Posted: 7/10/2007 5:03:24 PM EDT
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I was reading this months issue of popular science and the article on their $72 computer has me interested. I have a bunch of old parts, and junk laying around so i'm gonna give it a try. Now i've got the basic computer setup, but I don't have any sort of drives hooked up. They list an operating system called damn small linux or DSL. Supposedly you can boot, and run this mini computer from a USB flash drive. I'm not super computer literate, and have never used any linux program. I have the basic computer setup for the project, but i'm kinda lost with setting up the USB drive, and the DSL to fire everything up. So does anyone have any experience with DSL? Thoughts, suggestions on all of this? Here are some links as to what i'm talking about: http://www.popsci.com/popsci/how20/157a2ea4fc033110vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ |
Let me start off by saying I'm no computer guru either, but I've ran both DSL and Puppy Linux off a live cd - not at the same time of course!  - and from my flash drive as a guest operating system. Both are designed to run on older systems with minimal resources. (Minipup is a Puppy Linux derivative designed to run on mini-pc's.) You can download the Minipup .iso file from here and burn to a cd. Try it out on your desktop or laptop by inserting the cd in your drive and restarting. It'll should work exactly the same way in the system you put together. Same thing with DSL, just download the .iso file for it and burn to cd. If your system can boot off of a cd or a flash drive, you should be able to just plug one in (or put a cd in your cd drive) and restart your system - linux should do the rest (just follow the directions if you have any prompts.) I'm not sure I would build a system like the one in the article you posted when you can pick up a cheap pc for $25 on craigslist. I'd rather buy a mini-pc for about $100 bucks than build my own, but if you've got the parts... If you don't have a cd drive installed, and your BIOS is set to scan for bootable usb drive (or bootable cd), you should be able to do the same from a usb drive. Check out the tutorials at PenDriveLinux.com for help. ETA: I just noticed this on the link you posted: 
If it was me, I'd ask questions at the DSL (or Puppy Linux) forums for for help with that... My.02, YMMV... |
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Thank you very much for those links, and the help. I'm going to fool around, and see what I can get going. I know you can buy pretty cheap computers these days, but I had an old HP pavillion with no drives laying around. I was going to throw it out, but figured I could use the motherboard and parts for something. That's why im attempting this project. |
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I gave DSL a chance at doing the bootable flash drive setup. However, it became more of a pain then it was worth. You have to convert the ISO and a bunch of other non-standard shit to get it on the drive. Then you have to worry about whether the PC you are using will handle booting from a Flash Drive. For my needs (using it at school to bypass their restricted Windows machines) it didn't cut it. Mainly because BIOS was locked on the computers and so I couldn't configure it to boot from the Flashdrive. But other then that slight issue, DSL is a solid small footprint distro. It is not meant to be used to extensively as many many packages are missing, such as gcc and apt. But for surfing the web and other menial tasks its great. |