Damn Small Linux - Not!

humpty · Joined: 22 Apr 2006 Posts: 5

You only need system stuff that you don't want to load all the time (e.g gtk2, motif..etc) with the base system. Anything else can be loaded or mounted externally.

pterandon · Joined: 26 May 2006 Posts: 4 Location: NY, USA

1) povray
2) madwifi (thanks greatly for having it-- keep it there no matter what!)
3) GIMP
4) blender

This is just a snapshot of one user's interests and not guaranteed to be indicative of the marketplace for consumers of distros in general.

Peter · Joined: 20 Apr 2006 Posts: 51

[quote="humpty"]You only need system stuff that you don't want to load all the time (e.g gtk2, motif..etc) with the base system. Anything else can be loaded or mounted externally.[/quote]

That seems tempting, but then the standard iso is almost useless without modification. I wonder if there are any performance drawbacks to loading mydsl packages?

hughd · Joined: 03 Jul 2006 Posts: 1

i think that if you want lots of wireless features for laptops, get kernel 2.6.14 which holds the latest wireless extensions as of now [url]http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/Tools.html#wext[/url]. Also it is not that much bigger than current version your using.

[IDC]Dragon · Joined: 22 Apr 2006 Posts: 41 Location: Hannover, Germany

Now that this thread was bumped again, I can as well add my $0.02:
I (try to) use DSL-N as a server, so I'd be fine without fluxbox and all GUI applications. Instead, I miss NFS, FTP and telnet server. Is it normal that I can't FTP nor telnet into the box, or am I doing something wrong? Samba is a myDSL extension, but very dated. I have performance problems with that.
Taking above selfishness away, an ideal DSL-N would be very ., but modular in a way that you can easily add what you need (apt_get?). Then persist this somehow, perhaps like .uci, perhaps remastering, as long as a plain user like me can bear it.

ineedausername · Joined: 10 Jul 2006 Posts: 1

Instead of adding a bunch of apps to the distro, why dont you just make a buch of apps AVAILIBLE TO ADD BY THE PERSON USING IT?

I just insalled dsl to my old laptop and there is stuff on there that i dont need. I would prefer fewer, more powerful apps that i will use everyday. I really like what i see on DSL-N because there is less "stuff", with more power.

Keep up the good work guys, DSL is probably the best known little distro out there. I didn't know how to spell linux two months ago, and someone gave me an old laptop w win98 on it. After trying to get some antivirus software for it (with no luck of course), i started looking at other options. Once i started talking to people, DSL was recomended again and again. I love it.

bbame · Joined: 26 Sep 2006 Posts: 1

I suppose the thing I miss most is a VNC viewer of some sort. An NX client would be even nicer since it would provide NX, VNC, and that Windoze thing. DSL had this, but apparently DSL-N doesn't even offer it as a MyDSL extension.

Raimund · Joined: 27 Sep 2006 Posts: 6 Location: Germany

Well, my wishlist is pretty small: What I would like to have added is a faxprogram ... or did i overlook it somewhere?

johnh · Joined: 19 Oct 2006 Posts: 3

I have a fantasy of establishing computer and internet connectivity to school kids who are low income and tend to be transient in thierplace of living. DSL-N could work well for something like this. They could keep thier own OS and files on a pendrive that could be booted on most any computer.

I hope to convince my community in creating internet "hotspots" that these kids could connect to. Then easy connect USB wireless devices cold be used to connect to the hotspot portal.

One thing that concerns me though is the not so obvious filke managemant of DSL. So #1 on my list of what to include in DSL-N is a folder icon on the desktop that will allow files to be saved to and from without "mount" issues or "non writeable file system" messages.

Could this be created so that in the pendrive install a user could specify the size of a partition dedicated to the desktop file folder icon? Then it could be set for any read-write-create-delete operation by any program. This is a potential security nightmare but it also might alow more strict controll of the system files and folders????

J. A. Streich · Joined: 02 Nov 2006 Posts: 8

I like your idea johnh, but I don't think it's needed for DSL-N to include it off the shelf... You can easily set the directories up using Frugal Install or Install to "Hard Drive" to the pendrive.

There isn't that big of a security nightmare if you (as an end user, I'm not advocating it be added to DSL-N tree) add the gpg package to each flash drive. Have the home directory tar-gzipped and encrypted on logout, and decrypted and untar-gzipped at next login (requireing the student to know the passphrase). Part of private key, and all of the public key will be on the key, so it's not ideal -- but add to that the option to require logon as well and you've got a pretty decent system which the students shouldn't be able to overcome unless the student who [lost | had stolen] their drive didn't use the system the way you set it to work.

Juanito · Joined: 11 Sep 2006 Posts: 88 Location: Dubai, U.A.E.

I think you should include the acpid and cpufreqd daemons:

1. DSL-N already detects an acpi compliant box and loads the acpi modules on boot so you might was well go the whole way and load acpid (which is very small) or at least have a cheat code option to load acpid

2. Given the above, cpufreqd would allow users to automate power saving (and again it is small)

erothoff · Joined: 31 Dec 2006 Posts: 1 Location: USA

Hello,
First I woudl like to say that I really like DSL and DSL-N. I just started using them, but they look great. But the first thing I notices, is that most of the released apps are the older versions. John, and Robert, I assume that is because you are both busy with full time jobs, right?
At the moment, I apps that I would like the most on the live CD/ embedded OS

gpartition
Firefox
Thunderbird

I would like a ISO that has ALL or Most of the MyDSL extentions. Some of us use regular CD's. (They are cheap, cheap, cheap so why not.)

I would like ot have:
Openoffice
An Antivirus program (Not picky there.)
A partition copying (imaging) program like Norton Ghost.

at least on the cd for adding when needed. (Is there a way to have programs like Openoffice, which I know is big, to be in a type of cache on the CD/embedded OS, so that it only affects DSL in RAM when it is used? I don't usually need it except when I am writting a paper...)

Finally, John and Robert, what can I do to best help make sure that these extentions are added. I admit I am a poor programmer, (studied, but then went into business) I do have 1-2 computer designers working for me overseas in a country called Kazakhstan, and I maybe picking up a programmer soon for making a electronic map program.

Keep up the good work!
Eric

Tokorona · Joined: 06 Jan 2007 Posts: 2

Dillo and Lynx. My browsers went borked when GTK broke down and having a way to fix it (I still can't, acutally) would be nice.