DSL coming back

[News]

News

[Stats]

Stats

[CNK]

I can't see any new topic in the other sections of the forum.

Anyway, graphics problems pop with some laptops, but there are usually ways to get around them. The DSL Wiki has a section on boot codes (http://damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/cheat_codes.html), they're not menu slectable, you have to type "dsl [cheatcodes]" and press enter. With [cheatcodes] being whatever options you need.

Try "fb800x600" (you need to leave off the "dsl" bit for this command), so that DSL avoids trying to use specific video drivers that may not be working properly.

If still no joy, you can try the "dsl vga=xxx" command (http://damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/vga_xxx.html).

[Mac88]

Thanks CNK. I knew the answers had to be somewhere, just not sure where to look. I'll dig into that stuff in a couple days and let you know how I made out. I'll post any further questions in the Help topic. Thanks again for your assistance.

Mac88

[Mac88]

I haven't gotten around to re-attempting the DSL install on my old Compaq. Been busy with other projects and writing some scripts to handle the SD chips in some video gear I recently purchased. I'll get back to the install when I get caught up.

Mac88

[jharris1993]

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.

Yipee!!!  Hurray!!!  Большое тебе спасибо!!!  Muchas Gracias!!!

"DSL" has been one of my favorite distro's since it was designed to fit on a 1.44 floppy. . .

I know that I am a "sick, twisted little man", but one of my hobbies is to take the most ridiculous, ancient, and crufty pieces of hardware out there, and re-purpose them with DSL.  My current project being an ancient Toshiba Libretto CT50 (Pentium 1, 640x480x16 bit, 16 *megs* of memory, 815 meg HD), that I am trying to bring back to life with DSL.  And!  I've just about succeeded too.

DSL is an excellent distribution for just that purpose, as it is a much lighter-weight distribution than things like Tiny Core, or Puppy. (Not that I have anything against them, they just won't work on a 16 meg system with 815 megs of hard-drive!)

Thanks so much for "taking up the torch" so to speak.  I'm glad to see this beastie is back in business!

Jim (JR)

[jharris1993]

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.

John,

First of all, let me thank you again for breathing new life into this distribution.

Second, though I know you want this distribution to live on - you seem to be suffering from the same kind of time constraints that the rest of us do, and it seems that you don't have as much time to devote to this as you'd like.

Since I don't want to see this wither away again because you're too busy, and I really don't think forking DSL is a good idea, would you consider the idea of opening up the distribution to additional help?  Perhaps a CVS system on Github, or something like that?

Both CNK and I have discussed (briefly) the idea of expanding the scope of the distribution team, and we both think that it would be a Good Thing for both you, and the distribution.

Think about it, and let us know what we can do to help.

Thanks again!

Jim (JR)

[stunix*com]

I'm so glad you are bringing dsl back, I have continued to use it for so many uses over the years from cctv ftp servers to torrent boxes and also donated to soothe my concience.     
Its a shame I cannot find a seller of hockey rink cds anymore, ive only got 30 left and they're all yellowing, but itx boards and ide doms are so cheap on 3bay.

[jharris1993]

. . . . itx boards and ide doms are so cheap on 3bay.

@stunix,

OK, my mnemonicia might be a bit out of tune, but you have me stumped with "itx boards" and "ide doms".  Want to 'fess up?  I'd really like to know what they are.

p.s.  It would be great if John could find the time to respond to some of this, so we know that he hasn't disappeared again.

Jim (JR)

[jharris1993]

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

. . . . graphics problems pop with some laptops, but there are usually ways to get around them. The DSL Wiki has a section on boot codes (http://damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/cheat_codes.html), they're not menu slectable, you have to type "dsl [cheatcodes]" and press enter. With [cheatcodes] being whatever options you need.

Try "fb800x600" (you need to leave off the "dsl" bit for this command), so that DSL avoids trying to use specific video drivers that may not be working properly.

If still no joy, you can try the "dsl vga=xxx" command (http://damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/vga_xxx.html).

Mac88,

This kind of issue is not unusual, especially with the smaller versions of Linux.

". . . the window is off-center to the left. . ."

I've seen that, and it usually means that the display resolution is set too high. (i.e. the resolution set to 1024x768 on an 800x600 display, or even 800x600 on a 640x480 display)

Since other modes give you a totally scrambled up display, I'd go back to the first mode and see what changing the display resolution will do.

Give it a try and report results.  These are usually solvable problems, it just takes a few whacks at it.

Jim (JR)

[stunix*com]

. . . . itx boards and ide doms are so cheap on 3bay.

@stunix,

OK, my mnemonicia might be a bit out of tune, but you have me stumped with "itx boards" and "ide doms".  Want to 'fess up?  I'd really like to know what they are.

p.s.  It would be great if John could find the time to respond to some of this, so we know that he hasn't disappeared again.

Jim (JR)

well i should link to johns toy here, erm...(linking disabled?) [ http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/mini.html ]  At the time there were no pico psus so what you see is a fanless itx 500mhz motherboard and a powersupply board probably 256 or 128mb ram.   circa 2005?     pico psu powersupplies came later.   I'd built a few of these type machines, using no moving parts using them as kiosk machines.    it was revolutionary at the time, an x86 machine running from flash memory, in Johns case, compact flash with an ide adapter.  doms, Disk on module,  were the next step.   we have since moved to sata so these ide type disks are not fast bot with dsl we only need to move 100Mb of data to ramdisk.    I still have a ten year old "johns toy" machine running on 64Mb, 128Mb ram called "flash" somewhere in the garage, [ http://sturl.uk/stusjohnstoy ] its still on my lan, but as I also have 6 other dsl boxes as 4tb video file servers it doesnt get much attention but it has an uptime of around 3 years, ....probably a power cut.   i took to wrapping them in clingfilm/saran wrap..  [ http://sturl.uk/stustoy ], well, fireproof heatshrink really.

these itx motherboards (1ghz,sata) are currently being sold for $10 with 1GB ram, a 2gb drive will be $20 and a case and psu will be £25.  I have taken to to install a new machine i just boot the disk,fdisk to delete and add one bootable partition, mkfs.ext2 /dev/sda1 , scp and unpack my dsltarbomb.tgz, grub; root (hd0,0); setup (hd0);quit   and bobs youre uncle, a new machine.   the tarbomb is just a backup, the knoppix file and the usual grub stuff.

it came down to eliminating moving parts such as hd platters and fans using slower cpus.
My friend prefers windows 10 and watercooling and is always fixing it.
I think John is a very quiet individual, but i love his work.

I notice the site has been down alot recently, and there are some issues with the forums, but it all still works.   (if you change the ibiblio link in the control panel.... )

[BobKlahn]

Now I have to find my book. I bought it and used DSL for a bit, but never got seriously into Linux.

My interest is more in oddball stuff, so DSL seems like a better fit than big Distros. I have an old Gateway Solo 1200 and nothing else would handle the video.

I wonder if it would work on the Raspberry PI.

[Diogenes]

And where did this government? What you have here is a piece of Linux history, left to die as other distributions take the mantle. Certainly, this is how open source works, but the fact that DSL still has popularity despite being many years behind, shows that it could be revived to it's full, previous glory. I am fully capable of starting such a project but am unsure if I can garner the attention that a reborn DSL could.

[Bad Dog]

@stunix,

well i should link to johns toy here, erm...(linking disabled?) [ http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/mini.html ]  At the time there were no pico psus so what you see is a fanless itx 500mhz motherboard and a powersupply board probably 256 or 128mb ram.   circa 2005?     pico psu powersupplies came later.   I'd built a few of these type machines, using no moving parts using them as kiosk machines.    it was revolutionary at the time, an x86 machine running from flash memory, in Johns case, compact flash with an ide adapter.  doms, Disk on module,  were the next step.   we have since moved to sata so these ide type disks are not fast bot with dsl we only need to move 100Mb of data to ramdisk.    I still have a ten year old "johns toy" machine running on 64Mb, 128Mb ram called "flash" somewhere in the garage, [ http://sturl.uk/stusjohnstoy ] its still on my lan, but as I also have 6 other dsl boxes as 4tb video file servers it doesnt get much attention but it has an uptime of around 3 years, ....probably a power cut.   i took to wrapping them in clingfilm/saran wrap..  [ http://sturl.uk/stustoy ], well, fireproof heatshrink really.

these itx motherboards (1ghz,sata) are currently being sold for $10 with 1GB ram, a 2gb drive will be $20 and a case and psu will be £25.  I have taken to to install a new machine i just boot the disk,fdisk to delete and add one bootable partition, mkfs.ext2 /dev/sda1 , scp and unpack my dsltarbomb.tgz, grub; root (hd0,0); setup (hd0);quit   and bobs youre uncle, a new machine.   the tarbomb is just a backup, the knoppix file and the usual grub stuff.

it came down to eliminating moving parts such as hd platters and fans using slower cpus.
My friend prefers windows 10 and watercooling and is always fixing it.
I think John is a very quiet individual, but i love his work.
[/quote]

I'm retired now but in the past I have repaired systems such as you're describing and they where using DSL.   They where small computers used for climate control in  stores, it seems they where out of Canada while I was under contract in California to do their work. And that is how I remember DSL.
.

[MeboMechanicNo1]

Is there any news of this?

[antiftermam]

This is pretty cool. I dont use Linux often, but when I do, this will be of use.


c wat i did thar? lol, wasnt until I read it back that it made me think of that...

[Neil_M]

In case you didn't know, the Oct 2017 issue of Linux Pro Magazine featured DSL in an article about Tiny Linux distros.

If you don't have the issue, you can buy the article and/or read the intro at

    http://www.linux-magazine.com/Issues/2017/203/Tiny-Distros/(language)/eng-US


I liked what I read so much, I have installed it as my first VBOX virtual machine and it works very nicely there.

I can paste the text of the email I receive from Linux Pro, but not sure that the links will come thru. Let me know.

Neil M