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(70 votes) Published: Feb 18, 2008 9:22 a.m. In 4 Favorites Lists Viewed 446 times
DSL is a very versatile 50MB mini desktop oriented Linux distribution.
Damn Small is small enough and smart enough to do the following things: Boot from a USB pen drive
Boot from within a host operating system (that’s right, it can run *inside* Windows)
Run light enough to power a 486DX with 16MB of Ram
Run fully in RAM with as little as 128MB (you will be amazed at how fast your computer can be!)
The ZIP file contains the QEmu emulator and an embedded version of DSL bundled together. It also contains a Windows .bat file and a Linux shell 5cript which make it easy to launch the emulation under these two platforms.
Running DSL 3.0.1 from Windows You can download the embedded version of DSL 3.0.1 from here: http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/damnsmall/current/
Run (Damn Small) Linux on Windows
To run (Damn Small) Linux on Windows follow the steps below:
1. Download the dsl-embedded zip file from the Damn Small Linux download site.(Link Above)
2. Extract the dsl-embedded zip file using Winzip to a folder called dsl-embedded.
3. Double click and run the dsl-windows.bat file in the dsl-embedded folder.
4. Damn Small Linux will then load in the same way as when it is being from the CD.
5. Try Linux!
6. When you are finished right-click on the desktop and go to Powerdown > Shutdown.
In Windows, you can simply double click on the .bat file, and a QEmu window appears on your screen with DSL booting inside it. If you’re not familiar with virtualization, think of it as a virtual computer running inside one of your windows.
The embedded version of DSL is configured to automatically use the place it is stored in for saving and restoring data. For instance, I extracted the ZIP file on my USB key, and ran the embedded DSL 3.0.1 under Windows XP directly from the USB key. Once in DSL 3.0.1, I created a file in my home folder and changed a few things. I then rebooted the embedded DSL, and was happy to see that my file and settings had automatically been saved and restored. In fact they were saved on the USB key itself. If I moved the embedded DSL folder to my hard-drive and ran it from there, DSL would use my hard drive for saving and restoring data. In fact there is a "harddisk" file in the subfolders of Qemu. I suspect it’s using that file as a hardware storage device.
Conclusion
Damn Small Linux is a very interesting project and it brings an entirely new way to use Linux. If you’re always on the move DSL is made for you, may it be in your USB key, as an embedded operating system running under Linux or Windows, or even as a business card Live CD that you carry around within your wallet. The concept is great, it’s all about mobility and it works very well. Then come the problems. The default DSL has a poor selection of software, an ugly design and lack good configuration tools. But it’s configurable. If you give it a bit of time you can learn how to remaster the CD and use the MyDSL extensions. Then you could potentially make it a really nice distribution, maybe a little bit bigger than the original, but still very interesting.
Feb 18, 2008 11:41 am - Why Not? Its alot more user friendly once you know what your doing. You can do so much more with it then you can with WIndows. Once you try it you will be hooked. Plus you can take it with you anywhere you go. Theres no way you could ever do that with windows. Trust me give it a try.
Feb 18, 2008 6:41 pm - You can do this with windows, there is a bootable xp from thumb drive - so that much is bullshit. There is also numerous online tutorials on how to do this...
Nothing new, 2*
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