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A Sinclair ZX Spectrum 128k emulator would be a nice addition to DSL. Spectrum emulators are very small and lightweight and lots of games are available

Which Spectrum emulator to use?

There is a list here:
http://www.worldofspectrum.org/emulators.html#unix

Which one to use = whichever one will work on DSL with the least dependencies (ie NOT GTK2 or QT) and highest speed and can emulate the 128k Spectrum model.



Possible candidates:
ZX80
SpectEmu
Fuse
FBZX
ZX Spectrum Emulator for Linux/i386
Aspectrum
Speccy
ZX4All
ep128emu
Spiffy

Looked in the MyDSL browser for a hex editor and to my surprise there isn't one. DSL needs a hex editor so we can hex edit some files!

[fb800x600]

I thought I would try DSL.  I have a Toshiba Satellite 2140 CDS with an impressive 32MB.

I booted from the CD and all started looking good.  I got the following messages
Scaning for USB devices... Done.
 Accessing DSL image at /dev/scd0...
Total memory found: 29232 kB
Creating /ramdisk (dynamic size=21300k) on shared memory...Done.
Creating directories and symlinks on ramdisk... Done.
Starting init process.
INIT: version 2.78-knoppix booting
Setting hostname to box Done.
 Running Linux Kernel 2.4.31.
 Processor 0 is  AMD-K6(tm) 3D processor 451MHz, 64 KB Cache

At this point, it gives a very good impression of 'hanging'.  I think it's stuck.

Is there something I can do to get it further?

What boot codes are you using?

I have to type fb800x600 boot code at start up to get DSL to run on my laptop.
Experiment with various boot codes.

Still can't get it to see my USB flash drive. The flash drive uses a Phison PS2231 USB controller and is set to the mode of "secure + public partition" - meaning it appears as 2 seperate drives in Windows (secure password protected drive + unsecured public drive). DSL can't handle it but everything other OS / device I've ever tried it with can.

[offset=32256]

hmmmmm , no follow ups ?
no ideas from anyone ?

Has ANYONE had any luck mounting a loop filesytem ?

Nope. I couldn't mount a loop file system either.

I think the problem is the offset=32256

Older versions of Linux can't handle an offset with a high value more than 32bits. Use a lower value for the offset is the answer.

The CD burning program in DSL is an MS-DOS type application, you have to operate it via the keyboard. Before burning, you have to navigate into its options menu and set the burn speed and fast blank mode and manually type in the location of the iso file etc.

Did you get the Flash plugin to work so that it's showing fonts?

I have tried this method and the Flash plugin content loads in both Opera.uci and Firefox, but it doesn't display any text!

Why is it not showing any text? How do I get it to display the text?

I'm sure that in 2008, DSL used to display Flash content properly with the text and all. But now for some reason it isn't. What's going on?

I have used LXDE in Knoppix 6 and it is good. It's almost as good as Windows 98. However, will it function in 32/64mb of ram? On the wiki page for Knoppix it says 256mb+ ram for LXDE. Which is far too high.

Firefox is RAM hungry, 64mb is not enough for FF. I use Opera 9.25.uci from MyDSL. Opera can function in less RAM than FF. With 64mb Opera is useable depending on how bloated the websites are. Without the swapfile and in 64mb of RAM, Opera starts to slow down after about 40mins of surfing. But if you enable the swap file, then you can run Opera 9.25.uci and browse the internet for hours just fine.

I have to use a Knoppix 5.1 CD to create the swapfile however. The DSL version I'm using just gives an error message whenever I try to create the swap file. But it can use the swap file created by Knoppix 5.1 OK.

[I have created an empty partition on the DSL computer as "/usbstick".]

"mount: relocation error: mount: undefined symbol: blkid_known_fstype"

The usb stick is readable on several other Linux systems so the stick is fine.

RESOLUTION -

There was a problem with a 2GB usb stick that I was using. It was pre-formatted when bought to have two partitions; the first of about 1mb, the second with the rest of the 2GB. This stick cannot be seen by DSL.

Other usb sticks are fine - though the device name of the usb stick can be variable!

I put the stick in a usb port and use "dmesg" from a shell to see what device it is seen as (usually /dev/sdc1).

I have created an empty partition on the DSL computer as "/usbstick".

I then simply mount the usb device to the partition with the command "sudo mount /dev/sdc1 /usbstick"

I can see the usb stick now.

I have the same problem with a USB stick. I think the stick uses UDRW technology, so it appears as a 2 seperate drives in windows. In DSL it appears as sda1, sda2, sda3, sda4.

You said you solved the problem by creating an "empty partition".  I don't know much about Linux, how do I create an empty  partition?

What do I have to type in to create an empty partition?