The name says it all. DSL can fit into a credit-card CD or a low-capacity USB key drive and run well on a system as obsolete as a 16MB 486 -- try that with any other distribution!
DSL comes with a relatively complete desktop and decent assortment of command-line tools. All applications are chosen with the best balance of functionality, size, and speed, according to the team. The distro also has the ability to act as an SSH/FTP/HTTPD server right off a live CD.
Key updates and bug fixes, according the team, include:
- New gettime.lua to set clock from a time server
- restored menu item 'Enable Apt' and dpkg-restore download script
- updated pen drive installation scripts to be device-independent
- fixed mount tool for CD-ROM and floppy devices
- added mouse configuration persistence via .mouse_configuration
- ALSA sound auto-configuration improvement via conflicting audio module
- added auto-start of GTK+ when GTK+ extension is in mydsl search path at boot
- more install options on 'dslinstall' menu; updated bootfloppy.img to fix the 16MB memory bug
- added declobber.sh to remove troublesome extraneous system directories in MyDSL extensions
- fixed man script to support hard drive installations
- Firefox 1.0.6 browser
- Perl 5.8.0 programming environment
- Vim 6.1 text editor
- CDR-tools 2.01a19 CD-burning software
DSL was originally developed as an experiment to see how many usable desktop applications could fit inside a 50MB live CD "business card." Eventually, however, it evolved into a community project with hundreds of development hours put into refinements, such as a fully automated remote and local application installation system, and a very versatile backup and restore system.
According to the project's website, DSL can be used with any writable media (including hard drives, floppy drives, and USB keys); can run on low-end hardware (including a 486DX with 16MB of RAM); can run entirely from RAM (with as little as 128MB); and can even be booted up from within a host operating system (e।g. Windows). Additionally, the distribution can transform into a Debian OS via a traditional hard drive install, the project's website adds.
Availability
You can download the 49.5 MB DSL 3.3 ISO image directly from this url. Alternatively, you can download the ISO from the project's main download area, here.
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