Review of Damn Small Linux 4.1

Damn Small Linux 4.1 - "Damn, that IS a small operating system" is not something you hear everyday*, After using DSL 4.1, you may just hear yourself saying it. The goal of the Damn Small Linux (DSL) project is to pack as much open source goodness in the form of a fully functional desktop operating system onto a business card cd. Additionally, DSL is designed to run on older "obsolete" hardware. DSL's current system requirements are as low as a 486 with 16MBs of RAM. You might think that it must be terribly crippled due to these constraints, but you would be wrong. After booting you'll be browsing th web, listening to music and playing games in no time at all.

*As an embedded linux engineer, I actually hear it quite often.

DSL is a live cd, meaning you can run it without installing or making changes to your hard drive. DSL can be downloaded as an ISO image and burned to a CD or DVD*. You pop in the cd and reboot your computer. Instead of loading Windows, the computer looks for a bootable image on the cd and runs it if found. Most modern computers have the ability to boot from a CD, if this fails,check your BIOS settings for Boot Order. CD-Rom should be set first.

*If this seems too hard, DSL is also available for purchase on Business Card sized CD or USB pendrive or even a mini pc from the Damn Small Linux website with the profits going towards development of DSL.

Here is a short list of some of the applications included with the DSL 4.1 cd.

Editors
Beaver, Nano, Vim, Notepad
Graphics
Xpaint, xzgv Image Viewer
Office
Ted Word Processor, Siag Spreadsheet, xPDF viewer, MS Word Viewer
Internet
Browsers: FireFox, Dillo, Netrik
Chat programs: ICQ, IRC, AIM
Email Client:Sylpheed
Remote: Rdesktop, VNC Viewer
File Sharing / Transfer: SMBClient, axY FTP client
Web Server: Monkey Web
Games
xTris (Tetris Clone), MineSweeper, Freecell and the many Card Games included in the Ace of Penguins Suite.
Tools
BashBurn (Cd burning Application), DSL Contol Panel, Fluxbox Alternate Window Manager.

This is only a sampling of the applications squeezed onto this Live CD. If you install the OS to the Hard Drive or setup a persistent storage directory you can easily install new applications with just 2 clicks using the MyDSL Extension tool and an active internet connection. Which is fortunate as some of the applications that were chosen for their size just barely do the job or do so with a text only interface. OpenOffice, Mplayer, Xine, FireFox 2.0 and a wider selection of games were the first things installed on my test setup. All in all, it takes only minutes to turn DSL into a great little desktop on just about any age machine. If your PC has 128MB of RAM or more the entire OS loads into RAM and is lightning quick.

Damn Small Linux succeeds in accomplishing it's primary goals, being small, lightweight, fast, and easy to use. I found myself wishing I had a few slower machines around to install DSL for web browsing and music.

It should be noted DSL can also be run (albeit significantly slower) from inside Windows using the embedded method detailed in my article titled Virtually Speaking part 1.