DSL coming back

[News]

News

[Stats]

Stats

[brttwilliams]

After a long hiatus I am bring this project back to life.  The first step was to bring this site back to working order.  We now have a functioning forum (this).  The old forum is now static HTML and it available here (http://damnsmalllinux.org/static/). 

Next I'll be doing a release of DSL to fix some bugs and time-bugs and get the distro in proper working order.  For now I do not see the scope of the project changing much -- the goal will be the same, pack as much utility and applications into 50 MB as possible.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news... the thread was opened almost a year ago... John, do you have an ETA on development? Is there anything some of us could do, donate, test, develop? I personally don't have the development skill, but I have a history of beta testing and tracking down bugs....

I'm currently using the "newest" version of embedded DSL just to be able to run it on my work laptop parallel to 7....

[DSL-goofy]

Hello,

I also would like to know what is the current state of this project and what happened to DSL-N project?

[p3ngu1n0]

I'd like to donate my time and Linux knowledge to the project. In about 2008, my family fell on hard times. I sold my laptop and we all sold many personal belongings to keep the lights on. Being as technology is my life, I had to find a ways to keep using the computer. I went down to the thrift store with a 20$ note and bought two old computers, neither in working order. After a night of swapping parts, I had pieced together an HP Vectra VL, with 384MB of ram and upgraded it's processor to a 533Mhz celeron. First, I tried installing XP SP2 on this machine. The speeds were deplorable and the system was near unusable when needed software had been installed. Fed up with the useless machine I had built, I took to the internet. Many people suggested installing Linux on the machine. The only distro with which I had experience at the time was ubuntu 7.10. After some googling, fiddling with Ubuntu, and a few burned CD's, I stumbled upon Damn Small Linux and the rest is history. I learned the system, the ins and outs of DSL and my thrist for linux could not be quenched. Since then, I've learned as much as I could about the operating system and would now like to give back and help fix, develop, and test as much as I can to bring DSL back to the top.

Cheers,
p3

[andycrofts]

Damned Sodding Leaping-for-joy(DSL?) at this news.
Having bought the book, and CD, and wanting to use this as a teaching aid to immigrants to Finland (OK, I'm English, but I try to do my bit...)..
This is BRILLIANT news!
I'll buy you a beer next time You're in my 'neck of the woods' (Note to self: "money's safe..."
"Thank you very many!"
-Andy, Oulu, Finland

[fatmac]

Hmm, when will DSL return, (I am wondering).......it has been 2 years......I fear it will be more, (if ever), unfortunately. 

[Sparkfist]

Is there any one in the dev team still around? Are there any plans for bring it back, or a spin off distro?
I really like this distro for it's use on i386 computers with low resources.... and it's just a speedy distro in general

[fatmac]

One of the original developers is still here hosting this site, but I don't think there is to be any new releases, as DamnSmallLinux does what it was intended to do.
The other developer that I know of, is involved with TinyCoreLinux, which is basically a modern version of DamnSmallLinux, with a few extra tweeks.
There is also another distro with similar intentions called SliTaz. Perhaps you should see if either of those would suit you better.

http://www.tinycorelinux.net/welcome.html
http://www.slitaz.org/en/

[Mac88]

Is anyone posting on this site, other than spammers? I found it while looking for a distro to install on my old Compaq Presario. The spammers don't add much to the Linux discussion.

Mac

[CNK]

A few posts still pop up from time to time.

John (DSL developer) usually checks the forum each month or so to delete the spam, but he's being a bit slow over the last attack. At least they stopped on their own, so it shouldn't be hard to overlook when viewing new posts.

[Mac88]

Thanks for the info, CNK.

I run an SMF board unrelated to Linux. Had the same problem until I made it a lot harder for spammers to post. I hope he gets a handle on the problem.

Regarding DSL, I've had some problems finding documentation related to running the distro from live cd. I don't want to scramble the OS on my drive since it's pretty much un-replaceable, dating back to 2009 or so. Maybe I'll hold off until I can find some more info, then do a permanent install. I'm currently running 3 Mint distros on hardware that's a few years newer. Just trying to find a use for my ancient but pristine Presario 1210 with 80mb ram and 1.4gb HDD.

I guess I'll do some more digging and see what I can find on running DSL "live". Thanks again.

Mac88 

[Diogenes]

ftp://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/damnsmall/current/
Go there and download the ISO. Burn to CD/write to USB/SD card as applicable, and reboot. As you mentioned using Mint I assume you know the process but can aid you further if need be.


ftp://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/damnsmall/release_candidate/

The rc2 found above should work better as it is more recent, but might have some unknown bugs.

[Mac88]

No luck off the ftp site. No download option. "Copy" or "drag and drop" gave me these results:

"The Finder can’t complete the operation because some data in “dsl-4.11.rc2.iso” can’t be read or written.
(Error code -36)"

and

The Finder can’t complete the operation because some data in “dsl-4.11.rc2.iso.md5.txt” can’t be read or written.
(Error code -36)

I had previously downloaded  "dsl-4.4.10-initrd.iso" and associated .md5.txt from the DLS site and burned the .iso to CD (slowest rate). I didn't see a "live" option when I booted the cd but it appeared to be downloading files to the Presario HD so I aborted it. I still got some scrambled files on the HD.

[CNK]

The *-initrd.iso image is for network booting, which you shouldn't need.

You should just download the file "dsl-4.4.10.iso", or "dsl-4.4.11.RC2.iso" for the latest release candidate. By default these will boot as a live CD and won't change anything on the HDD unless you tell it to manually. It works like any other Live CD distro.

You can download from the http version of the ibiblio site (http://distro.ibiblio.org/damnsmall/) if FTP isn't working.

[Mac88]

Hi CNK and Diogenes, and thanks for your assistance.

My error, it was the dsl-4.4.10-syslinux.iso that I burned, off of http://distro.ibiblio.org/damnsmall/current. I picked that one as the docs said it worked well with older hardware, without defining "older". I'll try dsl-4.4.10.iso, since I already have the .iso and .md5 files, and see how that works. I can always try the .11 release later. I don't know what was up with the ftp site. I generally don't have any problem with ftp:// downloads.

Mac88

[Mac88]

No luck. I booted the .rc2 distro. When I selected F2 or F3 for boot options the window is off-center to the left and, while I can see the options, I can see no way to select any of them. I was able to select text size . If I just select "boot" it loads several files then the screen gets scrambled, and while there is some kind of image displayed, it's totally unreadable. But, back to the boot options, what am I missing? Are they selected by number, tab to selection, or what? I haven't been able to find any docs on the actual initial start-up process. I can post a pic if it's any help.

I'm probably posting tech questions in the wrong section. I'll move my topic to the correct one.

Mac88