Damn Small Linux (also known as DSL) is a ?Linux distribution for the ?"x86" architecture, originally in a ?Bootable business card ?["LiveCD"] format, it is now also capable of being installed to and run from the ?hard disk, a ?USB flash drive, a ?Compact Flash card, inside a ?Microsoft Windows or ?"Linux" host environment via ?"Qemu", a ?ZIP drive, and just about any other bootable media that can contain the required 50 ?"MB". Although the DSL project has maintained its 50 ?"mb" size limit, it still includes many essential desktop applications. Damn Small Linux was originally conceived and maintained by John Andrews, but has grown into a large community project with many contributors, most notably Robert Shingledecker for the creation of the ["MyDSL"] system, DSL Control Panel, and tons of other stuff.

==Origins==

Although John based DSL originally on Model_K, a 22mb hack-down of ?"Knoppix", DSL is now based on ?"Knoppix" proper, allowing much easier remastering and improvements.

==What can fit in 50 megabytes?==

Now in its 9th iteration (0.9.0), Damn Small Linux has a complete desktop, including: DSL Media Player, which is a Flua wrapper for ?"mpg123", ?"ogg123", and Enjoympeg, ?"FTP" client and server, ?Mozilla Firefox web browser, ?"Dillo" web browser, links-hacked web browser, Siag Office (Pathetic Writer ?word processor and the Siag ?"spreadsheet"), ?"Sylpheed" email, spellcheck (US English), some editors (Minimum Profit, ?Vim (text editor), ?Nano), graphics editing and viewing (?"Xpaint", and ?"xzgv"), Xpdf, ?["emelFM"] (?file manager), Naim (AIM, ICQ, IRC), ["VNCviewer"], Rdesktop, SSH/SCP server and client, DHCP client, PPP, ["PPPoE"] (ADSL), Monkey web server, calculator, generic and ?GhostScript printer support, ?Network File System, games, system monitoring apps, a host of command line tools, USB support, and ?"PCMCIA" support. DSL has built in scripts for the download and installation of Debian's ?Advanced Packaging Tool a.k.a Apt, and ?"Synaptic", the ?"gui" for Apt. Additionally Damn Small Linux provides on-demand download for large programs such as ?OpenOffice.org and the ?"Gcc" as well as smaller apps like ?"Xmms" by means of the ["MyDSL"] system, which allows users the convenience of 1 click download and installation of apps (although most DSL users refer to all things ["MyDSL"] as extensions). As of December 7, 2004, the ["MyDSL"] servers are hosting over 200 apps, plugins, and other extensions available for installation.

==The MyDSL System, or Stuffing the Penguin==

The ["MyDSL"] extensions and servers are handled and maintained by the enigmatic Ke4nt and hosted by many kind organizations, such as ?"Ibiblio" and Belgium's Belnet. There are 2 areas of the ["MyDSL"] servers - regular and testing. The "regular" area contains extensions that have been proven stable enough for everyday use and is broken down into different areas such as "Apps", "Net", "system", and "uci" (Universal Compressed ISO - extensions in .uci format mount as a separate filesystem to save ?random access memory space). The Testing Area is for newly submitted extensions that theoretically work "as advertised", but may have any number of bugs.

==External links *[http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ Damn Small Linux website]