Damn Small Linux, one of the best loved Linux mini distros delivers the new 4.0 release.
Among the new features are:
- Updated kernel 2.4.26 to 2.4.31.
- Icon and file manager supports drag-an-drop.
- Lots of bugs and usability issues fixed or improved.
- Easier to use wireless extensions.
- Many updated apps such as Xpdf, Nano-tiny and others.
According to the official Damn Small Linux webpage this version can run on a 486DX with 16MB RAM –how’s that for backward compatibility? It can fully upload itself into RAM in machines with 128 MB RAM for increased speed.
Damn Small Linux 4.0 is available as a 50MB bootable .iso image for download from this mirrors. If you’d like to suppor the project you can also buy it on a CD or pre installed in a USB flash drive so you can carry your Linux around and use it as a LiveUSB.
Gparted LiveCD is a minimal Linux distro (about 50 MB) available as a LiveCD .iso image which fits into a business card sized CD-R. It can also be turned into a LiveUSB.
Gparted LiveCD’s sole purpose is to allow you to boot from it so you can partition or re-partition the hard disks in almost any computer –because it’s very light it can run even in 500Mhz systems with as little as 64 MB in RAM — using Gparted, the Gnome partition manager.
This distro is Getoo-based, fast, small, with a 2.6.22 kernel in the latest version and with an Xorg Fluxbox GUI. And yes, you can edit NTFS partitions with it.
There are 13 file systems suppported in various degrees.
Here are the links so that you can check the features, downloads, and instructions to build your own LiveUSB.
Damn Small Linux (or DSL) is one of the smallest Linux distros available today. It’s free, it’s fast and it’s 50 MB. Initially started as John Andrew’s personal experiment in order to find out how many useful free software applications could be crammed into 50 MB, Damn Small Linux turned into a larger project with a larger and very passionate development community.
It’s based on Knoppix and uses Fluxbox instead of Gnome, KDE or Xfce in order to achieve maximum efficiency and lightness so that it runs on some really dated hardware — version 4.0 runs on 486DX computers with as little as 16MB RAM. Every application included in Damn Small is chosen to provide as much funcionality possible with as little resources as possible. The kernel series is 2.4 instead of 2.6 so the distro remains compatible with a lot of older hardware no longer supported by the later kernels.
The driving idea behind DSL is to keep adding apps and funcionality, almost a fully featured desktop, to their distros while keeping 50 MB in size and able to run in any kind of system.
DSL standard issue is a LiveCD which fits into a bussiness-card-size CD-R –that includes web browsers, text editors, file managers, PDF viewers and almost all the essential desktop software any user could need. You can use it as a LiveCD, install it to a hard drive or install in to a usb flash drive and use it as a LiveUSB. Since data persistence is supported you don’t need to lose any of your work by finishing your sessions.
The latest Damn Small Linux release is version 4.0, still 50 MB and fully featured.
Damn Small Linux Spin-offs.
The DSL development team is currently working in a parallel project to DSL called Demi Small Linux which will use the 2.6 kernel series and, while keeping a focus on efficiency, will feature a bigger limit in size in order to be more functional ans user friendly.
