Friday, December 02, 2005

Damn Small Linux (DSL) was created by John Andrews whose main motive was to restrict the size of the resulting distribution but at the same time give a complete GUI environment which included all the softwares that a user might use on a day-to-day basis. He made sure that what ever softwares that are needed were included as long as the size of the resulting distribution could be restricted to just 50 MB. The result is what you see as Damn Small Linux.

Tiny Linux distributions are nothing new. In fact, the tiniest Linux distribution (Tomsrtbt) fits inside a floppy and has been arround quite some time. But what is unique about DSL is that it is one of the first distribution which contains a GUI environment contained in its small size and targeted at the ordinary user. Also unlike its other counter parts, it is actively maintained by its creator.