what is damm small linux.(dsl) has somebody used it.. if yes.. comment ...  

Damn Small Linux or DSL is a free Linux distribution for the X86 family of personal computers. It was designed to run graphical applications on older PC hardware -- for example, machines with 486/early Pentium processors and very little memory. DSL is a Live CD with a size of 50 MB. What originally started as an experiment to see how much software could fit in 50 MB eventually became a full-fledged Linux distribution. It can be installed on storage media with small capacities, like bootable business cards, USB flash drives, various memory cards, and Zip drives.

This message was sent to me 19 Oct 2003 by Nick Hill. Paul Knight and him did a good amount of experimenting with Dam Small and retro hardware. Their activities culminated in a "Retro Hardware Party" where they ran DSL on a 486SX33 and a 486DX2, both with 16MB of ram.
Quote from mail:

Thank you Nick Hill and Paul Knight for bring down the old hard ware and doing the tests!

This message is being sent from the damn small machine using Sylpheed.

We successfully used a machine- a 486SX33 16Mb ram to surf the web and send email. Even used it as a remote station to edit pictures using the GIMP over a broadband link. Not exactly fast, but can be done. Takes 10-15 seconds to render news.bbc.co.uk.

The machine couldn't cope with an Ogg Vorbis stream at 11Khz/19Kbit mono. However, I tried with a 486DX2 processor / 16Mb and it worked.. Just! The missing FPU on the 486SX makes a difference for multimedia streams! The 486SX took 3 minutes to decode half one second. The DX2, however, coped in real time.

We held a retro hardware 'party' this evening, complete with chocolate biscuits and tea.

So now we know- web surfing with a modern operating system on atticware can be done- and we now are no longer restricted to tupperware parties- we have atticware parties!

I have attached a couple of pictures from our party. One shows the dmesg screen showing the processor kicking out an amazing 16.58 BogoMips and the 16Mb system ram can be seen. I have also included a photo of me and paul proudly showing off our atticware multitasking games, a (paused) instance of XMMS and 2 browser windows.

I have included an archive of the output of dmesg and ps ax.

BTW Glinks would not work on the SX chip but works on the DX chip.

Answered by Madhurima at 1:32 PM on June 23, 2008

well, Damn Small Linux or DSL is a free Linux distribution for the X86 family of personal computers. It was designed to run graphical applications on older PC hardware -- for example, machines with 486/early Pentium processors and very little memory. DSL is a Live CD with a size of 50 MB. What originally started as an experiment to see how much software could fit in 50 MB eventually became a full-fledged Linux distribution. It can be installed on storage media with small capacities, like bootable business cards, USB flash drives, various memory cards, and Zip drives.

Answered by satyaiitk at 9:15 PM on June 22, 2008

Damn Small Linux or DSL is a free Linux distribution for the X86 family of personal computers. It was designed to run graphical applications on older PC hardware -- for example, machines with 486/early Pentium processors and very little memory. DSL is a Live CD with a size of 50 MB. What originally started as an experiment to see how much software could fit in 50 MB eventually became a full-fledged Linux distribution. It can be installed on storage media with small capacities, like bootable business cards, USB flash drives, various memory cards, and Zip drives.

This message was sent to me 19 Oct 2003 by Nick Hill. Paul Knight and him did a good amount of experimenting with Dam Small and retro hardware. Their activities culminated in a "Retro Hardware Party" where they ran DSL on a 486SX33 and a 486DX2, both with 16MB of ram.
Quote from mail:

Thank you Nick Hill and Paul Knight for bring down the old hard ware and doing the tests!

This message is being sent from the damn small machine using Sylpheed.

We successfully used a machine- a 486SX33 16Mb ram to surf the web and send email. Even used it as a remote station to edit pictures using the GIMP over a broadband link. Not exactly fast, but can be done. Takes 10-15 seconds to render news.bbc.co.uk.

The machine couldn't cope with an Ogg Vorbis stream at 11Khz/19Kbit mono. However, I tried with a 486DX2 processor / 16Mb and it worked.. Just! The missing FPU on the 486SX makes a difference for multimedia streams! The 486SX took 3 minutes to decode half one second. The DX2, however, coped in real time.

We held a retro hardware 'party' this evening, complete with chocolate biscuits and tea.

So now we know- web surfing with a modern operating system on atticware can be done- and we now are no longer restricted to tupperware parties- we have atticware parties!

I have attached a couple of pictures from our party. One shows the dmesg screen showing the processor kicking out an amazing 16.58 BogoMips and the 16Mb system ram can be seen. I have also included a photo of me and paul proudly showing off our atticware multitasking games, a (paused) instance of XMMS and 2 browser windows.

I have included an archive of the output of dmesg and ps ax.

BTW Glinks would not work on the SX chip but works on the DX chip.

Answered by Om Prakash at 4:08 PM on June 21, 2008

Damn Small Linux or DSL is a free Linux distribution for the X86 family of personal computers. It was designed to run graphical applications on older PC hardware -- for example, machines with 486/early Pentium processors and very little memory. DSL is a Live CD with a size of 50 MB. What originally started as an experiment to see how much software could fit in 50 MB eventually became a full-fledged Linux distribution. It can be installed on storage media with small capacities, like bootable business cards, USB flash drives, various memory cards, and Zip drives.

Answered by Gyan Singh at 6:33 PM on June 20, 2008

well
Damn Small Linux or DSL is a free Linux distribution for the X86 family of personal computers. It was designed to run graphical applications on older PC hardware -- for example, machines with 486/early Pentium processors and very little memory. DSL is a Live CD with a size of 50 MB. What originally started as an experiment to see how much software could fit in 50 MB eventually became a full-fledged Linux distribution. It can be installed on storage media with small capacities, like bootable business cards, USB flash drives, various memory cards, and Zip drives.

Answered by jaivir at 5:39 PM on June 20, 2008

hi rajat Damn Small Linux or DSL is a free Linux distribution for the X86 family of personal computers. It was designed to run graphical applications on older PC hardware -- for example, machines with 486/early Pentium processors and very little memory. DSL is a Live CD with a size of 50 MB. What originally started as an experiment to see how much software could fit in 50 MB eventually became a full-fledged Linux distribution. It can be installed on storage media with small capacities, like bootable business cards, USB flash drives, various memory cards, and Zip drives
this is taken from source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damn_S mall_Linux

Answered by laks at 3:47 PM on June 20, 2008

hello rajat Damn Small Linux or DSL is a free Linux distribution for the X86 family of personal computers. It was designed to run graphical applications on older PC hardware -- for example, machines with 486/early Pentium processors and very little memory. DSL is a Live CD with a size of 50 MB. What originally started as an experiment to see how much software could fit in 50 MB eventually became a full-fledged Linux distribution. It can be installed on storage media with small capacities, like bootable business cards, USB flash drives, various memory cards, and Zip drives.

for more inf check source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damn_S mall_Linux

Answered by raj u at 1:52 PM on June 20, 2008

Damn Small Linux or DSL is a free Linux distribution for the X86 family of personal computers. It was designed to run graphical applications on older PC hardware -- for example, machines with 486/early Pentium processors and very little memory. DSL is a Live CD with a size of 50 MB. What originally started as an experiment to see how much software could fit in 50 MB eventually became a full-fledged Linux distribution. It can be installed on storage media with small capacities, like bootable business cards, USB flash drives, various memory cards, and Zip drives.

Answered by Anju Singh at 7:59 AM on June 20, 2008

Damn Small Linux or DSL is a free Linux distribution for the X86 family of personal computers. It was designed to run graphical applications on older PC hardware -- for example, machines with 486/early Pentium processors and very little memory. DSL is a Live CD with a size of 50 MB. What originally started as an experiment to see how much software could fit in 50 MB eventually became a full-fledged Linux distribution. It can be installed on storage media with small capacities, like bootable business cards, USB flash drives, various memory cards, and Zip drives.

Answered by Shobhit at 6:47 PM on June 19, 2008

Rajat, Damn Small Linux or DSL is a free Linux distribution for the X86 family of personal computers. It was designed to run graphical applications on older PC hardware -- for example, machines with 486/early Pentium processors and very little memory. DSL is a Live CD with a size of 50 MB. What originally started as an experiment to see how much software could fit in 50 MB eventually became a full-fledged Linux distribution. It can be installed on storage media with small capacities, like bootable business cards, USB flash drives, various memory cards, and Zip drives.

Answered by keshto at 6:45 PM on June 19, 2008