And this thing wasn't a gripe about swearing. It was a gripe about how it's harder to take a name like Damn Small Linux seriously.

thats easy cause once you try damn small you will see that its small size is very handy when you dont have mega memory.there is also a fork of damn small called damn small linux-n,the n is for not.

Golly,shucks and darn. Sounds like a bunch of ubuntu to me.

I think DSL-DamnSmallLinux to be appropriate for what it is designed to be-"50 MegaBytes of Penguin Power".

Afterall it's not how big your linux is, it's how you use it.

newbiesforever:
My first impression was that it sounded like a "live" distro to try as I had been looking for one that was small and functional.

I was really impressed how serious the developers and users worked together to make it what it is today.If you are a close follower of Distrowatch you will see that of the 100 ditributions listed DSL is ranked 6th for activity.

"Don't judge a book by its cover nor a distro by its name!"

Try it you might like it.

I really like DSL. I run it in quem on a USB Stick inside Windows XP. I can take it and move to any computer at school and have all my files. But I would agree that the name gets censored allot.

Well, I'm not trying to be censorious. The problem for me is that the name sounds faintly ridiculous.

One problem I have with this name is that if I were to take it to school, a teacher might come by my computer and see the D word all over my screen.

A rose by any other name...

hmmm... it's small, it's Linux; hey, it's DAMN small. It's DAMN SMALL LINUX!!! No problem.

Words' meanings change over time. No one defines whether a word is a "swear word". If the general consensus is that "damn" is not offensive, then that's what goes. Are you offended by the word humbug? There was a time where that was just about the most insulting thing you could call a person.

I think I'll create my own fork... Humbug Linux

I have tried DSL-N and I dont care for it that much. I like the hard drive installation, and you cant do that with DSL-N, only the Frugal install(mimics the live cd as oposed to installing a debian system).

I guess DSL-N has a few extra packages in it, but I found it to not be as friendly to add ons and custom work as plain DSL is.

Well, those of you who are offended are in luck. It seems so me they are trying to change the name to demi sized linux (odd, doesn't demi mean half?), which can be seen on the default start page for dsl firefox at http://dslos.com/. I usually say it's darn or dang small linux to friends parents and such when they ask, but then again, I told my dad wtf stood for where's the fish when he saw my "mad penguin" kde splash on my laptop. Oh well, funny world. --Andrew

I agree, the name D***SmallLinux sets the premise that only naughty children use it. It does not set the tone of professionalism that all the successful commercial products can boast about.

As a Christian evangelical organization, we've gone to considerable effort to remove all references of the name "Damn Small Linux" from this distribution so that we can make use of its brilliant size while not compromising Christian values.

It's unfortunate we can't really tell our users what flavour of Linux we're using for this project. Even if swear words are just a trivial thing, it only takes a few snowflakes to start an avalanche in the world of gossip and politics.

damn is only a swear word to religious folk who believe in damnation. in our secular society it's synonomous with "really" or "very", as oneandoneis2 clearly stated. and it certaintly doesn't represent a decline in our society, as old fogie said, because then you would be implying that any society without religious roots are, in all sense of the word, bad...

in conclusion, a word is just a word, nothing else.
i like the name DamnSmallLinux. it's abbreviation DSL is irritating at worst.