Is it time to go beyond 50 MB?

Forum: DSL Ideas and Suggestions
Topic: Is it time to go beyond 50 MB?
started by: znmeb

Posted by znmeb on June 07 2004,00:02

I went down to my local CompUSA (and Staples ... and Office Depot ... and Radio Shack) the other day, looking for those nifty 50 MB business card CD-R blanks. Guess what? *None* of these places had any! What they *did* have, in large quantities, was the round 200 MB CD-Rs and CD-RWs. So ... is it time Damn Small Linux moved up to 200 MB? It seems like a lot of us start with the 50 MB DSL and add our own favorite software anyway ... why not have a 200 MB version with the popular stuff like Firefox and AbiWord?

I just got Knoppix 3.4, and I'm planning on seeing just how much of it I can get onto a 200 MB mini-CD in the not-too-distant future. Given that the Knoppix compression ratio is about 2 GBytes to a 700 MByte CD, I'm guessing I should be able to get somewhere between 500 and 600 MBytes on a mini-CD ... that should give me my favorite science codes (R, XMaxima and TexMacs) plus a real browser and possibly Ethereal.

Ed Borasky
< http://AlgoCompSynth.com >
znmeb@aracnet.com

Posted by John on June 07 2004,01:11

Nope, DSL will always be a 50MB distro. That is what it is.

With the myDSL system you can put together a custom version at what ever size/flavor you want. The myDSL repository is still in its infancy, I am sure it will be much more extensive in 6 months.

Anyway, this distro will always be a 50MB distro, something small enough to be on a 50MM business card CD, or a 64MB CF card with room to spare. It is a nearly complete desktop, and you are free to use it as a base and get exactly what you want.

There has been a push to increase the size before, but it isn't going to happen.

Also, there are already a lot of 200MB distributions out there, some are quite good.

Posted by ke4nt1 on June 07 2004,01:21

In reading industry trade magazines, and talking with several of my vendors,
the market for business card CDR media is dwindling, with more custom
die-cut and screen-printed PRESSED cdr shapes in quantity, and made to
order, being more common nowdays.

The thrust of most writable manufacturers has been toward DVD-/+R media.
This is where most of the time and money is being invested.
The margins on selling cdr media nowdays is nowhere close to where
it was even 2 years ago. Adding additional steps to the manufacturing
process, such as die-cutting, pulls down the profit margins even more,
and drives up the cost at market. Many vendors have discontinued 50mm
disks completely, like Imation, and other retail names have stopped distribution.
With 120mm disks being imported at a price point under .09 - .12 / unit,
and manufacturing capacities vastly exceeding demand, there simply isn't
enough profit to continue investment on this technology. Many CD/CDROM
pressing facilities have folded, or shut down, due to overinvestment and
lack of capital/cash flow. Those that have survived are rapidly re-vamping
their equipment for the upcoming but expectedly short lifespan dvd-r market.

The 80mm mini round, commonly used as the stock for 50mm die-cuts, will
probably be here for a while longer, since the steps involved to produce
them mirror 120mm cdr production.

From what I'm reading, most true manufacturers
are pushing on with the 12x DVD-+R and Dual-Layer DVDR's .
Both of these drives are already availiable in stores and online.
Short of supplying audio duplicators with cdr stock, and with dvd drives
dropping in price FAST, CDR's may soon go the way of floppy disks and
zip drives, since the market for larger and faster storage capacities will push
the cdr technology to the "bottom-of-the-barrel", and beyond any profitability.
The cdr market has gone from a thriving business in the late 90's, to what has
become one of the most quickly maturing business models ever in the
history of publicly accepted audio formats.. The dvd-+r market threatens
to do the same at an ever faster pace.

Most all future computers built will not include either a floppy drive, or a
dedicated cdr drive.. As for now, dvd drives continue to be backwards
compatible with cdr technology, but with the upcoming "blue-ray" from Sony,
and the super-density discs being tested by Phillips, "CDR" compatibility
will become less of an issue for manufacturers looking for new markets..

So, it's 50mm/50mb polysubstrate disks today, tomorrow will be a paper
disk 50mm/10gb throwaway, and the near future will soon have 100-200gb
80mm disks that are not only rewritable, but biodegradable.

73
ke4nt

Posted by cbagger01 on June 07 2004,02:33

Part of the appeal of DSL is that it is a distribution that will work well on older computers, so I doubt that the new technologies will be a good fit for this philosophy.

I do think that higher capacity disks will be a great benefit to a knoppix-dvd type project.

It is kinda depressing that the BBC disks are no longer sold at CompUSA. I bought a pack of 25 Memorex BBC disks there last year and they were the only local store that stocked them at the time.

The BBC format is a nice fit when you have a PDA like a Palm Pilot that has a leather case with a pouch for papers and business cards.

Lastly, one of the nice features of DSL is the 'toram' feature that works on computers with only 128MB of RAM. This would not work if DSL changed to a 185 or 210MB format.

DSL came in handy (yet again) for me the other day when I needed to restore a hard disk partition that I had saved to CD-R disk.

I use the 'dd' command, combined with the 'gzip' and 'split' commands to back up my partitions over LAN and eventually to CD-R.

In this case, I needed to restore a CD disk backup on my new PC, but a full-blown knoppix would hog my cdrom drive.

I ran DSL in 'toram' mode and freed up my CD drive for retrieval of the data file and I was back up and running in no time.

Posted by roadie on June 07 2004,02:37

I don't know what it is but I see this all the time with small distros, it starts out great then people want it bigger, include their favorite browser or office suite or (shudder) games.

I think DSL is just where it should be for size, if I want it bigger, I'll make it bigger, I don't use business cards anyway.
The online repository is one of the best ideas I've seen, it gets everyone involved in building .dsl's and just maybe more people will get into customizing their own DSL instead of waiting for their browser or any favorite app to be included in a 50 Meg distro.
In 6 months there'll be a ton of apps on site.

Stick with it John,
My 2 cents,

roadie

Posted by Rapidweather on June 07 2004,02:38

I note that Luit Linux had complaints that it's size was too great, so they trimmed
it to below 50 MB in the latest release. I keep wondering how he got Gnotepad to run in that distro at under 50 MB, as it requires a lot of GNOME libs. So, it can be done, and Damn Small is right in keeping the base install to under 50 MB, for dial-up download purposes if nothing else. The add on's seem the way to go, and are very unique and remarkable, to say the least.
I still have my Rapidweather Remaster of DSL, but have not added anything new to it after I fixed up XMMS, and have Mozilla Firefox, wvdial included. I'm way over
50 MB, and have no plans to distribute it, although it works well for me, anyway.
I branched out at version 6x, and have not yet had time to work with DSL 7x, as it is OK as is, with the new extension setup.

Posted by ripcrd6 on June 07 2004,15:33

I think the small size is appealing also. That is why I originally tried Morphix Light GUI. I have old hardware by most people's standards and appreciate being able to still use it. I use Knoppix on my PII-333 laptop and on a PIII-500 desktop (my fastest machine), but for system rescue, playing around adn old hardware DSL Rocks!!! I pop it into my laptop too, just to play around. I'm a LiveCD addict and DSL is one of my favorites. I like the frequent updates and new features and that John and Robert LISTEN to the users. But if you want DSL bigger, get a util that allows you to add files to YOUR ISO. I use WinISO under windows and kiso under Linux. Just add and remove files at you leisure. With WinISO you can't alter the compressed knoppix filesystem though. The original thing I did was to add my wifi drivers to the ISO (I have an SMC 2635W, I have the source, but they are not GPL, so will not likely ever be in the kernel). I had to find an old version of Knoppix that had the same kernel as DSL to compile the drivers though. So how about a compiling .dsl extension somebody. The gnu-utils.dsl has gcc and make I think, but you need the kernel sources if you want to compile against it. When I was doing this w/ Morphix, they made the kernel sources avail. in a .deb file.

Posted by alok on June 09 2004,00:58

you think you want to bring the size lower than 50mb like make the games in a myDSL pkg and that would allow for substitioution of the games easily. it is not like i play the games ever
edit: or even remove all apps and just make then myDSL files... then we can have it really MYdsl whatever i want

Posted by AwPhuch on June 09 2004,20:41

I like the idea of having all the apps as .dsl extensions...

Make a true "BASE" release (probably way below 50 megs) with the standard releases even no xdesktop. Then ppl can
burn thier own DSL cd using whatever apps they want...

Who needs the monkey server and stuff like that if they dont use it, games when they dont want them, other apps as well...

Just like DEBIAN there is a "BASE" install of the os, then you decide what you want later...makes for a more dynamic and easy to use system...tailored for what you want it to be...great idea!

Brian
AwPhuch

Posted by proto on June 10 2004,21:57

[B]im new to dsl and when i attempt to boot the CD I just get a black screen, the CD boots fine on my other computer?

Posted by godzilla on June 11 2004,18:41

Just came to know about LuitLinux from the post by Rapidweather. Searched from google and got it's site. Found that its first release was 65MB then went down to below 50MB. It's main page seems to have released a screenshot of it's upcomming version. Wonder how it can be done under 50MB with firefox, Cups, OO, Scribus, gimp. I think this is sure to give rapidweather some sleepless nights.

So it looks like LuitLinux is increasing in size again. Gone down once, going up again. Seems the author doesn't even know what he is doing.....

So I too add, stick to it john. DSL should always remain under 50MB

Posted by alok on June 14 2004,00:11

does it really have firefox and OO, like it took me a while to figure out that firefox was not part of DSL, could it not be just scripts to install... thats what i think, they're prbbly just scripts to download and install

Posted by <--iNT13--> on June 15 2004,11:08

Less Than 50 000K IS "OK"

FWIW - I'll vote to maintain the original idea - less then 49(ish) MB

Because:- ;it maintains support and improves faster by:-
;not forking development
;continuing improvement on an existing model
(build excellence from good)
;continuing support for the current users/user profile

;it provides a base for other "tiny" distros (eg, USB, embedded) - which further strengthen support for DSL.

;it can already provide easy "customisation" to a larger "install" in a choice of ways - that it IS a choice strengthens support for DSL.

;further possible improvement to the <50Mb DSL allowing enhanced choice in size by means of user customisation (alllowing DSL to focus on DSL...) will increase support for DSL.

To make the DSL standard larger than current would reduce the number of possible applications to DSL - not increase, as has already been noted, larger, full-blown Live distros abound...

Increased support/use for the small DSL will only make it faster, more stable, more configurable, allow a greater range of choice in customisations, and easier to customise for lovers of "larger" "installs".

Posted by hardpack on June 17 2004,13:55

Just to chime in with my $0.02:

Please keep it under 50 MB!

It's what defines DSL; it's categorical!

Thanks!

Posted by AwPhuch on June 17 2004,17:27

Quote (proto @ June 10 2004,17:57)

[B]im new to dsl and when i attempt to boot the CD I just get a black screen, the CD boots fine on my other computer?

Possibly your BIOS settings on that computer....go in and tweak it up (turn off all unused com ports, ide controllers, and set for non pnp os)

Brian
AwPhuch

Posted by zoloto on June 30 2004,08:47

Quote (AwPhuch @ June 09 2004,16:41)

I was replyinig to something similar on another post, about a dsl-core.iso they could do with basic but fully functional core CLI tools, X.org, fluxbox and dillo for basic setups.

everything else could be in the myDSL directory and loaded with a myDSL.sh script of sorts that's in the menu.

basic apps could be (for example, and in the core) dillo, irssi, wget, mutt, ssmtp, rxvt, mc (or functional equivalent), smbclient (maybe not core, but could be), and whatever is the smallext X txt editor.

Those are some ideas, but it would be nice to do these b/c many people don't need 2 CLI text editors, 2 gui text editors, 2 gui file managers, 2 gui mail clients etc. While I respect the admins (and my black hat's off for their efforts too) for coming up with DSL as I use it everyday on my laptop*, some things could be changed. Heck, even a re-write from scratch to provide true debian (not a fan personally, but if you're going to do it, it's best to make it work 100%) support and a dsl compatible twist (myDSL could be an "on-cd" apt-get repository??).

Anyways, that's just a suggestion. I can't put money where my mouth is just yet b/c I'm still doing linuxfromscratch.org to learn the in's -n- out's of linux (I'm excited too), but if the DSL team could do this many people might be more apt (no pun intended) to download and install / use it!

Heck, even if in the core ISO one could chose between ATI or nVidia drivers (or even if we had to build our own ISO) that would kick ass too. I have the ATI RADEON 9000 64MB on my system now and I'm sure full on OpenGL support for video cards would really be worthwhile to some people.

Anyways, rant mode off. If it comes true, many will rejoice. If not, no harm done :)

FOSS for life!!

* My laptop specs:
2.0GHz Pentium 4 M
1.0GB PC2700 DDR RAM
40GB HDD (4200 rpm)
i810 intel audio
ATI RADEON 9000 64MB video (will change to nVidia if possible, ATI linux drivers SUCK!)
Touch pad/keyboard nipple for mouse
USB (works with usb mouse and thumbdrive as /dev/sda1!!)
PCMCIA, wireless works with linksys wireless G card, and usb 2.0 cardbus adapter)
DVD/CDRW, working with cdrao, gcomust and grip (I'm sure with other CLI apps)
All keyboard keys work.
15" screen resolution at 1600x1200 at 32b color

Never had any problems (cept in driver support from various distros) from this laptop. I love it!

Posted by ke4nt1 on June 30 2004,12:28

[EDIT}
you posted the answer on another post...thanks
[/EDIT]

What brand/model is your laptop ?
If DSL is working fine on yours, might be a suggestion for
a "next time" purchase...
So many of us have struggled getting laptops 100% functional.
I have been fortunate with my laptops and DSL is working fine here.

Thanks

73
ke4nt

Posted by clivesay on July 01 2004,23:17

zoloto -

If you are looking for a full-blown debian based distro with nvidia support, download the last stable version of MEPIS. Nvidia is built in. Spin up the cd and you're playing tux racer! I have an ASUS GeForce 4 ti4200 128mb card and it worked great. They took nvidia support out for the new betas so make sure you look at the last stable. I believe it was 2003.10.02.

Chris

Posted by tecker on July 03 2004,05:15

I like the speed of DSL. It boots rather fast and I have a desktop in no time. I realize that business card cds are becoming a rarity but i still use 700 mb disk for my DSL burns.

"Why, at that size you might as well use Knoppix," one might say.

Nope. My DSL will race your Knoppix and i will have google, slashdot, or my webmail up before you get Konquer up and loaded.

One thing i would like to see is recient libs in the release. I have noticed that there is a core set missing that must be the base of most Debian packages. Ah well. Why bigger? All you do is slow down your system. DSL started =<50 mb and should stay =<50 for its days.

Opp, lookie there! You finaly got mozilla to load on your knoppix. I wrote this in the time it took your LiveDisk to load. HA!

Posted by mikeyd on July 06 2004,17:07

Slax (http://slax.linux-live.org/) is good for 200mb if you're looking for a distro that size. And it boots even faster than dsl if you load the modules manually.

Posted by clacker on July 06 2004,18:38

The whole reason I used DSL for my Linux play time was because it was so small and I was using a dial-up modem. The small size appealed to me. While keeping it exactly under 50mb (or fits on a b-card CD) doesn't matter so much, I think it's a good idea to draw a line and stick with it. Super small and you'd pick Tom's Boot-Root; some capacity and you'd get DSL; all the resources you need and you'd get Debian (or whatever).