blsJason's fun remastering DSLinux

[blsJason]

Well, today marks a huge milestone with using Linux... I've added an app to Damn Small Linux, remastered the CD, and learned quite a bit about the "mkisofs" command while I was at it.

Right now, I'm posting this message using Mozilla Suite 1.7.8 Navigator, while running DSL 1.1, no HDs involved.

Earlier today I thought I ran into problems making the CD, but turns out I forgot one important keystroke. Wow, it feels great knowing I fixed the problem myself, even though I solicited help from the community first...
 Read all about it here .
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[R Vijay]

Agreed this is a great learning experience from what I have heard. I tried it just once a long time ago (making my own live CD) and don't think I will try it again.

Vijay
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[johnlgalt]

Nice job.

I myself have started using the Jackass method from Gentoo to have an optimized toolchian for building my system. I plan on next creating a live CD that works on my systems alone - one for the Mendocino laptop and one for the P4 Desktop.

Thanks for the link Jason, I will surely use it to get a general feel for it when I go to build mine.

Oh, milestone for me as well - I am installing Gentoo on the laptop and the Desktop simultaneously - *while* I ma in Windows XP - the solution? VMWare.

As a plus, I am SSHd into *both* installs (via 2 separate SSH Sessions). The sharing of the CPU and memory on the Desktop makes it about as speedy as the Mendocino, and with SSH I am able to copy and paste everything to assure accuracy as well as speed the install....
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[DPW49]

blsJason,
I'm proud of you..it sounds like you are having a LOT more success with dsl than I am. When I try to use the 'live' cd version, my desktop doesn't display properly,( no images, icons, etc. ), also..since I still use a dial-up internet connection, I can't seem to get a connection setup like I easily can with linspire,puppy linux, knoppix. Also, there doesn't seem to be much in the way of help within the software. I'd really like to enjoy using dsl, if I could get it to work correctly.
David

[blsJason]

When I first started, DSL was in version 0.4.8. I downloaded it and didn't know how to do anything, not even access my hard drive/files/etc. Fortunatley, at the time DSL started up with a little help file that discussed the fact I needed to "mount" the drive - something completely new to me, since I was used to all drives/etc. immediately available to me in all other OSs I'd used either at home, school, or work (DOS, Win 3.x/9X, MacOS).

I will agree that DSL does skimp on the documentation, since the developers cut out most all documentation in the qwest to put more and more applications within 50 MB of space. They even reinvented the wheel when they added Firefox, recompiling it with GTK 1+ to make it smaller, rather than use the official GTK 2 download that's on Mozilla's website (this is part of the reason the version of Firefox is still 0.9.1, I'm sure). Unfortunatley, just looking at the  changelog  indicates that many of the programs included are stripped down, older, or someone patched a version to include more functions, that is now a very old version.

When I first started using DSL, most of the people at the forum stated this wasn't a distro for newbies, we should use a different distro because it wasn't designed for newbies. In reality, from what I've seen at the forums, these people are willing to help, provided people read the documentation that is provided, and use the search function (which really does work - horay!) on the forum to see if their question has been answered before asking, for example, if there is a point-and-click interface to change the background image when they start up the OS, like in Windows.

I haven't had any problem connecting to the internet using DSL (in fact, only setup I've connected with), after purchasing a hardware modem. It now has a program that asks for the settings (much like Windows' Internet Connection Wizard), and even allows for Dynamic DNS. Connecting to the internet is now as simple as a few keystrokes and pressing a button marked "Dial." I really like this, and in a previous post on I mentioned I like all the additional information about my connection that appears on my screen rather than the generic Windows "Connecting to server," "Verifying username and password," and "logging onto network" messages.

The fact most computers have winmodems (and that many people don't know the terms "hardware modem," "software modem," "DSP/HSP") would actually make Linux a huge consumer education campaign in order to appeal to the masses (IMO).

Almost everything I've learned about computers and Linux (espically) since 2001 (when I bought my computer) have come off the Internet, either in forums such as or web searches. I had another source of a lot of good info, a local computer magazine called "Computer Bits," unfortunatley, they seem to have gone out of business.
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Poetworld subscriber 2002-2012.
Don't buy Clearwire!

[R Vijay]

DPW49 wrote:

blsJason, I'm proud of you..it sounds like you are having a LOT more success with dsl than I am. When I try to use the 'live' cd version, my desktop doesn't display properly,( no images, icons, etc. ), also..since I still use a dial-up internet connection, I can't seem to get a connection setup like I easily can with linspire,puppy linux, knoppix. Also, there doesn't seem to be much in the way of help within the software. I'd really like to enjoy using dsl, if I could get it to work correctly. David

I still have similar problems with DSL on anotehr PC. Infact it doesn't even boot in that PC and freezes during the boot. Reason being that the DSL Kernel is kept minimal to keep the entire DSL lesser than 50MB. Hence, it doesn't work with some PCs. This not the fault of your PC or DSL. Best to assume that DSL is not for your PC. Some distros are for us and some not. That is why there is such a huge choice.

Vijay
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