Slashdot Mirror
Domain: damnsmalllinux.org
Stories and comments across the archive that link to damnsmalllinux.org.
Stories · 8
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Damn Small Linux Rises From the Dead With a 4.11 RC1 Release
An anonymous reader writes "Damn Small Linux is back from the dead, with a version 4.11 RC1 release announcement at Distrowatch and another at the DSL Forums! Quoting: 'Here is the first release candidate for Damn Small Linux (DSL) 4.11. The changes in this release are a step toward making DSL a friendly alternative for older hardware. I've fixed some bugs, updated some applications, and replaced others. Applications: updated JWM to 2.1.0 (now supports rounding); updated Dillo to 3.0.2 (much improves CSS support); added XChat 1.8.9; added sic 1.1 IRC client; added XCalc-color. Modified desktop functionality: it is now possible to switch between JWM and Fluxbox without shutting down X; added menu items to switch between DFM and xtdesk icon engines or use none at all." Here's the download page." -
Damn Small Linux Rises From the Dead With a 4.11 RC1 Release
An anonymous reader writes "Damn Small Linux is back from the dead, with a version 4.11 RC1 release announcement at Distrowatch and another at the DSL Forums! Quoting: 'Here is the first release candidate for Damn Small Linux (DSL) 4.11. The changes in this release are a step toward making DSL a friendly alternative for older hardware. I've fixed some bugs, updated some applications, and replaced others. Applications: updated JWM to 2.1.0 (now supports rounding); updated Dillo to 3.0.2 (much improves CSS support); added XChat 1.8.9; added sic 1.1 IRC client; added XCalc-color. Modified desktop functionality: it is now possible to switch between JWM and Fluxbox without shutting down X; added menu items to switch between DFM and xtdesk icon engines or use none at all." Here's the download page." -
Breathing Life Into Older Computers
Aron writes "ASE Labs has written an article on using a light distribution of Linux, Damn Small Linux, to power an older computer. With Linux, older computers can be useful once again for many people. From the article: "The oldest computer I have is a Pentium 266 MMX laptop with 64MB of RAM. Most people would just consider this to be garbage and junk it, and if you brought this in for service where I work, I would agree with you. While this laptop might seem old and out-of-date now, it is small and light. I needed something I could easily carry around, so I figured I would see what I could salvage out of this dinosaur. Windows would have a hard time running on this low-spec laptop, but there are many distributions of Linux that will work exceptionally well."" -
Secure, Portable, Virtual Privacy Machine
solcity writes "Looks like an online privacy company, Metropipe, are planning to release a secure linux virtual privacy machine that runs from a USB stick. The image contains a pre-release of their new 'Metropipe Tunneler' product and also contains Firefox, and Thunderbird with the Enigmail/gpg extension. Looks like the whole thing is based on damnsmalllinux and uses qemu to boot on Windows or Linux without any installation or configuration. Very interesting use of qemu and damnsmalllinux, and all 100% GPL." -
Hikarunix: The Go Distro
LGRiske writes "In this day and age of the Unreal Final Fantasy of Doom 3 it's nice to see a 4000 year old board game keep up the pace. There's now a whole Linux distribution dedicated to learning, playing and studying the oldest strategy game in the world, Go/Baduk/WeiQi. Named Hikarunix it is based on DamnSmallLinux, the Live Linux CD, and is small enough to fit on a 3" (80mm) miniCD. It is meant for Go players of all levels whether you've never even heard of the game or have been playing for decades." -
HagakiPC - "Postcard" PC
captainJam writes "The HagakiPC, Hagaki meaning postcard in Japanese, is a tiny PC with dimensions of 135 x 109 x 18mm and weighing in at 340g making it by far the lightest and 2nd slimmest handtop. Only 128MB RAM and a 640x480 VGA screen, plus there's no hard drive -- it's meant to run OS's from CF cards (great for D.S.L. and the like). Still only a prototype, so not much info is available, but what we do know (and a few photos) are here." Update: 09/01 12:14 GMT by T : Link to D.S.L. upgraded to a form that doesn't make some browsers choke. -
LiveCD for Secure Web Browsing?
An anonymous reader asks: "Say you want to do your online Internet banking on your home PC, with a bank that lets you send actual money to complete strangers online, and you want to be really, really sure that some hacker isn't stealing your password or your money or both. You don't fully trust Windows, despite your best efforts to keep it secure, and you know that no OS installed on a hard disk is guaranteed secure or immune to root-kits and the like. You know enough about computer security to know that you are always just one careless mouse click or one security hole away from being screwed. You've read the advice from your bank, which says 'turn up' your security settings (whatever that means), and don't click on 'unknown' links (ever). So what you really need is a bootable CD with software so simple and stripped down that it lets you browse the web and nothing else. The nearest I can think of is one of the Linux mini-LiveCD's with Mozilla or some other browser included, such as Damn Small Linux, or ByzantineOS. Such a system shouldn't even know how to speak to your hard drives. Do Slashdot readers know of anything like this?" -
Stop Christmas-Gift PCs From Feeding Worms
An Anonymous Reader writes "If you recently set up a new PC with Windows XP, or if you had the pleasure to do a 'reinstall from scratch,' you probably found that many XP systems as they are shipped today are not patched against common issues like Blaster. Given that these worms are still going strong, it doesn't take long for a new system to be infected. In particular, if you have to connect it to the Internet to download all the patches. Well, help is in sight. The SANS Institute released a paper entitled Windows XP: Surviving the First Day." (Read on below.) Update: 12/24 17:59 GMT by T : Thanks for reader Bill Curnow for the updated link. Update: 12/24 19:15 GMT by T : Besides the workaround suggested below, Roblimo has a good suggestion on avoiding the first-day-of-Windows altogether."With many screen shots, it will walk you through the procedure to enable the XP firewall and downloading the patches without getting infected while doing so. This could be the (free) stocking stuffer that may save Christmas for your folks ;-). Given that its probably to late now to start downloading your favorite Linux distro."
But if you do have the time and bandwidth, and you're stuck on Windows, a nice live-CD distro like Knoppix or Mepis means you can download patches without racing the worms, and install your patches while offline. (And if you have time to download 50MB, you have time to grab Damn Small Linux.)