I recently started using Damn Small Linux on an old laptop, and I’m blown away by how lightweight and efficient it is. The boot speed is incredible, and it runs smoothly on hardware I thought was obsolete.
One feature I particularly appreciate is the minimal desktop environment—it’s simple yet functional without any unnecessary bloat. The pre-installed apps cover most basic needs, and the package manager makes it easy to add what I need.
That said, I have a couple of questions:

1. Are there any tips for optimizing DSL even further for a 512MB RAM setup?
   
2. What’s your go-to method for setting up wireless networking on DSL for older adapters?
   

I am having a VERY hard time to get RC7 to boot a PC from a USB drive.  I saw in another thread that PCs that use UEFI are not supported.  Fair enough.  I have an over 12 year old Dell Optima desktop that does not use UEFI for booting.  However, no matter what I try, I can not boot RC7 from a USB drive.  

I do not have any PCs left that can burn the ISO onto a CD-R (the PC with an internal burner is dead and the external CD burner no longer works).  Is there any way to boot RC7 without burning it onto a CD-R?

iceweasel web browser is under development again, currently haikuos is working on it
https://discuss.haiku-os.org/t/iceweasel...epot/16088   would be nice to remove the quantum components and bring the old firefox back pre version 45.

Due to personal and financial circumstances, I am starting a new job in a very different field than I've worked in before. I'll need to spend some time obtaining the required certifications and licenses. It is not glamorous work, but it should be stable and afford me time in the evenings to pursue the hobbies I enjoy (like working on DSL).

Things are going to be quiet for a few weeks. Once I have completed the required studies and, hopefully, am doing well in my new position, I will pick up where I left off on the DSL project.

Plans for this year include offering a leaner and smaller ISO that still strives to be a complete and ready-to-use distribution tailored for older computers. I also plan to offer a larger ISO that will work with UEFI. I am sure there will be lots of bugs to work out as we go along.  Hopefully, enough people will be interested, and together we can squash them all!

John Andrews

just what it says, I have a laptop im fixing up for my inlaw to vnc into a virtual machine on my beefier desktop. She's not computer savvy at all. SO i want to either place a file on the desktop that says CLICK_ME _TO_CONNECT.sh or vnc_connect.sh and just click it to connect or have it auto run on start. I've tried linking it with the gui, i tried a .desktop file, i tried crontab, I tried  ~/.fluxbox/startup to no avail. I'm happy to provide my scripts and stuff, just ask. It seems to not be working like a standardized linux distro...which makes sense because it's so lightweight. Or i may be missing something, i'm pretty rusty on my linux. I used to be a damn solaris and linux wizard but then i became an audio engineer. Analog audio gear is fun.

I took rc7 for a spin (not in VM, unlike earlier), and being able to access the start menu with the windows key would be useful. Tabbing worked alright, except for being unable to check checkboxes

On a side note, spreadsheet program works well, and the HD screen made DSL look quite nice

In my research, I'm lead to believe that DSL-2024 no longer supports anything as old as an AMD K6 or 486, so I'm trying to get Legacy DSL working. It would not boot from USB (it hangs when I try to boot it from Ventoy), so I burned the ISO to a CD and I can get my machine to boot past the initial splash screen. It scans for USB devices and then it attempts to create a new authority file at /home/dsl/.Xauthority and then gives up saying so such file or directory and then fails to connect to the X server and dumps me at a terminal. I thought it might have something to do with my video driver, so I switched to an SD monitor, removed my radeon 5450 and plugged directly into onboard video. This made no difference and I'm still unable to boot into a live DSL GUI, which I've seen done on older hardware than mine on YouTube.

Can anyone tell me what's going on here? I'm running an old HP Compaq DC7700 Minitower with a Core 2 Duo E6400 and 4GB of RAM. Yes, this is much newer than the K6 or 486 I mentioned previously, but I'm just trying to make a working bootable media for DSL before I put it in my K6, and later hopefully a 486. I used this rig to burn the CD in Bunsenlabs and now I'm trying to make sure it works. Is the kernel in Legacy DSL to old for this machine, perhaps?

EDIT: Also, I have a SATA/CF card adapter and I'm experimenting with installing DSL on a CF card. However, my CF cards are only 2GB and DSL-2024 apparently requires 3.2GB. So again I'm constrained to Legacy DSL.

Hello all, I have been greatly enjoying testing out the rc7 release of DSL2024! It has ran flawlessly on all the hardware I've attempted to run it on so far, however when attempting to boot it on an Acer Aspire One AO722 netbook I have ran into an interesting graphics error that prevents booting. 

The situation is as follows: 

Netbook successfully makes it to the boot menu, no issues there, but upon choosing any of the options on the boot menu it proceeds to a nice looking loading bar followed immediately after by a graphics error resembling a rainbow version of CRT TV 'snow' and boot does not proceed. "Safe video mode","virtual box video","failsafe boot", and "text" mode all have the same results. Any suggestions? 

Some more information: 

The Acer aspire one 722 supposedly has a screen resolution of 1366x768 which -IS- an option in the "F7- console" setting of the boot menu, but selecting that resolution results in "undefined video mode number: 37f" error and a selection of other resolutions. All choices result in graphics error and no boot. This netbook will run other Linux/BSD/Haiku with no graphical errors, and it would be perfect for DSL. Namely, it boots fine on other extremely cut down Linux distributions such as Tinycore, etc, can't quite figure out why this wouldn't work with DSL. 

I have also successfully ran DSL2024.RC7 on an older Acer Aspire One ZG5 (4 years older than the AO722) and it booted and ran flawlessly. 

Is this an issue of hardware compatibility, an issue of drivers, or some form of operator error? Would love to run this as the primary operating system on this netbook. 

Any help would be much appreciated!

EDIT:
After some testing, I was able to run the netbook with various resolution modes via KolibriOS, and it will run a number of display modes which are options given by the DSL2024 boot menu with no issues, yet DSL can not do this? Is there a boot flag I need to set for things to operate properly?

After some more testing, I was able to run the exact same flash drive containing DSL2024.rc7 on a Dell laptop which also has a 1366x768 resolution with no errors, runs flawlessly, resolution number provided by Conky from within DSL. This rules out some sort of corrupted data on the flash drive. What gives? The netbook has an AMD C-60 APU, integrated graphics and processor, is that the likely culprit? I will experiment further, perhaps try a different kernel?

Hey there!

I really like DSL 2024 - but I noticed there are only really 2 and a bit months remaining in 2024. I have a couple of questions about the roadmap for the new DSL!

1. Are there going to be more RCs before an initial release?
   
2. Will the name change each year (DSL 2025, DSL 2026 etc) or will it follow a common naming pattern, like YY.MM for some distros? (18.04, 24.06 etc). A series of themed names is also a really neat option, like Debian and the Toy Story characters.
   
3. Is it going to be a traditional release schedule distro, or rolling-release?
   
4. Is support for any other DEs/WMs planned?
   
5. Will you accept volunteer contributions in certain areas? There was another topic about a book -- I happen to be a professional writer and editor and would be happy to at the very least copy-edit and/or edit the book if a project does start. I have some programming knowledge but my expertise is all in embedded systems - I mostly use Linux instead of writing code for it, though I do have a couple of decades of experience as a user!
   
6. Is there any established way the community can help you/the project?
   

Hi All,

Saved a Asux Eee PC from the recycle bin. Loaded up easy with the 2024 DSL. Installed putty (terminal program) for talking to amateur radio terminal node controller (TNC).

Being simple minded, I can not get icons to go with desktop shortcuts. Can I get a hint on how do add icons to the desktop links?

Thank you,
Erico