new distro based on DSL

Forum: DSL Ideas and Suggestions
Topic: new distro based on DSL
started by: stan

Posted by stan on Mar. 10 2004,22:46

have a look at this mini (ish) distro
< http://luitlinux.sarovar.org/ >

Its 65mb so a bit too big for a 50mb credit card CDR
but its got abiword and Gimp and Xfce!
Any chance of fitting these into DSL and keep it under 50mb?

I also notice that Flonix now uses Icewm as its shell instead of fluxbox and this is also only 65mb with a good little multimedia centre and TV card detection as well!

oh how I wish those creditcard CDR's where bigger than 50mb!

Posted by Rapidweather on Mar. 11 2004,03:13

I tried to determine if it has MozillaFirebird built-in, probably not, with Gimp included. Also, he does not have a user board like this one yet, very valuable to us
DSL users to discuss issues, etc.

Posted by hasty on Mar. 11 2004,08:45

I'll second that

This user board is one of DSL greatest assets.

Posted by hasty on Mar. 11 2004,09:05

Right I've had a look.....imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

Why replace fluxbox?
Look at all those task bars on the screen shots <shudder>
I've tried xfce in the past as well as windowmaker and waimea but flux is still the best
(though if you want minimal look at scrudgeware )

Would prefer abiword to ted and would like the gimp though

Still I've lead a sheltered life and never seen a biz sized cd, let alone know what to do with it.......

Posted by Rapidweather on Mar. 12 2004,03:50

I have downloaded the luitlinux-0.2.iso but have to go to the store to get more
cd-r disks to burn it. I'll let you know if the thing runs. The developer said it is for
686 boxes, and I have only one of those, with dual processors, that I will test it
on. I'll try and run one of my 0.6.1 restores on it if I cannot get wvdial working on luitlinux. I need wvdial with my modem...
I am mostly interested in distros with Foxfire and good dial up support, and use
0.5.3.1 on the laptop I am on now. I have Opera 6.12 and Mozillafirebird on it,
restored by a USB stick. I boot with a boot floppy, and have /knoppix on /dev/hda1 per my < http://www.angelfire.com/ms/telegram/general_howto >
---
I may try something like that setup with this luitlinux, to see what it can do.
---
Everyone needs to know I am not jumping ship in checking out luitlinux,
my examination of it is for "educational purposes" , as I look forward to the
next release of DSL.
:;):

Posted by John on Mar. 12 2004,04:21

I've looked at Luit Linux. It looks like a nice project and intelligently thought out remaster. The author chose a good combination of apps for 65 MBs.

Posted by ou_ryperd on Mar. 12 2004,05:38

Variety is the spice of life. I gave Luit a whirl. The only thing that really impressed me was xfce. I think this distro is still very young, and will need a larger user base in order to mature to the level that DSL has matured. At the moment it is geared at the author's requirements, which are not the same as mine. Nevertheless, I will watch the distro. I think that if you are going to exceed the 50MB limit, you might as well go all the way to the next, which is mini-disk size. That will add room for a few more apps. Cool idea though.

Posted by Rapidweather on Mar. 13 2004,16:36

I'm running luit linux now, and am using Firefox. I had a full install of RedHat 9 on /dev/hdc, so I am running that copy of Firefox within luit linux. The author has some ideas on how to run MozillaFirebird/Firefox in his index.html in the root directory of the CD.
---
I see no mention of a restore tarball, which is the greatest thing since sliced bread for Damn Small, and I use a 10-15 mb restore tarball on all my DSL installations.
Usually, I have a couple stored on different partitions, so I can have two setups for
Damnsmall.
---
I suppose I could make up a filetool.lst and a filetool.sh for luit linux, and see if I can
get Firefox packed up in a tarball, but I am able to run it on this machine quite well from /dev/hdc.
---
Of course I like the fact that wvdial is included in luit linux. The window manager is ok, but needs some autohiding configuration for my tastes. It's a lot like the older KDE that comes in Redhat 6, without the desktop icons.
---
The distro did work on the first download/burn, which is impressive to me.
---
Hard to say what Damnsmall could benefit from in this new distro, I'll have to
play with it for a while to see.

Posted by Rapidweather on Mar. 13 2004,20:35

luit linux will restore ok, from a Damnsmall 0.6.1 tarball.
---
Have to put a filetool.sh in with the backup.tar.gz and filetool.lst in the same
partition on your hard drive, and mount that partition, and then run the filetool.sh
that you have there. I customize mine to point to that partition.
Mainly, I have added /home/damnsmall/.xfce4 to the filetool.lst to get those settings
back. I find that the .xfce4/menu.xml file has to be edited with vi. Scite won't work.
I have not figured out how to get the window manager to restart, without running
into my .xinitrc file, which is for fluxbox.
---
Have had a ball working with Gimp, however.
---
:laugh:

Posted by Scout on Mar. 14 2004,00:02

AbiWord is pretty much the only thing that I'm frustrated about not being able to use under DSL. I'm certainly going to give that a try, since the whole credit card CD thing was never really relevant to me, anyway.

Posted by Rapidweather on Mar. 14 2004,01:17

Here are some tips on using luit linux:
Most of you are going to use a restore tarball with this, to get Foxfire, and your other items, like your wallpaper. A good Damnsmall 0.6.1 backup.tar.gz will do just fine.
l. Boot from the cd, and once up and running, copy the ~/.xfce4/xinitrc file to
/home/damnsmall/.xinitrc.
2. Once you restore (more on this below), I have to ctrl-alt-backspace to get out
of the xfce window manager, and to a text prompt.
3. Then "startx". That will use the .xinitrc file in item No. 1 above, to bring xfce
back up, and all of your restored settings, etc. will be there!
Now for my restore/backup:
l. Boot from the cd, sudo su in an rxvt, and:
cd /mnt
2. I keep my backup.tar.gz, filetool.sh and filetool.lst in another hard drive
partition, at /dev/hdb1.
3. cd hdb1 > this gets you to the backup directory.
4. ./filetool.sh restore
5. Also, you need to modify your filetool.lst to include the .xfce4 directory,
so all the settings will be saved. (get this fixed up before the restore)
---
Here is my filetool.lst:
---
/home/damnsmall/.xfce4
/home/damnsmall/Desktop/Autostart
/home/damnsmall/.fluxbox
/home/damnsmall/.xtdesktop < you don' t need this
/home/damnsmall/.xinitrc
/home/damnsmall/.blackboxrc
/home/damnsmall/.dillo
/home/damnsmall/.links
/opt/firefox
/home/damnsmall/.phoenix
/home/damnsmall/web.html
/home/damnsmall/web_files
/home/damnsmall/upload
/home/damnsmall/kreon
/home/damnsmall/.start_synaptic
/etc/wvdial.conf
/ramdisk/usr/bin/wvdialconf
/ramdisk/usr/bin/wvdial
/ramdisk/usr/bin/wvdial.conf
---
The xtdesk stuff is not needed in luit linux, and since it has wvdial,
most of that is not needed, but let /etc/wvdial.conf stay.
---
Here is my menu, that has the restoration changes to point to the
/dev/hdb1 shown in my example:
< http://www.angelfire.com/ms/telegram/xfce4_menu_xml >
Of course, you need rename it to menu.xml when you use it in
/home/damnsmall/.xfce4/menu.xml
---
Also, here is my filetool.sh to go with this:
< http://www.angelfire.com/ms/telegram/xfce4_filetool_sh >
That file needs to go in the partition with your backup.tar.gz, your
filetool.lst, and can be named as filetool.sh or left as is.
It is easier to restore in an rxvt to have the shorter name of
filetool.sh.
---
In review, once you have adjusted all the settings in xfce, you can backup,
and this includes getting a nice wallpaper, too, and placing that image file
in a directory that will be saved in the tarball. I have the /home/damnsmall/kreon
directory for that in my filetool.lst.
(You need to make the directory first, of course, and place all your to-keep
files in /kreon. ( I made that name up, look it up on google).
---
I'll get back in here if I have more!
---

Posted by Rapidweather on Mar. 14 2004,22:59

Adding Opera 6.12 to Luit Linux:
Use the scripts for adding Opera to Damn Small Linux here:
< http://www.angelfire.com/ms/telegram/general_howto >
---
Then add these lines to your filetool.lst:
----------
/home/damnsmall/.opera
/ramdisk/usr/bin/opera
/ramdisk/usr/lib/opera
/ramdisk/usr/share/opera
/home/damnsmall/.start_opera
/home/damnsmall/.install_opera
/home/damnsmall/.boot_opera
----------
Now, use this menu in xfce:
< http://www.angelfire.com/ms/telegram/xfce4_menu_xml >
Of course you are going to need to rename it to menu.xml
and place it in /home/damnsmall/.xfce4/menu.xml
----
Here is a trick to allow you to use Scite to edit the file menu.xml
Just rename it to xfce4_menu_xml like I have, and open it in Scite
for editing. Then, in an rxvt, (as root)
# cp xfce4_menu_xml menu.xml
and you can use your new menu right away.
Be sure and save your new Opera setup and the menu, etc. in your
backup tarball, so you will have it all back when you reboot.
----
I had trouble getting Opera to work in Damn Small 0.6.1, and had to
give up on it. Now, with Luit Linux, I have Firefox and Opera.
My tarball, with all my various wallpapers, etc. is 18 MB. I run Luit Linux
off the cd, so I can boot into Damnsmall using a boot floppy, and restore
from another tarball in another partition. So, I can dual boot both forms of
Damn Small on this machine.
-----
Once I have the tarball fixed up like I want it, I can copy it to a cdrw disk,
and place it on other computers, boot from the cd, and have the same setup
of Luit Linux (with minor adjustments to wvdial and restore locations) on
another machine.
------

:;):

Posted by Rapidweather on Mar. 15 2004,01:19

My Luit Linux Screenshots!
--------------------------------
(these are about 450K each)

< http://www.angelfire.com/ms/telegram/luitlinux2.png >
---
< http://www.angelfire.com/ms/telegram/luitlinux1.png >
---
< http://www.angelfire.com/ms/telegram/luitlinux.png >
---------
Now for some explanation:
The toolbar at the bottom can autohide, there are Quick-Launch buttons
for Foxfire and Opera, and the two little monitors are for Wvdial "dial" and "hangup". This is a custom toolbar, and is not the original one.
----
One shot shows Gimp in action, another shows Scite and Foxfire,
another shows Opera 6.12.
----
The shot of Scite, shows how to edit your /home/damnsmall/.xfce4/menu.xml
as you can see, it has been renamed for use in Scite, per the previous post on
the subject.
---
All of this is restored from a 17.26 MB tarball, stored on another partition.
---

Posted by Rapidweather on Mar. 16 2004,00:08

I have updated my howto to include the above Luit Linux items, including
adding Opera 6.12 to Luit Linux.
It's here:
< http://www.angelfire.com/ms/telegram/general_howto >
----
A reminder to those of you who are testing Luit Linux:
Once you boot Luit Linux from the CD,
Be sure and copy the /home/damnsmall/.xfcd4/xinitrc file to
/home/damnsmall/.xinitrc
---
That way, when you have restored your tarball (backup.tar.gz) into the Luit Linux
filesystem, and are ready to Ctrl-Alt-Delete and then "startx" per my
instructions, you will come back up into X with all of your restored
settings, Web Browsers, etc. (provided you have a good filetool.lst
for that, and all) .
---

Posted by Rapidweather on Mar. 17 2004,01:04

Another way to restart X, to get it to return after a restoration is simply
to open an rxvt, and "startx". I had advised using ctrl-alt-backspace to
restart X, but this does not work on all machines. I found that on a
Dell P4 HT, 2.8 ghz, it only killed the mouse driver. So use rxvt and
startx after you ./filetool.sh restore, to bring up your restoration.

Posted by Grim on Mar. 17 2004,05:35

Um, this is interesting and everything, but...
WHAT THE HELL DOES IT HAVE TO DO WITH DAMN SMALL LINUX?!!!
I mean, because, it seems to me like Rapidweather thinks he's on Luit's messageboard. I could be being mean spirited, but seriously...wtf?

Posted by schopenhauer101 on Mar. 17 2004,12:04

Quote (Grim @ Mar. 17 2004,00:35)

Um, this is interesting and everything, but...
WHAT THE HELL DOES IT HAVE TO DO WITH DAMN SMALL LINUX?!!!

Hey Grimmy, maybe you should read it all over again and im SURE you will understand how Luit is related to DSL. Every sentance in the post , more or less, is actually about that. Im impressed that you failed to see it.

Take care.
Bj�rn

By the way, can anyone give me clue about this problem here:
< http://damnsmalllinux.org/cgi-bin....2;t=155 >

Posted by Rapidweather on Mar. 18 2004,04:25

One primary difference between Damn Small and Luit Linux
is the window manager. Damn Small uses fluxbox, which is easily
restarted by the built-in menu, in 0.6.1. This is an important function,
as once you have restored backup.tar.gz into the DSL filesystem with
filetool.sh restore, then you have to restart and have DSL re-read the
.xinitrc file. Once that is done, your restoration is complete, and
ready to go. X has restarted.
---
Now, in Luit Linux, a remaster of Damn Small, with the xfce4 window
manager, there is a problem restarting X. First of all, there is no
menu item for that in Luit Linux 0.2. I have found that one has to
do two things to work around this.
l. Add these lines to your filetool.sh
---
gzip -dc $BACKUP_DEVICE/backup.tar.gz | sudo tar -xvf - -C /
sudo umount $BACKUP_DEVICE
echo "This is the Foxfire Luit Linux Restoration on /dev/hdb1."
echo "I have restored your files. Now, X has to be restarted."
echo -n "Press the ENTER key to finish the restoration process." ; read ans
startx
exit 0
---
Lines 3-6 are to be added, I have included 1, 2 and 7 as a reference.
You may customize the text to suit your installation, of course. The important
thing to remember is that filetool.sh restores, and needs a minute or more to
finish doing that. So I have you press the ENTER key to allow the script to
proceed on to "startx" which will actually restart X, and re-read ~/.xinitrc
so you get your restoration completed. It's a two step process.
Here is my copy of filetool.sh that I am using:
---
< http://www.angelfire.com/ms/telegram/xfce4_filetool_sh >
---
There you can see where the additional lines are being placed. In Scite, they are
at lines 107-110. There are plenty of comment lines, that make for interesting
reading.
---
2. copy /home/damnsmall/.xfce4/xinitrc to /home/damnsmall/.xinitrc
If you don't do this, the system will try and load fluxbox instead of xfce4, and
although this is ok on Damn Small, Luit Linux does not have all it needs installed to
run fluxbox. After all, if you take away xfce4 and Gimp, Luit Linux becomes DSL 0.5.3.1.,
more or less. That's why a Damn Small tarball from 0.6.1, or 0.5.3.1 will work
in Luit Linux with very little modification to filetool.lst, other than to add this line:
/home/damnsmall/.xfce4
---
Why would all this be important to Damn Small Linux?
If another window manager is
selected, then some way to restart X might be necessary, if it cannot be easily done
via the menu, as it is now, with fluxbox. I have used FVWM in various forms and it
always had a way to restart itself, as most of these window managers do.
xfce4, however, is made up of several components, and a restart was not provided in
the remaster Luit Linux 0.2.
---
Why would Damn Small want another window manager?
Perhaps to appear more like Windows XP.
xfce4, with the Panel, as I have configured it, has all the quick-launch buttons any
XP user would need to feel at home with it.
---
Screenshot: < http://www.angelfire.com/ms/telegram/luitlinux2.png >
---
It can be done, but I do not know if xfce4
will fit, Luit Linux 0.2 wound up at 65 MB, which is over the 50 MB DSL limit.
No web browser, other than Dillo is included, either. Your own tarball, with
(in my case) Foxfire and Opera 6.12, is the only way to go. Those are not going
to fit in a remaster that is anywhere near 65 MB or for that matter, 50 MB.
Those who can remaster might want to try to get xfce4 in there, and make
recommendations to this thread based on their findings.
I have seen some posts where folks have tried other window managers,
and attempt to include them in their backup.tar.gz. I tried one, asclassic downloaded with
synaptic. Not as good as fluxbox.
---
This post is available at
< http://www.angelfire.com/ms/telegram/general_howto >
---
If anyone has a remaster that is available for download, let us know here, so we can give
it a try.
---

Posted by Grim on Mar. 18 2004,05:30

[quote=schopenhauer101,Mar. 17 2004,05:04][/quote]

Quote

Hey Bj�rn, maybe I was being a bit caustic, so please allow me to start over.

DSL is a Knoppix derivative, so why don't DSL users post on Knoppix message boards? While we're at it, Knoppix and DSL are both spin-offs of Debian, let's post DSL and Luit questions on the Debian mailing list (by the way, if you try that, let me know how well it goes over--I wait with anxious anticipation).

Hey, why follow any rules? Let's post compiler questions in the browser threads, we can even go all "willy nilly" and start using the hardware threads for our own blogs. Hey, while we're at it, "DSL is Linux" and "Gentoo is Linux", let's ask DSL questions in the Gentoo forums, makes sense doesn't it. I mean, I'm sure you understand how DSL is related to Gentoo. I'd be impressed if you failed to see it.

Sarcasm aside, Bj�rn, I fail to understand how Rapidweather's 10 posts about Luit on a forum designed to help the users of DSL is relevant, any way you spin it. Information about applications and a window manager that isn't available to the users of DSL--how do you justify that this is relevant?

Take care yourself buddy,
Phil McClure

Posted by Delboy on Mar. 19 2004,11:52

I agree. Abiword in a (near?) future DSL version would be, for me personally, the single thing that would change DSL from amazing to absolutely perfect. (.....that and Opera instead of Links). I am already using my ancient (DSL) laptop for work instead of the much newer PC. TED is good but the old .doc file format issue I have to work with is prohibitive.

Posted by Rapidweather on Mar. 20 2004,00:29

Delboy,
Are you using Abiword in a linux distro now?
If so, are you able to get your printer to work in that, or do you send your work
to a windows or other box for printing? I have had bad luck with printers, so I
send the stuff to my daughters XP machine for printing. Also, I am wondering if
you might have used Synaptic to install Abiword and have it in your restoration
tarball, for Damn Small. I have not been able to get any of my remasters to work
as yet, so have gone to adding programs I want to my tarball. I looked at feather linux yesterday, and have seen what a hard job it is to select just what programs are included in the base distro. Damn Small has a much better selection than feather linux. I'm still playing around with Luit Linux, but with no message board there, it's hard to tell what the developer is up to.
---
:;):

Posted by Rapidweather on Mar. 20 2004,02:42

Using the same backup.tar.gz (backup tarball) with Damn Small Linux 0.6.1 and
Luit Linux 0.2.
---------------------------
You have two cd's, one DSL, one Luit Linux. Only one tarball, that you put together using Damn Small Linux 0.6.1.
You can boot either one, and as long as you do not have /home/damnsmall/.xinitrc in your filetool.lst, the tarball will
allow either window manager to work, depending on which cd you boot with.
Luit Linux has it's own .xinitrc, needed to bring up xfce4, and so does
Damnsmall, needed to bring up fluxbox.
---
The only line needed in your filetool.lst to make a DSL tarball work with Luit Linux is
the /home/damnsmall/.xfce4 line.
Once you boot into Luit, and customize the Panel, and backup to the tarball, that information will only be needed if you boot into Luit,
and is ignored by Damn Small.
---
Applications? Opera 6.12 works in DSL 0.5.3.1 and Luit, but not in DSL 0.6.1, and that part of the restore is ignored when you boot into DSL 0.6.1.
You do not have a menu item for Opera, so it's not a problem. Foxfire, however, works for both DSL and Luit.
---
You might have the tarball on a hard drive partition, or on a usb drive, and
it complicates things to have two different tarballs, (another partition needed),
so just use the same one.
---
What about triple-booting DSL 0.6.1, DSL 0.5.3 and Luit Linux?
Going to have some problems using a DSL 0.6.1/Luit tarball with 0.5.3,
so I do not recommend it.
---
Tarballs that have been added to and customized are valuable, I keep backups on CD, and install them on various machines to get up and running quickly.
Future releases of Damn Small Linux will probably retain the file structure of
0.6.1, so your tarball will be the first thing to try on a new release.
---
As this thread is entitled "New distro based on DSL", I am doing some
research/investigation of Luit Linux, for the benefit of the main thread,
"DSL Ideas and Suggestions". I doubt that I will discover anything really
new about Luit (as it relates to DSL) after this point, so I may move on to
something more mainstream DSL.
---
I am most impressed with xfce4 window manager in Luit, and would want the
DSL developers to at least consider using it one day, as it is more like what
Windows XP users work with (more or less).

:;):

Posted by Rapidweather on Mar. 20 2004,03:28

About Opera in my above post:
---
Opera 6.12 in Damnsmall 0.6.1 can view a lot of sites correctly, including < http://www.damnsmalllinux.org, > but
in this forum, (I'm in Opera 6.12 and DSL 0.6.1 now), the "add reply" and other buttons are very elongated, not
correctly displayed. Many websites are not viewable at all, or with just some images, and a lot of horizontal lines.
So, it is not acceptable, and John has checked into this, has something to do with missing libraries, I believe he said.
Opera 6.12 does work in DSL 0.5.3.1, and in Luit Linux, which is apparently based on 0.5.3.1 (somewhat).
Opera is always restored via a tarball, and is not in the base cd of DSL or Luit. I used a modified install_opera
script here:
< http://www.angelfire.com/ms/telegram/install_opera >
look at my howto for more instructions on putting Opera in your DSL system:
< http://www.angelfire.com/ms/telegram/general_howto >
----
:;):

Posted by hasty on Mar. 20 2004,13:20

>>I am most impressed with xfce4 window manager in Luit, and would want the
DSL developers to at least consider using it one day, as it is more like what
Windows XP users work with (more or less).

Please God no!
The last thing linux needs is to become more like windows (osX is better than xp - at least my father in law can use it!)

I've run xfce on slackware in the past (looking for small fast desktops) but much prefer fluxbox in daily use.
Would even consider ratpoison as I hate clutter on the desktop (even with a 21" monitor)and everythings keyboard driven.

Prefer no pager, icons or dockapps either.

Chic & bleak

Would like a few more of flux's options like transparency though.

Should add that I find the latest feather(3.7) a much better all round distro than Luit ...(Gimp & Open office scripts) but then I tend to go for hdd installs.

regards

Posted by Rapidweather on Mar. 20 2004,19:20

Very well put. To hold down on the clutter, I autohide the panel in xfce4. I only present the possibility of using xfce4 as a way of impressing XP users who have not seen anything else, and I could pop the CD in and show them what linux can do. I doubt that DSL could use it, due to space limitations. Probably much better to include a useful application, rather than a fancy window manager.
---
I did receive an email from the developer of Luit saying that he would include a
way to restart the window manager in the next release, so after a restore, one
could bring it all up in X, as we do in DSL. I do like the pager in xfce4, one can click on a desktop to go there, exactly like I do in FVWM, which I run on Debian 2.2. (my favorite until DSL came along).
---
As this main thread is entitled "DSL Ideans and Suggestions", I'm sure John, et al, appreciate the
pro and con offered here about the various window managers we all have experienced.

Posted by Rapidweather on Mar. 25 2004,03:23

Luit Linux has a forum, finally, opened this week.
---
< http://sarovar.org/forum/?group_id=97 >
---
I'll get over there right away, but I am currently testing and playing with
Damn Small 0.6.2. Luit Linux is very nice, for those of you that like to
test all the various knoppix remaster distros. Also, Feather Linux is OK,
both of these are under 65 MB, and work very well. I did find out that
if you use a DSL backup.tar.gz in Feather, and then save (backup) it in
Feather, then for some strange reason, you cannot then try and apply it
to DSL. I tried rewriting the filetool.lst to fit DSL, but my custom made
filetool.sh would not open the tarball. Went in, but would not come out...
A DSL 0.5.3.1 tarball with Opera and Mozilla Firebird goes right in to
Luit, just fine, per my posts on that.
I sure wanted to see if I could get Thunderbird from Feather to work in
DSL 0.6.2. I'll probably just download the tarball for it, (686 only) and
plop it down in DSL somewhere and see what happens. It ought to work.
---

Posted by John on Mar. 25 2004,06:30

I thought this was the Luit Linux forum, just kidding.

For what it is worth, XFCE is great, but it is too big and resource intensive for DSL.

Posted by BillH on April 01 2004,14:34

Here (in part) is a post I left on the Feather Linux board.

DSL is by far the best 50Mb distro I've tried. By best I mean that it works on all my hardware with no problems at all. [Puppy: eth0 trouble, Austrumi: X trouble on some hardware, SLAX (180 Mb): DSL has better usability and is faster than FastGUI on SLAX]

Quote

I am part-time faculty at several universities, so I don't have an office. I do everything out of a backpack. I can find plenty of computers around campus, but nothing real heavy duty. An ideal tool for me would be fast and light, like DSL, but with a stronger set of office applications. Mostly I'm living in a W-dows world, so easy file-compatibility would be a big plus for me. (I keep my active files and a firefox + setup tarball on a 128 meg usb stick, BTW.)

So my suggestion is this: work closely with DSL and let them take care of the base. Take the 8 cm disk as a limit and build the best portable office on the DSL base.

I can see two camps here and at DSL... One group, like me, that takes it "on the road", and another group that is focused on doing HD installs on older hardware.

Ladislav at DistroWatch had a nice opinion piece about having too many new distros, basically.

Quote

If you are thinking of creating a new distribution, then think again. Not counting various floppy and embedded Linux projects, there are already more than 300 active distributions in existence today. Unless you have a really cool, innovative idea, don't expect to get an enormous number of followers with a yet another remastered edition of Knoppix. Instead, why not join an existing project?

Rather than seeing Feeather and DSL drift apart I hope that a closer relationship can happen, with DSL providing the best, fastest 50 Megs and Feather (or someone...?) filling up an 8 cm CD with fast, complimentary office-type apps.

Comments?