IF Damn Small Linux is just 50 MB, it definitely takes up the LEAD in area...

What I am interested to know is whether, we can burn other normal files instead of wasting a 700 MB CD just with 50 MB of data?

You could always buy the small business card sized disks? or install it to a USB drive. Either way, no more wasted space and with the USB stick, you have extra space for backups and files.

Does this mean, that I can burn other files?

Frankly speaking, USB Sticks and small business card sized disks are very expensive in India, Mumbai (for me). I would prefer buying a CD-RW or a CD-R for these purposes and hence I asked whether I could burn other files.

Ohh :-)
I am not sure. Because the OS is running from the CD-ROM I do not think that it will be able to write to it while it is running from it. The only reason it works booting from a USB stick is because it has to be partitioned.

You have a couple of options,

1. Do a frugal install on the hard drive so that it will still only take up 50megs or so and then do your back-ups to a CD-RW.

2. Buy a USB stick from the DSL site(US60), because the USB stick is partitioned you will be able to put your files and back-ups on the second partition and re-write them as much as you want.

3. Have DSL on CD, buy a small(64meg) USB stick and then use the CD to boot from and the USB to save too. But like you said, USB sticks are expensive where you are. That's what I do because I have a lot less hassle getting almost any computer to load from the CD-ROM and it is super easy to save configuration files to the USB stick.

4. Create a partition on the hard drive before booting up DSL and then save your back-ups to that partition, you would be able to update and change your configuration file easily as well. You have to have the partition already created for DSL to see it when it is running.

Heck you could combine 1 and 4 and not have to use a CD-RW!

I hope I helped.