TechieMoe.com

Introduction:

Damn Small Linux has traditionally been my favorite of the ultra-light distributions. Its contemporaries (Puppy, etc.) are very capable, but for some reason I've always had a special place for DSL.

It's been my last line of defense on computers so ancient nothing else will run on them, and I've been constantly surprised how it can revitalize hardware that I thought was well past its usefulness.

I did this rant inside a virtual machine on Rig 4 using the Linux version of Innotek VirtualBox. The VM had 512MB of RAM and an 8GB harddrive.

Everything else (excluding 3D support) used Rig 5's hardware. I used a VM for this one because it was 50MB, and honestly if I didn't like it I didn't want to waste a CDR for 50 megabytes.

Install:

It's been a while since I've played around with DSL, and the first thing I noticed was how fast it felt. Boot time was less than 30 seconds. Menus and apps were snappy. The whole thing (according to the GKrellm monitor on the desktop) used about 16MB of RAM at idle. "Svelte" does not begin to describe it.

The installer is the same one as always, but it's easier to find than I remember in past releases. It does not partition your drive for you, which will require some knowledge on partitioning if you don't already have a free partition.

I used cfdisk. It asks for a single partition (minimum 200MB) on which to install. You have the option of Grub, LILO or no bootloader (in case you already have one). The system installed in about 5-10 minutes and I was asked to reboot.

Booting from the disc, it took me less than 30 seconds from power on to a desktop. Installed, (discounting the time it took me to log myself in) it took less than 20 seconds. *I* was the bottleneck rather than the OS. That's a change.

Keep in mind that I usually run DSL either from the disc or on ancient computers, so the shock value was probably multiplied by the fact that I was running this on a more modern machine.

Because I was on a VM and hooked into a hard network I was able to play around with some features that required a net connection. One of those is MyDSL, which gives you a list of available packages ready for install on DSL and will install them with one click.

I was a little confused at first when I installed AbiWord, because it didn't show up in the Apps->Office or Apps->Editors menu. Apparently programs installed by MyDSL show up in the MyDSL menu instead.

I chose to "Enable Apt" and "Upgrade to GCC utils" from the Apps->Tools menu. I'm not entirely sure what this did, because my next step didn't work as expected.

I tried to install gcc and a few other things using apt-get on the command line but was given errors about broken dependencies. Usually that's the whole point of using apt-get: to handle dependencies automatically.

I found a package for GCC in the MyDSL repository and used that. I'm confused as to why DSL's version of apt seems to be broken. (By the way, I did update it first.)

I also noticed Nvidia drivers in the MyDSL list. This means that (again, with a net connection) I could play 3D games on DSL.

One small thing that annoys me about DSL is that every time you boot it brings up that "Getting Started" browser window. I know why this would be useful on a LiveCD, but if anyone knows how to disable it on a local install, please let me know.

UPDATE - Several estute readers have informed me that to disable this window, one must comment out a line in your .xinitrc file. The line in question starts with "dillo." It was also pointed out to me that at the end of the "Getting Started" window itself there are instructions on how to get rid of it. Way to read the manual, Moe. Thanks everyone.

Software Selection:

You'd expect a 50MB micro-distribution like this to have to make some tough choices as to which applications to include. Most of the usual apps you find on larger distros aren't present. OpenOffice itself takes up several times more space than the entire DSL distro, for instance, so it is not included. Same for Pidgin and Gimp.

I was surprised, however, that a version of Firefox was included. It wasn't standard Firefox, but rather a modified app called Bon Echo, but the look and feel were the same, and the Help->About screen confirmed that it was based on Mozilla's code.

Unfortunately, in the default install there was no GCC or Java, so work would be difficult to pull off. Surprisingly, ndiswrapper was included so were I to choose to install this on Rig 2, it shouldn't have issues. Offline, the lack of GCC would preclude installing my Nvidia drivers.

Conclusion:

DSL keeps its spot as my default option for old hardware. This release didn't change that. The team managed to throw in small improvements without completely changing the way the standard system works, which I liked.

Size constraints keep this distro from including everything I'd like in a desktop, but with an active net connection and either MyDSL or an apt-get repository most of that could be fixed. The inclusion of ndiswrapper is a welcome help for those stuck with non-supported wireless chipsets.

With improved support for apt-get DSL could supplant net-install as a viable quick-and-dirty way to get Debian installed, complete with GUI. One final note: I did end up burning this one to a CD. I don't consider it a waste after all.