Is D.S.L. still a viable option?
 

As the title - is it still a viable option, last RC release in 2012.
Your opinions are sought.

Having missed the question entirely (Damn Small Linux instead of Digital Subscriber Line -- who the hell knows anymore with the alphabet soup we live with), the post is withdrawn with apologies.

I read the question as "Is Damn Small Linux still an option"...

If so, sure, depending on your uses.

I actually used it recently on an very old laptop (no HD, boot live CD). My own hardware is very limited so not very suitable for browsers or GUI apps but makes a nice protable network terminal. Damn Small booted and supported all the old devices out of the box and runs great on 128M ram, PCMCIA network card.

That is the question. :)

I used to use it a long time ago when it first appeared, and it was a revelation back then, I even bought the 'Damn Small Linux' book, (and the 'Live Linux CDs' book).

Today I use mainly Antix or SliTaz, installed and/or to pendrive as live systems, they are both updated regularly, and work on old machines as well as the newer ones.

It is a shame to remove it though - that was actually a thoughtful and useful summary of how DSL fits into the scheme! ;)

I am of the opinion. And my opinion came from 2008

That after the scrap between DSL and Tinycore developer. I am not hip on the details.
I have always been of the opinion Tiny Core won out in that scrap as being more relevant today than DSL.

If I was to run a DSL distro. And I have ran some small ones like DSL and DSL-N. I'd go with
Tiny Core instead just because of the packages list and choice of kernels.

Just my opinion though. I can be wrong as I have been known to be before.

I thought TinyCore was just an exercise is creating the smallest possible usable Linux, since my first experience of it was that it didn't allow you to do very much at all. No sound for instance - I need music, even if I only have mpg123/ogg123. :)
Edit: Actually my minimum would be a shell, mc, & mpg123. ;)

Durn. Where are The LQ Tiny Core users when you need them?

I never installed or ran Tiny Core so I am kinda talking out of my a$$
here in this thread. I guess I'll have to break out one of the P3 laptops and insert a old IDE drive and see for myself.

Edit: you made me look

http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/4.x/x86/tcz/

Don't worry Roky, it has grown up since, but you have to add such things as alsa to it to get anywhere, which rather defeated the object for me.

I have just installed dsl 4.4-10 on a vmware machine; it rocks as ever.

I use DSL now on a PENTIUM-I !!!!!

DSL was really awesome.

Who created it, because it is very fast and so nicely made. The configuration are so light!!

It was created by John Andrews.

The site has been down for me this week, and I am hoping that all is well with John and that he was just concerned about the safety of newbies who might not be aware of security issues involved in using such old software.

I have still been able to load my .dsl files here:

http://distro.ibiblio.org/damnsmall/mydsl/

but am glad to have most of them archived for my VMs and vintage physical hardware and grateful to have been introduced to Gnu/Linux by such fine people and such a simple, understandable, and forgiving distro.

There was something very special about DSL and the community that arose around this little 50 MB business card sized CD.

Keep it !
 

Keep it ! why to change ? if DSL runs on your computer as before, the date of the version does not matter.
I am a Puppy Linux user, and old versions still run, even on recent laptops. The advantage, they don't have useless stuff.

TinyCORE and D.S.Linux
 

DSL is still relevant. It was created to be the most complete distribution you could fit on a business card CD. I still keep a copy of the latest version for occasional use. The packages are intentionally kept back and seldom updated to avoid 'bloat'.

TinyCORE (and MultiCore) is arguably the smallest complete distribution available, and far more current. Complete, in this context, is relative. There is a LOT missing, compressed, or made optional to fit it into such a small space. The idea is not that it should be truly complete for a particular user, but complete enough that you can add whatever small missing features you need easily to tune it for your purpose. I always have a copy of this one around also.

Frankly, I love BOTH of them. TinyCore is the smaller on media, DSL runs in less memory, both rock.

Disclaimer: I do not use Linux as a radio. When I was born the transister was an oddity in a lab somewhere, and the japanese electronics invasion not even a bad dream yet. I have a cell phone to play music (which is a pathetic read now that I look back over it) and use my Linux for programming, browsing, IM, and email. Sound is strictly optional for me.