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Topic: rethinking DSL

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TTK=Teobromina_Tool_Kit Offline

Group: Members
Posts: 50
Joined: Oct. 2005

Posted: Dec. 24 2008,21:53

Happy Christmas to everybody!

I welcome a new possible orientation of DSL to netbooks.

I have never used a bussiness card disk; instead, for me it is very useful to bring DSL in an 8 cm miniCD of 210 Mb (or in an 8 cm mini DVD of 1400 Mb along with lots of optional extensions). This is to say that the 'physical' limit of DSL could be perfectly 210 Mb. Then you could include a modern 2.26 series kernel.

The 'old' computers of today (10 - 8 years old) could have, let us say, 450 MHz - 1 GHz and 128 - 256 Mb of RAM (and growing). They are a natural target for DSL, but they have got already the present DSL versions. Another natural target for DSL, and in my opinion the future, are the mini computers or 'netbooks', with about the same CPU speed range (they reduce the speed to enlarge the battery performance by scalling the speed) and barely 500 (or 1000) Mb of RAM. I am presently writting with one of them, in which DSL runs perfectly. But to write here, I cannot run it with DSL. I had to run it with Ubuntu, in order to take profit of the wifi connexion. Some useful programs, like Truecrypt need also a modern kernel... which is not included in the present DSL versions. So I would need a new DSL.

A core DSL could then bear a modern kernel which is good for a netbook, a light desktop as it presently has got, a browser like Firefox or Opera, a very small set of essential apps, a good installer, and Synaptic (to make easy for the unexperienced user to include some other apps), all together sized less than 210 Mb.

The optional extensions are really great. I think they must be maintained as one of the more special characteristics of DSL, and, as it presently occurs, they could be added apart to the core, thus maintaining the size of the distro very small.

*JT. :cool:

--------------
"What you do, do quickly." (John 13:27). Visit my page: http://www.telefonica.net/web2/ttk

stunix*com Offline

Group: Members
Posts: 64
Joined: July 2006

Posted: Dec. 26 2008,19:18

@ John, our leader and mentor.

I guess we are all stuck on how big it should be so my question is this.

what kind of size is needed just to upgrade the kernel and have a little more room for future development it should be damn small after all.

I have failed in the last few months to find a supplier of hockey rink 50m cds, i guess they have just lost popularity

ie
64Mb to utilize lots of old flash and cf disks
100m a nice round number to fit on 8cm disks with a few mydsl apps and fits in ram of the lesser endowed machines
180m the size of the majority of 8cm disks
210 to fit on the higher capacity 8cm disks ie Dyson.

100mb gets my vote as it is still damn small and I can still remaster with a few apps and burn to a mini cd.

until we get over this stumbling block we cant know how to plan anything else to go on with.

Nigadoo

Group: Members
Posts: 18
Joined: Sep. 2007

Posted: Dec. 29 2008,17:06

Hello all,

Please keep 3.x and 4.x around! Both of them are very useful. If once in a blue moon you find it quick, easy and worth giving those two versions a tweak of some kind, bonus! Otherwise, I'd say their both excellent as is and easy to extend.

As for any new release, I agree with stunix on 64MB if that's big enough. Otherwise, then whatever size necessary that still leaves us enough room for a decent number of extensions on a 180MB MkMyDSL burn.

Keep up the great work folks! DSL is a real gem!

emusan

Group: Members
Posts: 21
Joined: Dec. 2008

Posted: Dec. 29 2008,18:31

I must agree with Nigadoo and stunix, please keep around 3.x and 4.x. Like Nigadoo said, you may at some point fins some small little program that you want to add into the base distro. I think that 64-180MB would be a good size to grow into, its not as small as the current ones, but still able to fit onto an 8cm disk. I also think that if you do decide to go larger, give it a slightly different name(like dsl-n was), it would help new users getting into it tell the difference between the business card size and the mini-disk sized distro.

Oh and please please please continue to sell the disks, I want to be able to refer my less tech-savvy friends to your store to get their hands on this amazing distro.

jpma

Group: Members
Posts: 4
Joined: Dec. 2008

Posted: Jan. 05 2009,09:30

Ladies and gentlemen. This is my first post since I had to wait almost ONE year for approval posting here.

DSL is too large in original format, why have dsl so bloated when you have the excellent mydsl portal ? In my opinion the base dsl package should be kernel + commuincation(ppp, pppoe and eth) together with mydsl software(10mB ?). The users then builds up their own dsl upon taste and needs when internet connection is established, like lego, put the pieces in, no one has to download programs(or package) they never need. Look at your own computer usage, how many of all the softwares do you use, and how many other softwares do you need instead ? DSL is one of few linux that is almost small but still capable. The only version for me is dsl4.2.5 which is the last version where ppp and pppsetup worked(Im running one year old laptop with 3g usb dongle), everything after that is useless to me. Do not follow the main stream linuxes going down the windows path (in to the inevitable bloathole), dsl did and should go their own way, standout.

Thank you for reading, please comment.

20 replies since Dec. 11 2008,00:32

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