce lawyer too. Well, at least we don't have any kids. Maybe we can file online? That would be quick I guess. I am not sure what we are going to do about the house. Maybe we'll sell it to pay for all the attorney fees? Life can be hell sometimes -- sorry for dumping this on the DS

I wish to make an attempt to rebuild the entirety of DSL with a few implementation changes - an attempt to squeeze a few more bytes out of the already tight DSL project.

1: everything (and I do mean everything) will be rebuilt from source using uClibc.

2: I will be building a 2.6.10 kernel using the knoppix 3.7 configuration.

3: SquashFS will be implemented upon KNOPPIX. sqsh type modules will be supported.

4: The x apps, all user applications, and basically anything non-system will be removed and repackaged. X-based user apps will be available in the least ram-using packages if available (like firefox), or be given a new package if not. The generic command line non-system and x apps will be in udsl-clapps.sqsh and udsl-xapps.sqsh.

As you all read, I am seeking a tax lawyer this year because my financial situation is a complicated mess, split ups do that to you...

Anyway, it looks like I am also in need of a debt consolidation loan so that I don't get buried from an avalanche of credit bills. Maybe you could say that all this is the result of some type of mid-life crisis? So wish me luck on my debt help, it isn't like I have bad credit, but believe it or not I am still paying on my student loans. My advice to the young geeks out there; keep your debt low and your finance situation in order at all times. Bad credit

So, tax time is coming and I am yet to get organized. I think I need an IRS tax attorney this yeah. The California tax law is really a mess, too bad Arnold is more hype than actual reform. Why can't there be a flat tax so that we could figure out our own taxes without having to higher a high priced tax lawyer, an accountant and a bunch of other people who profit from our system's inefficiency? We pay income tax, ssi tax, sales tax, and then we get taxed on our ssi when we get it back! Man...

So, wish me luck filing my tax return, like the rest of you I'm going to need it! I've read

Lately the DSL IRC channel (irc.freenode.net #damnsmalllinux) has been slammed with new users, newbies, n00bs, n00bies, whatever...Thats great. Its great to know there is a huge interest, and people who want to get involved, get into linux, etc... I know SU already posted about this kind of thing once, but if any of you guys happen to find your way here, awesome.

For the record, It is always a good idea to utilize the 'dmesg' command to discover what your kernel wants to talk to you about!!! If you're having trouble identifying a device, try dmesg. If you aren't sure if your HD is being detected, try 'dmesg'. If you want to know what kind of soundcard you have or what speed your CD writer is, try dmesg. Dmesg is the kernel message buffer and anything the kernel has to say to you will most likely be in there! you can page it by piping it with 'more' or 'less'. 'dmesg|more'

Not Your Father's Operating System
A Developer's Perspective of DSL

What follows is the history of the major design decisions that make DSL what it is today.

As a commercial Linux appliance developer (see: www.shingledecker.org), I had made my own desktop appliances based on Red Hat 6.2 using Icewm. I would occasionally checkout Distrowatch to see if others had similar ideas.

Most everyone knows that operating systems are installed onto hard drives. I had grown tired of installing OS onto hard drives. I had just completed work on several server appliances that do not install to hard drive. Instead they run from a combination of multiple ramdisks and cdrom.

I've been running DSL on my Winbook XL (P233 MMX 32 ram, 2 gig HD, netgear ma111 usb key (wireless)) for a while now...before going wireless G with our new access point...But anyway...i've never been able to get X to work with my mouse. Its sooo annoying. I'm just venting of course. I'm a console lackie by nature, but I do a lot of things with VNC (www.realvnc.com if you're interested) and it helps simplify things a good bit. Keeps all of my email centralized by connecting to the Xvnc server and using thunderbird...etc... And it has java applet for web based access from anywhere...So thats helpful. Or you can use the VNC client...anyway...

First test of fluxbox 0.9.12 ended in slight disappointment. The actual compile was a little annoying until I finally got imlib2 using the proper version of freetype and fluxbox finding them both without an ld wrapper.
After successfully building and moving it into DSL I realized that the addition of Imlib and libFreetype is probably not the best idea. Together they are 750k stripped, which is nearly the size of fluxbox itself. I'm not sure it's worth it just for the ability to add png and jpg images to your interface (xpm is already supported).

Another feature is a Tab action which allows you to jump to specified tabs.

If anyone noticed any strange or oddly formed replies/comments to their posts please let either myself or SaidinUnleashed know! I recently noticed several comments which seemed to have been produced by an automated spambot just spidering the website and adding the comments/replies. Certainly do not click on anything in the bogus comments as that will just say 'hi this website aknowledges your spam. please give us more.'

examples of spam targeting this website: (see pics)
http://www.vectori.net/~tronik/misc/

you can find us online at irc.freenode.net in #damnsmalllinux

thanks for being a great community! =)

SU's memo - or the Private Message (PM) system on the forums.

I have been fooling around with Kanotix BHX lately and I really like it. It runs well, has a decent install feature, and includes a bunch of great progs.The hardware detection is awesome. So yesterday a friend asked me if I could "fix" his box and I jumped at the chance to try it (BHX) on his newer hardware. After several attempts to do a hd install and screwing up the mbr and partitions (don't ask me how) i gave up. He didn't care because XP put his 'puter out of commision a long time ago anyway. I popped out the trusty biz card from my wallet and it booted up and installed no problem.

How could I think of blowing Damn Small off like that? Forgive me for thinking another distro could take the place of DSL as my linux showboat of choice.