Damn Small Linux (DSL) is a

Linux distribution A Linux distribution, often abbreviated as distro, is an operating system that includes the Linux kernel for its kernel functionality. Although the name does not imply product distribution per se, a distro—if distributed on its own—is oft ...

for the

x86 x86 (also known as 80x86 or the 8086 family) is a family of complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architectures initially developed by Intel, based on the 8086 microprocessor and its 8-bit-external-bus variant, the 8088. Th ...

family of

personal computer A personal computer, commonly referred to as PC or computer, is a computer designed for individual use. It is typically used for tasks such as Word processor, word processing, web browser, internet browsing, email, multimedia playback, and PC ...

s. It is

free and open-source software Free and open-source software (FOSS) is software available under a license that grants users the right to use, modify, and distribute the software modified or not to everyone free of charge. FOSS is an inclusive umbrella term encompassing free ...

under the terms of the

GNU GPL The GNU General Public Licenses (GNU GPL or simply GPL) are a series of widely used free software licenses, or ''copyleft'' licenses, that guarantee end users the freedom to run, study, share, or modify the software. The GPL was the first ...

and other free and open-source licenses. It was designed to run

graphical user interface A graphical user interface, or GUI, is a form of user interface that allows user (computing), users to human–computer interaction, interact with electronic devices through Graphics, graphical icon (computing), icons and visual indicators such ...

applications on older PC hardware, for example, machines with

486 __NOTOC__ Year 486 ( CDLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Basilius and Longinus (or, less frequently, year 1239 ''Ab urbe condita''). The denomin ...

and early

Pentium Pentium is a series of x86 architecture-compatible microprocessors produced by Intel from 1993 to 2023. The Pentium (original), original Pentium was Intel's fifth generation processor, succeeding the i486; Pentium was Intel's flagship proce ...

microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor (computing), processor for which the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit (IC), or a small number of ICs. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, a ...

s and very little

random-access memory Random-access memory (RAM; ) is a form of Computer memory, electronic computer memory that can be read and changed in any order, typically used to store working Data (computing), data and machine code. A random-access memory device allows ...

(RAM). DSL is a

live CD A live CD (also live DVD, live disc, or live operating system) is a complete booting, bootable computer installation including operating system which runs directly from a CD-ROM or similar storage device into a computer's memory, rather than lo ...

with a size of 50

megabyte The megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. Its recommended unit symbol is MB. The unit prefix ''mega'' is a multiplier of (106) in the International System of Units (SI). Therefore, one megabyte is one million bytes ...

s (MB). What originally began as an experiment to see how much software could fit in 50 MB eventually became a full Linux distribution. It can be installed on

storage media Data storage is the recording (storing) of information (data) in a storage medium. Handwriting, phonographic recording, magnetic tape, and optical discs are all examples of storage media. Biological molecules such as RNA and DNA are cons ...

with small capacities, like

bootable business card A bootable business card (BBC) is a CD-ROM that has been cut, pressed, or molded to the size and shape of a business card (designed to fit in a wallet or pocket). Alternative names for this form factor include " credit card", "hockey rink", and " ...

USB flash drive A flash drive (also thumb drive, memory stick, and pen drive/pendrive) is a data storage device that includes flash memory with an integrated USB interface. A typical USB drive is removable, rewritable, and smaller than an optical disc, and u ...

s, various

memory card A memory card is an electronic data storage device used for storing digital information, typically using flash memory. These are commonly used in digital portable electronic devices, such as digital cameras as well as in many early games conso ...

s, and

Zip drive The Zip drive is a removable floppy disk storage system that was announced by Iomega in 1994 and began shipping in March 1995. Considered medium-to-high-capacity at the time of its release, Zip disks were originally launched with capacities ...

History

DSL was originally conceived and maintained by John Andrews. For five years the community included Robert Shingledecker who created the MyDSL system, DSL Control Panel and other features. After issues with the main developers, Shingledecker was, by his account, exiled from the project. He currently continues his work on

Tiny Core Linux Tiny Core Linux (TCL) is a minimal Linux kernel based operating system focusing on providing a base system using BusyBox and FLTK. It was developed by Robert Shingledecker, who was previously the lead developer of Damn Small Linux. The distribu ...

which he created in April 2008. DSL was originally based on Model-K, a 22 MB stripped-down version of

Knoppix Knoppix, stylized KNOPPIX ( ), is an operating system based on Debian designed to be run directly from a CD or DVD (Live CD) or a USB flash drive ( Live USB). It was first released in 2000 by German Linux consultant Klaus Knopper, and was one ...

, but soon after was based on Knoppix proper, allowing much easier remastering and improvements. The distribution is now based on

Debian Debian () is a free and open-source software, free and open source Linux distribution, developed by the Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock in August 1993. Debian is one of the oldest operating systems based on the Linux kerne ...

and

antiX antiX () is a Linux distribution, originally based on MEPIS, which itself is based on the Debian stable distribution. antiX initially replaced the MEPIS KDE desktop environment with the Fluxbox and IceWM window managers, making it suitable ...

System requirements

DSL is designed to primarily support

PCs. The minimum system requirements are a

processor and 8 MB of

RAM Ram, ram, or RAM most commonly refers to: * A male sheep * Random-access memory, computer memory * Ram Trucks, US, since 2009 ** List of vehicles named Dodge Ram, trucks and vans ** Ram Pickup, produced by Ram Trucks Ram, ram, or RAM may also ref ...

. DSL has been demonstrated by browsing the web with

Dillo Dillo is a minimalistic web browser particularly intended for older or slower computers and embedded systems. It supports only plain HTML/XHTML (with CSS rendering) and images over HTTP and HTTPS; scripting is ignored entirely. Current versions ...

, running simple games, and playing music on systems with a 486 processor and 16 MB of RAM. The system requirements are higher for running

Mozilla Firefox Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements curren ...

and optional add-ons such as the

OpenOffice.org OpenOffice.org (OOo), commonly known as OpenOffice, is a discontinued open-source office suite. Active successor projects include LibreOffice (the most actively developed) and Collabora Online, with Apache OpenOffice being considered mostly d ...

office suite.

Features

Version 4.4.10 of DSL, released November 18, 2008, included the following software: *

Text editor A text editor is a type of computer program that edits plain text. An example of such program is "notepad" software (e.g. Windows Notepad). Text editors are provided with operating systems and software development packages, and can be used to c ...

s: Beaver, Nano, Vim *

File manager A file manager or file browser is a computer program that provides a user interface to manage computer files, files and folder (computing), folders. The most common Computer file#Operations, operations performed on files or groups of files incl ...

s: DFM, emelFM * Graphics:

mtPaint mtPaint (short for Mark Tyler's Painting Program) is a free and open-source raster graphics editor for creating icons, pixel art and for photo editing. It is available for Microsoft Windows and Linux operating systems. History mtPaint was or ...

(raster graphics editor),

xzgv xzgv is a simple, small software utility that can be used for viewing digital images or pictures of several formats, e.g., JPEG, GIF, Portable Network Graphics, PNG, etc. xzgv is used on computers using a Unix-like operating system and the X Windo ...

(image viewer) *

Multimedia Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms, such as Text (literary theory), writing, Sound, audio, images, animations, or video, into a single presentation. T ...

: gphone,

XMMS X Multimedia System (XMMS) is an audio player for Unix-like systems released under a free software license. History XMMS was originally written as ''x11amp'' by Peter and Mikael Alm in November 1997. The player was made to resemble Winamp, which ...

with

MPEG-1 MPEG-1 is a Technical standard, standard for lossy compression of video and Audio frequency, audio. It is designed to compress VHS-quality raw digital video and CD audio down to about 1.5 Mbit/s (26:1 and 6:1 compression ratios respectively ...

and

Video CD Video CD (abbreviated as VCD, and also known as Compact Disc Digital Video), (not to be confused with CD Video which is a type of Laserdisc) is a home video format and the first format for distributing films on standard optical discs. The f ...

(VCD) support * Office:

Siag Office Siag Office is a tightly integrated free software office package for Unix-like operating systems. It consists of the spreadsheet SIAG (" Scheme In A Grid"), the word processor Pathetic Writer (PW), the animation program Egon Animator, the text edi ...

(

spreadsheet A spreadsheet is a computer application for computation, organization, analysis and storage of data in tabular form. Spreadsheets were developed as computerized analogs of paper accounting worksheets. The program operates on data entered in c ...

program),

Ted (word processor) Ted is a lightweight free software word processor for the X Window System, and runs on Linux and other Unix-like systems. Developed primarily by Mark de Does, it's licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL-2.0-only), and has b ...

with

spell checker In software, a spell checker (or spelling checker or spell check) is a software feature that checks for misspellings in a text. Spell-checking features are often embedded in software or services, such as a word processor, email client, electronic ...

Xpdf Xpdf is a free and open-source PDF viewer and toolkit based on the Qt framework. Versions prior to 4.00 were written for the X Window System and Motif. Functions Xpdf runs on nearly any Unix-like operating system. Binaries are also availabl ...

(viewer for Portable Document Format (

PDF Portable document format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe Inc., Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, computer hardware, ...

) documents), AbiWord,

Gnumeric Gnumeric is a spreadsheet program that is part of the GNOME Free Software Desktop Project. Gnumeric version 1.0 was released on 31 December 2001. Gnumeric is distributed as free software under the GNU General Public License; it is intended to ...

* Internet: **

Web browser A web browser, often shortened to browser, is an application for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's scr ...

Firefox Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements curr ...

, Netrik **

Sylpheed Sylpheed is an open-source e-mail client and news client licensed under GNU GPL-2.0-or-later with the library part ''LibSylph'' under GNU LGPL-2.1-or-later. It provides easy configuration and an abundance of features. It stores mail in the MH ...

(

E-mail client An email client, email reader or, more formally, message user agent (MUA) or mail user agent is a computer program used to access and manage a user's email. A web app, web application which provides message management, composition, and receptio ...

) **

naim Naim (also spelled Na'im, Nayeem, Naeem, Naiem, Nahim, Naheem, Nyhiem, Nihiem, Nyheim, Niheem, Nahiem or Nyiem) (, ) is a male given name and a surname. Persons with the name *Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im (born 1946), Sudanese lawyer and writer * ...

(

AOL Instant Messenger AOL Instant Messenger (AIM, sometimes stylized as aim) was an instant messaging and presence information computer program created by AOL. It used the proprietary OSCAR protocol, OSCAR instant messaging protocol and the TOC protocol to allow us ...

(AIM),

ICQ ICQ was a cross-platform instant messaging (IM) and VoIP client founded in June 1996 by Yair Goldfinger, Sefi Vigiser, Amnon Amir, Arik Vardi, and Arik's father, Yossi Vardi. The name ICQ derives from the English phrase "I Seek You". Originally ...

, and

IRC IRC (Internet Relay Chat) is a text-based chat system for instant messaging. IRC is designed for group communication in discussion forums, called '' channels'', but also allows one-on-one communication via private messages as well as chat ...

client) ** AxyFTP (

File Transfer Protocol The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard communication protocol used for the transfer of computer files from a server to a client on a computer network. FTP is built on a client–server model architecture using separate control and d ...

(FTP) client), BetaFTPD (FTP server) ** Monkey (web server) **

Server Message Block Server Message Block (SMB) is a communication protocol used to share files, printers, serial ports, and miscellaneous communications between nodes on a network. On Microsoft Windows, the SMB implementation consists of two vaguely named Windows ...

(SMB) client **

Rdesktop rdesktop is an implementation of a client software for Microsoft's proprietary protocol, proprietary Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). Rdesktop is free and open-source software, subject to the requirements of the GNU General Public License (GPL-3.0- ...

(

Remote Desktop Protocol Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) is a proprietary protocol developed by Microsoft Corporation which provides a user with a graphical interface to connect to another computer over a network connection. The user employs RDP client software for this pu ...

(RDP) client,

Virtual Network Computing VNC (Virtual Network Computing) is a graphical desktop-sharing system that uses the RFB protocol, Remote Frame Buffer protocol (RFB) to remotely control another computer. It transmits the computer keyboard, keyboard and computer mouse, mouse in ...

(VNC) viewer * Others:

Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol The Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) is a network protocol, network management protocol used on Internet Protocol (IP) networks for automatically assigning IP addresses and other communication parameters to devices connected to the netw ...

(DHCP) client,

Secure Shell The Secure Shell Protocol (SSH Protocol) is a cryptographic network protocol for operating network services securely over an unsecured network. Its most notable applications are remote login and command-line execution. SSH was designed for ...

(SSH) and

secure copy protocol Secure copy protocol (SCP) is a means of securely transferring computer files between a local host and a remote host or between two remote hosts. It is based on the Secure Shell (SSH) protocol. "SCP" commonly refers to both the Secure Copy Protoc ...

(SCP) client and server;

Point-to-Point Protocol In computer networking, Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) is a data link layer (layer 2) communication protocol between two routers directly without any host or any other networking in between. It can provide loop detection, authentication, transmissio ...

(PPP),

Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet The Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet (PPPoE) is a network protocol for encapsulating Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) frames inside Ethernet frames. It appeared in 1999, in the context of the boom of DSL as the solution for tunneling packe ...

(PPPoE),

Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line Asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) is a type of digital subscriber line (DSL) technology, a data communications technology that enables faster data transmission over copper telephone lines than a conventional voiceband modem can provide ...

(ADSL) support;

FUSE Fuse or FUSE may refer to: Devices * Fuse (electrical), a device used in electrical systems to protect against excessive current ** Fuse (automotive), a class of fuses for vehicles * Fuse (hydraulic), a device used in hydraulic systems to protec ...

Network File System Network File System (NFS) is a distributed file system protocol originally developed by Sun Microsystems (Sun) in 1984, allowing a user on a client computer to access files over a computer network much like local storage is accessed. NFS, like ...

(NFS), SSH Filesystem (

SSHFS SSHFS (SSH Filesystem) is a filesystem client to mount and interact with directories and files located on a remote server or workstation over a normal ssh connection. The client interacts with the remote file system via the SSH File Transf ...

) support;

UnionFS Unionfs is a filesystem service for Linux, FreeBSD and NetBSD which implements a union mount for other file systems. It allows files and directories of separate file systems, known as branches, to be transparently overlaid, forming a single cohe ...

; generic and

Ghostscript Ghostscript is a suite of software based on an interpreter for Adobe Systems' PostScript and Portable Document Format (PDF) page description languages. Its main purposes are the rasterization of documents in these language,, the display or prin ...

printing support;

PC card PC Card is a technical standard specifying an expansion card interface for laptops and personal digital assistants, PDAs. The PCMCIA originally introduced the 16-bit Industry Standard Architecture, ISA-based PCMCIA Card in 1990, but renamed it to ...

, Universal Serial Bus (

USB Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard, developed by USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF), for digital data transmission and power delivery between many types of electronics. It specifies the architecture, in particular the physical ...

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for Wireless LAN, local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by ...

support; calculator, games,

system monitor A system monitor is a hardware or software component used to monitor system resources and performance in a computer system. Among the management issues regarding use of system monitoring tools are resource usage and privacy. Monitoring can tra ...

; many

command-line A command-line interface (CLI) is a means of interacting with software via commands each formatted as a line of text. Command-line interfaces emerged in the mid-1960s, on computer terminals, as an interactive and more user-friendly alternativ ...

tools DSL has built-in scripts to download and install

Advanced Packaging Tool Advanced Package Tool (APT) is a free-software user interface that works with core libraries to handle the installation and removal of software on Debian and Debian-based Linux distributions. APT simplifies the process of managing software on ...

(APT). Once APT is enabled, a user can install packages from

's repositories. Also, DSL hosts software ranging from large applications like

and

GNU Compiler Collection The GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) is a collection of compilers from the GNU Project that support various programming languages, Computer architecture, hardware architectures, and operating systems. The Free Software Foundation (FSF) distributes ...

(GCC), to smaller ones such as

aMSN aMSN was a free Windows Live Messenger clone. aMSN attempted to emulate the look and feel of Windows Live Messenger, and supported many of its features. It had been downloaded approximately 40 million times as of January 2011, making it the 21s ...

, by means of the ''MyDSL'' system, which allows convenient one-click download and installing of software. Files hosted on MyDSL are called ''extensions''. As of June 2008, the MyDSL servers were hosting over 900 applications, plugins, and other extensions.

Boot options

Boot options are also called "cheat codes" in DSL. Automatic hardware detection may fail, or the user may want to use something other than the default settings (language, keyboard, VGA, fail-safe graphics, text mode...). DSL allows the user to enter one or more cheat codes at the boot prompt. If nothing is entered, DSL will boot with the default options. Cheat codes affect many auto-detection and hardware options. Many cheat codes also affect the GUI. The list of cheat codes can be seen at boot time and also at the DSL Wiki.

The MyDSL system

MyDSL is handled and maintained mostly by Robert Shingledecker and hosted by many organizations, such as

ibiblio ibiblio (formerly SunSITE.unc.edu and MetaLab.unc.edu) is a "collection of collections", and hosts a diverse range of publicly available information and open source content, including software, music, literature, art, history, science, politic ...

and Belgium's BELNET. There are two areas of MyDSL: ''regular'' and ''testing''. The ''regular'' area contains extensions that have been proven stable enough for everyday use and is broken down into different areas such as ''apps'', ''net'', ''system'', and ''uci'' (Universal Compressed ISO - Extensions in .uci format are

mounted Mount is often used as part of the name of specific mountains, e.g. Mount Everest. Mount or Mounts may also refer to: Places * Mount, Cornwall, a village in Warleggan parish, England * Mount, Perranzabuloe, a hamlet in Perranzabuloe parish, Co ...

as a separate file system to minimize RAM use). The ''testing'' area is for newly submitted extensions that theoretically work well enough but may have any number of bugs.

Versions and ports

Release timeline

Ports and derivatives

DSL was

ported In software engineering, porting is the process of adapting software for the purpose of achieving some form of execution in a computing environment that is different from the one that a given program (meant for such execution) was originally desig ...

to the

Xbox Xbox is a video gaming brand that consists of four main home video game console lines, as well as application software, applications (games), the streaming media, streaming service Xbox Cloud Gaming, and online services such as the Xbox networ ...

video game console A video game console is an electronic device that Input/output, outputs a video signal or image to display a video game that can typically be played with a game controller. These may be home video game console, home consoles, which are generally ...

as X-DSL. X-DSL requires a modified Xbox. It can run as a Live CD or be installed to the Xbox hard drive. Users have also run X-DSL from a USB flash drive, using the USB adaptor included with

Phantasy Star Online ''Phantasy Star Online'' is an online role-playing game (RPG) developed by Sonic Team and published by Sega in 2000 for the Dreamcast. It was the first successful online RPG for game consoles; players adventure with up to three others over the ...

, which plugs into the memory card slot and includes one USB 1.1 port. X-DSL boots into a

X11 The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems. X originated as part of Project Athena at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1984. The X protocol has been at ...

-based GUI; the Xbox controller can be used to control the mouse pointer and enter text using a

virtual keyboard A virtual keyboard is a software component that allows the Input device, input of characters without the need for physical keys. Interaction with a virtual Computer keyboard, keyboard happens mostly via a touchscreen interface, but can also take p ...

. X-DSL has a

Fluxbox Fluxbox is a stacking window manager for the X Window System, which started as a fork of Blackbox 0.61.1 in 2001, with the same aim to be lightweight. Its user interface has only a taskbar, a pop-up menu accessible by right-clicking on the d ...

desktop, with programs for E-mail, web browsing, word processing and playing music. X-DSL can be customized by downloading extensions from the same MyDSL servers as DSL. Linux distributions derived from Damn Small Linux include Hikarunix, used for a CD image that runs the game of Go released in 2005, and Damn Vulnerable Linux.

Live USB

Live USB A live USB is a portable USB-attached external data storage device containing a full operating system that can be booted from. The term is reminiscent of USB flash drives but may encompass an external hard disk drive or solid-state drive, thou ...

of Damn Small Linux can be created manually or with applications like

UNetbootin UNetbootin ("Universal Netboot Installer") is a cross-platform utility that can create live USB systems and can load a variety of system utilities or install various Linux distributions and other operating systems without a CD. Modes USB ins ...

Status

Due to disagreements and irreconcilable differences among the project's originators and main developers, DSL development seemed to be at a standstill for a long time, and the future of the project was uncertain, much to the dismay of many of the users. On July 8, 2012, John Andrews (the original developer) announced that a new release was being developed. The DSL website, including the forums which were once inaccessible, were back, as well. The first RC of the new 4.11 was released on August 3, 2012, followed by a second one on September 26. On February 1, 2024, DSL 2024 Alpha 1 was announced and released on the project's webpage. May 22nd 2024 the DSL forum has a post "Release Candidate 4 Now Available" Recent reviews of DSL 2024 Alpha 1

References

External links

Damn Small Linux website

USB DSL tutorial
*
DistroWatch interview

Archive.org's DSL ISO Archive

Reviews

OSNews review (2004)OSNews review (2011)

{{Linux distributions Knoppix LiveDistro Light-weight Linux distributions Live USB Debian-based distributions Lua (programming language)-scripted software Lightweight Unix-like systems Linux distributions without systemd