No live CD support or what?
Forum: Other Help Topics
Topic: No live CD support or what?
started by: Leo55
Posted by Leo55 on Nov. 16 2005,03:09
i am a quite a new linux user and i have been searching around the website and the forums but it seems that i can't find the liveCD ISO download anymore...the filenames for the downloads seems confusing..
can any one tell mi which file is it...?
Posted by cbagger01 on Nov. 16 2005,03:23
Check out the wiki< http://damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/index.php/Syslinux_or_Isolinux >
Posted by Leo55 on Nov. 16 2005,03:36
0_0;;just made mi more confused...
ok....
so what i understand from the wiki is that i can boot from floppy or QEMU program right?
then the www.damnsmalllinux.org claims that it fits on a 50mb CD as a live CD....
i am so confused?
Posted by mikshaw on Nov. 16 2005,03:53
booting from floppy requires creating a floppy from the floppy image file available from the download mirrors. Booting with qemu requires the "embedded" verion of DSL. The 50mb standard ISO comes in two flavors...the regular dsl-<version>.iso (same thing as "current") for most machines, and the syslinux version for older machines that cannot boot from the regular ISO.
Posted by cbagger01 on Nov. 16 2005,03:56
OK, here is the long version.DSL was originally a CD-R disk image file, a 50MB *.iso file , that could be burned to either a normal sized CD-R disk or even one of those small business-card sized CD-R disks. This is still true today.
At some point, the Linux kernel + mini root image file became too large to fit on a normal floppy boot disk, which also means that the original DSL boot loader program, called SYSLINUX, could not be used to make a bootable livecd disk.
Luckily, there is an alternative bootloader, called ISOLINUX, that uses a different way to create a bootable livecd and this restriction is no longer an issue for today's "normal" DSL livecd image dslxxx.iso
HOWEVER, there are some older computers with old BIOSes that don't work properly with ISOLINUX. So the DSL team has created an alternative livecd image that uses the old SYSLINUX bootloader, dslxxx-syslinux.iso In order to make this linux kernel work with SYSLINUX, some newer driver modules were deleted from the mini root in order to make everything fit, which could be a problem for some of the newer computers.
So the rule-of-thumb is:
For newer computers (last 5-6 years or so), try the regular dsl.iso
For older computers, you may need to use the dsl-syslinux.iso if the regular dsl.iso does not work properly.
Last, but not least, is a version of DSL called "DSL Embedded". This is actually not a livecd but a *.zip file that contains the DSL system and a "Virtual PC" style emulator program called QEMU. The QEMU program can be run from Microsoft Windows or from Linux and it creates a tiny virtual PC inside a software window. It then boots the DSL operating system from inside this virtual computer window. In this way, it is possible to run DSL from within MSWindows. However, because DSL is running on a "fake" computer it does not have direct access to your real hardware and your real hard drive. It also runs MUCH slower than your real computer system. The fake computer runs at least 5-6 times SLOWER than your real computer performance, so it is recommended that you not use it on a computer with less than a 1.0Ghz CPU minimum.
Hope this helps.
Posted by Leo55 on Nov. 16 2005,04:08
ok tks...it makes it clearer...
i will try...
is dsl-1.5.iso the correct file for the DSL live CD?
(my mobo is new..)
Posted by green on Nov. 16 2005,05:41
That should do it.Enjoy!
Posted by SaidinUnleashed on Nov. 16 2005,15:12
Wikied for great justice.< http://damnsmalllinux.org/wiki....sion%29 >
-J.P.
Posted by cbagger01 on Nov. 16 2005,17:30
Make sure that you select "Burn Image File" or something like that when you make the CD-R disk.For example, in Nero 5.x the menu item is
File -> Burn Image
and Nero 6.x the menu item is
Recorder -> Burn Image