I've had this DSL-pendrive installation working for a few months now. Being a newbie it gave me a lot of trouble to 'manage' to have a pesistent OS but it's working ok now (even though I can't remember each one of the steps that it required).
I also have a dual-boot installation "Lin'N'Win" with Puppy Linux. With this distro I managed to access my HD files & use some of them. I tried a similar approach with DSL but it's a different GUI & also tried the official DSL forum but with no result (can't do anything useful in the site aside from searching it).
My DSL version is 2.4.31 on i386. I'll be very frightened if I've to mess up too much with this installation because I really like it very much.
Thanks for reading so far & for any info around the subject of this post!

DSL file manager can take a bit of getting used to. Long term users seem to swear by it while new users merely swear about it.

IIRC: DSL likes to protect you by not making your HDD available to you by default - so you have to find it, and mount the filesystems on it.

Have a look at this Quick Start Guide.

Hey dude
DSL is really easy
just strange at first

It's a frugal usb install yes?

to mount your hd, goto menu, under system, control panel
click on each selection till you find your hd, then click where it says "mount"
then you can use a filemanager to moove stuff around

you got rox-filer?

to move files around in dsl
goto menu, open a root shell (terminal)
type in a file manager's name
like

rox-filer will pop-up as root, drag-n-drop folders/files from one rox window to another
meaning call up 2 rox's

to call up a text editor as root

"beaver"
type that in root shell and beaver comes up as root

if you wanna mount hd thru root terminal
mkdir /mnt/hda1
mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/hda1
to unmount use
umount /mnt/hda1

Why are you using such an old version of dsl??

You should go multidistro dude
I got like 10 distro's on my 4gb kingston

Thanks for respondiing, Simon Bridge & linus72!
I'll have a close look at the Quick Start Guide.
I'm sorry, but I don't comprehend the term 'frugal'. I know I've seen it before; even so, can't remember its proper meaning. This pendrive installation is done in a MuVo (from Nomad-Creative) MP3 player at 64MB. I had to download an api from HP to re-format the drive & make it booting device apart from other files that I had to download & move to it.
I think I do have Rox Filer. What's the newest version of DSL (I thought it was the current one when I installed it). My pendrive is almost completely full with this distro, so I cannot afford to have another one. I'm afraid also of tampering with it because it is working fine. I just want to learn how to use it with efficiently.
PS. To Simon Bridge: I followed the guide link you supplied & it's very good, nonetheless, I can't find the floppy icon related to any panel near the bottom-right corner of the desktop. I openned the emelfm api but I'm not sure how to proceed.

The word frugal has a special meaning with DSL. He means that you have a minimal install to a USB stick. That would be a default.
Ah - darn, then you may not have the latest version. Does your screen look like their screenshot?

In the screenshot, the panel you want has loads of audio controls. But it that stack, there is a bit labelled "hda3" in the screenshot, but probably "fd0" or "floppy" to you - but maybe something else. That is what you use. Also see:
http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/i...he_DSL_Desktop
... scroll past the icon descriptions.

Using emelfm, you want to navigate to /mnt to see if it shows hda1 etc
If it does, then the HDD is already mounted and you don't need to do more.

If none of this looks right, they your system gui may be too different from standard for me to use it, and I'll have to start giving you terminal instructions. Linus72 has already given you an example of this.

You definitely need to upgrade to latest dsl 4.4.10 or go for Tinycore which is the new DSL

do you understand frugal now?

I don't have Rox, linus 72.
Thank you Simon Bridge for responding. Yes, I know now that this installation is a frugal one (not the one with grub). My DSL is 2.4.31 on i686, how can I download a recent version from within DSL by means of Fx & install it without ruining what I already have.
Have been trying to access my hd from dsl without luck. I opened a Terminal window, wrote su & it asks for a password which I don't know (I don't know if I have to be considered su for been able to access/mount the hd but suspect so). I used emelfm.
The screenshot there is not like mine.
In emelfm, why are there two panes with a kind of 'menu' in the middle?
PS. I found a way to see my hd files with emelfm!!!

How big is your usb Benny7440?

I'm gonna hook you up with some good small distro's that won't mess with your dsl install and are easier to use, up to date
with flash10 too

how big is your usb and are you using syslinux to boot it?

how did you initially get dsl installed to usb?
from dsl cd?

Thanks for responding linus 72. My MuVo is just 64MB. Originally, it was an MP3 player made by Creative. I had to use an HP tool to re-format it & then used syslinux & a pair of other files to make it run. I downloaded everything with my dial-up connection (this is, partly, why I value so much what I have downloaded: it took me a very long time to do) --now I've a faster connection. I had to download also other tools for extracting some files to be used in the process (if I'm not wrong Isobuster was one of them). Again, thanks for all.

Wow 64mb usb?
Holy sh*t
thats small...

ok, first, dsl is 50mb
so, you would only be able to save about 12mb of stuff for persistence
no good

do you have spaxce on hd to save settings, and mydsl apps to?

dsl can save apps, settings, etc to your hd instead of usb

you are running dsl on a usb hooked to a windows pc?

Thanks linus 72 & yes, just 64 MB. One important thing for me to value this installation so much: imagine if you manage to put 5 elephants in a Volkswagon, for how long you would want them to stay there before letting them getting out.
I have enough space in the hd to put everything; by the way, is it a good idea to do with DSL as I'm doing with Puppy Linux? I've a dual-boot arrangement with windows & PL. I mean, can DSL run better if it is installed within the hd (but not in another partition). Have just one partition in this hd.
The way I'm running dsl is as follows:
1) the notebook is off;
2) I connect the pendrive to a usb port;
3) press the on switch; {my bios is configured to boot from this kind of source}
4) instead of going through the windows boot sequence the machine goes directly to
the os in the pendrive (DSL) & that's all there is to it.

I've read within the DILLO page appearing at the beginning & somewhere else too that within dsl comes some apps for installing to the hd; is this what I need to put dsl in equal terms with PL in a 'trio' array for booting? I mean, instead of having two different choices I might want to have three with dsl as one of them.

mmmm
you really should at least download the newest dsl version
named "current.iso"
and put that on your usb to replace the old one
seriously

BE CAREFUL
dsl when installing to hd, will just destroy windows/puppy etc and install itself

you must make a different partition for dsl

you could resize your windows partition
and make 3 more partitions
1 for dsl, puppy and other frugal distro's
1 for saving mydsl apps/settings etc to
1 for swap
and the 1st parttion would be youe windows partition
then you could also boot dsl from hd instead of usb

what do you e=wanna do?

Ok! Once I download the new dsl version, what's next?
What are my choices for creating those other partitions? Does that means that I must make a backup to, say, a cd & a backup of what?
By resizing the only partition that I have means repartitioning? What's the best tool(s) for backing-up/repartitioning-resizing the hd?
I don't know if you're aware of how I managed to have a dual-boot array with Windows & PuppyLinux, at a site related to "murga-linux.com/puppy" you may inspect how it's done and then tell me if what I mentioned at thread #11 is or not feasible.

OK
ill look at the puppy dual boot thing...
is it this?
http://www.icpug.org.uk/national/lin...00-linnwin.htm

so, I was messing around for like a week
and here's what I have in 1 partition on my hd
but, assuming Windows is on SDA1 or HDA1

here's what your setup might be like

sda1 windows

sda2 install Linux(s) here

sda3 swap (2 times your RAM = 512mb ram= 1gb swap)


1st step
DEFRAG windows completely + delete temp files,etc
then reboot and let it run for a while

2nd step
get PMAGIC-4.4 and burn to cd
http://partedmagic.com/

3rd step
boot up pmagic and open gparted
do you know how to use gparted to resize partitions?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jT8n9PKiFE

tell me when you get here...

Basically, we're (you) are going to install dsl into sda2
plus other distro's too
so, make sda2 at least 10-15gb

are you here now?