Facendo pulizia nella mia stanza/studio/ufficio/salaprove stavo per gettare nella spazzatura un bel po’ di materiale che invece si è rivelato essere utile. Per prima cosa ho trovato una scheda madre polverosa con sopra un Intel Pentium III… mi sono detto “che tuffo nella preistoria”. Poi pesco un HD Western Digital da 20GB… poi spunta fuori un alimentatore mezzo spaccato e senza ventola da 250W ma miracolosamente funzionante… e ancora una RAM da 256Mb 133Mhz e infine una scheda video PCI di non so quale casa produttrice sconosciuta! Mi sono detto “cavoli! questo è un PC pronto da assemblare!!!”.

Mi sono messo all’opera e ho assemblato il tutto in un vecchio box di legno per subwoofer che avevo in garage… giusto per dargli una forma. A questo punto già ci vedevo schiaffata sopra una DSL (Damn Small Linux), bella veloce, scarna e dotata di una reattività che sarebbe utopia su un sistema del genere. Ma qualcosa non mi convinceva… troppi compromessi, poca intuitività. Del resto sono cose che affermano il team di sviluppo stesso: “poco consigliata a chi cerca un sistema intuitivo e facile da configurare”. Quindi il via alla ricerca.

Non dico di non averla mai conosciuta, ma ci passavo sempre sopra senza nemmeno accorgermi di lei. Proprio come accade al liceo quando la ragazza più bella che hai mai visto non ti degna nemmeno di uno sguardo… si dico a te. Si proprio tu nerd brufoloso XD.

PC Linux OS… precisamente con LXDE… favoloso! Non mi sarei mai aspettato tanta versatilità e semplicità. Mi pento di non averla mai provata prima. L’installazione è facilissima e il parco software standard è già fornitissimo e inoltre accoppiato con apt-get potremo avere qualsiasi programma desideriamo! La leggerezza e la reattività sono i punti forti di questa distribuzione, almeno nella versione che ho provato io con LXDE… di certo su un sistema come quello sopra descritto non potevo pretendere di farci girare senza bestemmie un DE come GNOME o KDE.

Sono presenti Midori come browser predefinito, davvero leggero e veloce nella navigazione… nulla da invidiare a Firefox, comprese le tab. E’ già presente emesene e XChat per soddisfare qualsiasi esigenza di instant messaging. Abiword svolge alla grande il suo ruolo di write editor… non vi svelo altro e vi invito a provarla anche nelle altre versioni e magari mi dite cosa ne pensate!

Saluti.

En este tutorial veremos como instalar el sistema operativo Damn Small Linux, una distribución de Linux ideada para ser portable mediante una maquina virtual, debido al poco espacio que necesita para funcionar bien (300 MB), para poder realizar la instalacion de Small Damn Linux en una maquina virtual previamente particionada os recomiendo la lectura de los dos tutoriales relacionados:

1. Creación de una maquina virtual con Virtual Box
2. Crear particiones con la herramienta cfdisk (Linux)

Una vez realizados los pasos explicados en los dos anteriores enlaces, podremos comenzar la sencilla y rápida instalación de Damn Small Linux.

Primero, tendréis que averiguar el nombre de vuestra partición primaria, para ello, podéis acceder a la herramienta cfdisk (simplemente teclear cfdisk en la terminal) y comprobar el nombre, podéis localizarlo fácilmente en la primera columna, llamada “Name“, memorizáis el nombre que aparece prestando atención a que es el nombre de la partición primaria y no el de la lógica, en este tutorial, consideraremos que el nombre de la partición primaria es “sda1″.

Para empezar la instalación debemos abrir la terminal (shell) y teclear  “sudo dsl-hdinstall sda1” (repito, sda1 es en mi caso), empezará la instalación no sin antes pedirnos diversas confirmaciones que en la imagen que pongo a continuación veréis, los recuadros rojos señalan todo lo que deberéis teclear salvo el nombre de la partición que puede ser distinta en vuestro caso y alguna opción que es mas bien opcional.

1. Iniciar la instalación del sistema operativo.
2. Introducir la partición en la que se instalará el sistema operativo, dependerá del nombre que haya recibido nuestra partición primaria, en mi caso “sda1“
3. Confirmamos si deseamos poder disponer de mas de un usuario en el Sistema operativo, (“y” para decir si, “n” para decir no)
4. Seleccionamos si deseamos utilizar el sistema de archivos Ext3 o el Ext2, nos avisa de que el sistema Ext3 necesita mas recursos que el Ext2, en mi caso, deseo un sistema ligero, por lo tanto, selecciono el sistema Ext2 tecleando “n“.
5. Nos avisa de que formateará la partición y perderemos todos los datos que hay en ella, confirmamos pues esta completamente vacía tecleando “y“
6. Nos preguntará si queremos un cargador de arranque (boot loader), en mi caso tecleo  “y” para que veáis las consiguientes preguntas sobre el boot loader, si escogéis que no (“n“) el sistema operativo cargará automáticamente sin necesidad de seleccionarlo primero, el boot loader es útil al disponer de varios S.O en una única maquina permitiéndote escoger cual iniciar, si vais a disponer únicamente de un SO, escoged que no queréis boot loader y pasad al paso 9 de este tutorial.
7. Podremos elegir entre el gestor de arranque GRUB o LILO, escoged el que os parezca mas bonito o que creáis es mejor, en mi caso, escojo GRUB pues se ha convertido en el estándar de los gestores de arranque, por lo tanto tecleo “g” (teclear “l” si preferís lilo)
8. Nos preguntará si tenemos instalado Windows en el ordenador (en mi caso en la maquina virtual) para así incluirlo en el GRUB y poder escoger cual de los dos iniciar, si disponemos de un Windows en el ordenador y estamos utilizando una maquina virtual para instalar el Damn Small Linux seleccionamos que no (“n“), pues el Windows no se encuentra en el mismo “ordenador” que el Linux, pensad que una maquina virtual simula ser un ordenador ajeno al nuestro por mucho que esté “dentro” del mismo.
9. Para que los cambios surtan efecto, reiniciamos el ordenador tecleando “y“

Listo, ya disponemos del Sistema operativo Damn Small Linux, una distribución de Linux fácilmente portable en cualquier pendrive gracias a los 300Mb que únicamente ocupa y gracias a las maquinas virtuales, pero que también puede serviros como SO en vuestro ordenador de sobremesa (no es la opción mas recomendable pero bueno…)

In the process of trying to set up an old hand-me-down laptop – DELL 433C (A.D.1994) – with Damn Small Linux, I came across this Infoworld review (archived by Google).

This machine had: a 33MHz 486processor, 4MB RAM, and a 170MB hard drive, and retailed for only: $2699.00 – Wow!

In fact, I haven’t figured out exactly how to get the new OS installed (to replace Win95). There is no CD drive, and no network card. So it’s booting off and installing from a 3.5″ floppy. I’ve had a hard time finding a functional floppy drive around the office to write a boot disk. Looks like I will have to start with http://www.toms.net/rb/. Wish me luck.

UPDATE: 10/16/2009

Mission accomplished. I have a Linux version running that booted off a single 3.5″ floppy. The hardest part was getting the 1.7MB file (tomsrtbt-2.0.103.dos.zip) on a floppy. This entailed tracking down a functioning drive connected to a functioning computer. Then rather than playing fdformat to create a 1.7MB disc, I had to find a Win95 and WinXP compatible (16bit) file splitting utility (only succes was JSPlit.exe, 168KB) that would create files smaller than 1.44MB in WinXP, copy them to Win95, join the files under DOS and start the *.bat to create a 1.7MB Linux img file that’s written back to the floppy and then booted - or something like that…

Upon reading responses to my previous post, I decided to put some of the community’s suggestions to the test and examine some of the other options out there. Of the suggestions given, I primarily focused my attention on Debian (Lenny), Damn Small Linux and the wattOS beta.  All the distros had relative advantages and disadvantages, and this provided me with an opportunity to look at some distros I otherwise might not have.

The first distro I took a serious look at was Debian (Lenny).  It seemed like the “safest” route, which should theoretically allow me to build what I need from the ground up.  I didn’t bother with a Live CD, I just pulled down an installer .iso and went from there.  The installer was pretty straightforward, and I only encountered one major issue.  Actually, this issue was more “show-stopper” than “major.”  Due to the nature of what I’m doing, I need to have wireless network access on these laptops (Gateway model 450ROG), which happen to use Intel Centrino(TM) mobile technology (specifically, the Intel Pro Wireless 2100 card).  So I hit the network portion of the install, and the installer comes back with, “you need a non-Free driver.  If you have this particular Intel driver on removable media, insert it now.”

Yay.

I locate a USB drive and the drivers, and download and extract them as per the instructions, then insert the USB drive into the laptop, tell it to continue, and… nothing.  I don’t know if the computer isn’t seeing the drive or if it isn’t seeing the driver or if it’s just having a hissy fit because the driver wasn’t personally sanctified by Richard M. Stallman.  What I do know is that the installer crapped out on me.  Fine.  I’ll just exercise my Google-fu and see what I can find out.  And lo, I discover that Debian had removed that removed that driver from the standard package in a previous bug fix (what the bug actually was, I couldn’t figure out, beyond, “I don’t think we need this any more.”  Gee, thanks.)

So I’m faced with a couple of choices: I can continue to fight with this (meaning I’d probably have to compile a new kernel with the Intel driver and then build from there), or I can move on to another distro and see if I can accomplish the same basic thing with less work.  As luck would have it, I had another damn small distro ready to test.

First and foremost, Damn Small Linux is fast. It is exactly what it claims to be: thin, lightweight and efficient.  The interface is intuitive enough for what I need, and it makes the laptop absolutely sing.  It’s not as pretty as the Gnome or LXDE environments (it uses JWM), but it certainly does what I need it to.  My hopes for DSL were quite high indeed.

Then Intel once again reared its ugly head.  I was less surprised at DSL’s lack of compatibility than I was with Debian’s, but it was annoying nevertheless.  What was surprising to  me was that the only workaround they had available for this card was ndiswrapper, and it would require a bit of legwork on my end to get it to work.  I was hoping for a simple fix, but alas, it was not to be. And this was particularly annoying because DSL was so ideal in so many other ways.

So now I was faced with the question: dare I trust the project to a distro that’s still in beta?

Right off the bat, wattOS had one major advantage over the other 2 distros I’d tried: it recognized the wireless card with no problems.  Actually, it behaved very much like many of the other Ubuntu distros and derivatives I’d tried.  The install process was easy, familiar and painless.  And I must admit, there’s something comforting about the familiar, even when you’re trying something new.

For those not familar with wattOS, the best way for me to describe it is as a “thin”, laptop-optimized version of Ubuntu which (contrary to what Distrowatch reports) uses LXDE as its default desktop environment (Distrowatch says it defaults to Openbox). By default, it includes Firefox, AbiWord, Gimp, Pidgin and a handful of others. Noticeably missing are OpenOffice.org and Thunderbird.

WattOS is still in beta, and it shows.  The login screen offers the opportunity to select a session (by hitting F1),  including LXDE, XFCE, openbox, ion3, icewm, wmaker and blackbox.  (I do find it curious that fluxbox didn’t make the cut, since it’s one of the thinnest of the thin). Unfortunately, of the listed WMs, LXDE is the only one that actually got installed.  Attempts to switch WMs failed, because the distro didn’t actually include them.  Installing the environments remedied this problem, but in my mind, that’s a fundamental shortcoming, and one I hope is resolved when they come out of beta.  It’s also still fairly thin on management tools.  While Synaptic Package Manager was included, the Gnome Update Manager was not.  That, however, was nothing apt-get couldn’t solve for me, and amazingly, it works just fine in LXDE.

So where do we stand?

As things stand right now, I’m still not sold on any one distro/desktop combination.  Damn Small Linux (with JWM) is the runaway performance winner,  but the lack of support for my wireless card makes it problematic.  Debian looks like it will be a fair amount of headache for a small gain: there are other thin distros out there that offer what Debian does, including APT, so my incentive to go that route is greatly diminished.

I love Mint’s management tools. In many ways, I consider it an improved Ubuntu.  But I also really like what wattOS is doing. They’re clearly not there yet, but they’ve shown me enough that I definitely want to spend more time with it, seeing if I can turn the beta version into what I need.  For the time being, I’m going to experiment with some of the less-common environments on wattOS and see how well that works.

En Kernel.org hicieron algo que puede dejar a tus Live CD de Linux en el olvido, ya que desde ahora puedes iniciar un sistema operativo Linux desde Internet sin necesidad de descargar un CD completo.

Como podrás ver en boot.kernel.org (BKO), el concepto es bastante simple:  descarga un pequeño archivo de inicio, quémalo en un CD, USB o diskette, inicia con él y automáticamente el resto del sistema será descargado desde internet.

La idea no es tan nueva ni tirada de las mechas. Desde hace años que un sistema operativo Linux se puede iniciar desde una red, pero tal uso sólo era práctico en redes locales, y ésto requería configurar un servidor propio que alojara los archivos necesarios para que se inicie el sistema. Ahora con este nuevo mecanismo, los muchachos de BKO son quienes se encargan de dejar el sistema disponible, y el usuario sólo necesita quemar su archivo de inicio.

El archivo de inicio es de sólo 200KB para USB y Floppy, y unos 500KB en su versión CD.  Lo recomendable es usar la opción USB ya que eso permitirá grabar información en el mismo disco.

¿Para qué puede servir? Ademas de ser algo en sí mismo entretenido para cualquier geek, el hecho de que se pueda seleccionar qué distribución de Linux se va a iniciar permite probarlas sin tener que descargar un disco completo.  Entre las distribuciones de Linux disponibles en BKO también podemos encontrar algunas orientadas a rescatar sistemas, algo que incluso puede servir a los usuarios de Windows en caso de que su sistema no quiera iniciar, o se encuentren con un sistema de archivos NTFS corrupto (Been there, done that).

En este momento se pueden encontrar las mencionadas herramientas de rescate y las distribuciones Debian, Ubuntu 9.04, Damn Small Linux, Knoppix 5.0.1 y Fedora 11.

Y no, no esperes que tu sistema se inicie en sólo 5 segundos como ya lo está haciendo Ubuntu con discos SSD. El tiempo será tan bueno como tu conexión a Internet, y el soporte de hardware como siempre depende de cada distribución.

Via:FayerWayer

Damn Small Linux (DSL) is a distro that’s less than 50MB. It’s great for booting off a USB stick (directions here). The problem (or feature) is that by default things don’t persist on DSL. To get that working, you’ll want to periodically back stuff up somewhere– in my case, I wanted to plop it back on the original drive I booted from.

To do that, just right click somewhere on the desktop and go to system > backup/restore. You’ll need to enter in the device that represents your USB stick (probably sda1). This will write a gzipped tar file to the drive. To restore, you just need to supply a “cheat code” of “dsl restore=sda1″. Note that this won’t remove any of the default files already in the home directory (e.g. events.cal) on the restore; it only restores stuff you’ve added or changed.

Also, the USB drive is mounted under /cdrom, so you can manually fish out any additional data you’ve stuck there as well.

So the BBC featured on their website an interview with ‘LJ Rich’ (I wonder what LJ might stand for), a technology reporter for the BBC’s technology show ‘Click‘. Click has always been to technology what the ‘People’s Friend‘ has been to contemporary literature, so I didn’t expect much.  A jolly man asked ‘LJ’ (I wonder whether this was themed after ‘AJ’ from that ground breaking eighties show ‘Simon and Simon”) what the best thing would be to refresh that old Laptop/Desktop that takes ages to boot and slow to run. Cue the age old litany about how to defragment and clear up your HD, reinstall XP (‘but don’t forget to backup, otherwise everything is lost!’) and other Windows centric tips (apparently Mac user don’t have to worry, everything takes care of itsself).

That this is not geared towards the technophiles in this world is self evident, but if you advise to reinstall your terrible OS, why not then quickly mention the possibility of installing a DIFFERENT OS that would turn your computer into something usable again. Xubuntu, Ubuntu Netbook Remix or Slax (not to mention Damn Small Linux, which I confess is more for advanced users) will turn your old banger into a veritable hive of activity, makes you forget about viruses and gives you the same quality applications that you are using on your lame Windows desktop anyway (apart from Office, but OO is more than a replacement these days).

On the other hand, what can you expect from the makers of ‘Click’.

Sigh.

My laptop is a piece or crap, I know this. 512Mb of RAM, Intel graphics card and a Intel Centrino Duo processor is nothing to write home about. This is why when I read that Xubuntu is a Linux OS designed for low-end machines, I downloaded the ISO, burned a live CD and had it installed in little over two hours. Now, if you are new to Linux and would like to know what Xubuntu has to offer you (Or any Canonical distribution for that matter) I suggest you take a look here. For everyone else, I’ll cut to the chase.

I installed Xubuntu because I wanted a very fast desktop that was stable and made the best usage of resources available. Xubuntu disappointed me on all these points.

Speed: I had previously been using Ubuntu 9.04, which I found slightly sluggish when using applications like Firefox and XBMC. Xubuntu did seem a bit quicker when navigating folders (Xfce being the desktop environment and thunar the file manager) but not a lot faster with resource hungry apps open. Worse, Xubuntu proved ABSOLUTELY unusable while installing new packages, something both the experienced user and the curious newbie do frequently. I also experienced several bouts of CPU 100% during each day with no obvious offender.

Stability: I never had problems with stability in Ubuntu, save when upgrading to a new release rather than installing it fresh. Xfce suffered a bug in where the entire system would stall, and even hitting standby would produce no results. This could happen every 3-4 days, taking into account I shutdown at least every two days.

Ease of Use: Ubuntu comes with a strong suite of applications included such as OpenOfice, Tomboy Notes, Firefox and Pidgin. Xubuntu sacrifices some of these for faster equivalents which is understandable. However, with the amount I use the former two apps I mentioned, I had to install them myself, which means an extra 300+ MB download at each new release.
On Ubuntu, it is simple to toggle touchpad preferences, and within 5 mins of install I had turned off the dreaded “tap-to-click”. There was no such similar GUI for Xubuntu, and this led to stressful editing of config files.

Worth a Install?: Simply, no. I appreciate the amount of work the community puts into a release like Xubuntu but if you’re system can’t handle Ubuntu, then you should look to other distributions such as Crunchbang Linux or even DSL (Damn Small Linux)

If you have any problems with my review, or would like to share your own experiences, please leave a comment.

När jag började på min nya arbetsplats i våras, hittade jag en oanvänd dator i ett rum fullt av bråte. Ingen visste något om den och i en inventering som skedde i juni, kom den inte ens med, utan jag fick ringa och tala om att den fanns. Men vad var det för en dator och skulle man kunna använda den till något?

Som användare av Ubuntu tänkte jag genast på att man skulle kunna installera Edubuntu på den. Förr var det ett fristående operativsystem som byggde på Ubuntu, men nu mera är det ett lager med pedagogiska program, som man kan installera med “Lägg till/ta bort” direkt i Ubuntu.

Jag frågade om jag fick ta hem datorn och kolla. Det var OK och nu idag har jag haft igång den gamla maskinen. Efter att ha pluggat in diverse utrustning, startade jag. Jag ändrade i BIOS för att få datorn att starta från CD-skiva. Så pass ny är i alla fall datorn. Men det visade sig att det också var allt. Efter en stund kunde jag se att starten av Ubuntu lagt av p g a brist på resurser.

Så jag bytte taktik och lade in en skiva med Damn Small Linux istället. Och, då fick jag upp datorn. Jag kunde då få fram följande data om den gamla datorn.

• Processor: 200MHz
• Arbetsminne: 64MB
• Grafikminne: 2MB
• Hårddisk: 2GB
• Operativsystem: Windows 98

Nu kunde jag första varför det inte funkade med Ubuntu!

Det här får mig att tänka på hur snabb utvecklingen har varit. Antagligen var den här datorn ny någon gång 1999 eller 2000 och den användes troligen fram till 2002. Runt 2004 har någon använt den till enkla barnprogram, t ex Pippi. Tio år senare duger den inte till något, om man inte är en riktig datornörd. Men den duger inte till något som små barn ska kunna använda.

Tittar man på systemkraven för Ubuntu, ser de ut så här. De rekommenderade värdena inom parentes.

• Processor: 300MHz (700MHz)
• Arbetsminne: 64MB (384MB)
• Grafik: ett grafikkort som klarar VGA-grafik och en upplösning på minst 640×480. (1024×768)
• Hårddisk: minst 4GB (8GB)

Så långt har utvecklingen gått på tio år! Hur länge sedan var det som man kunde hitta datorer med den prestandan ute i affärerna?

Och ändå är inte Ubuntu ett operativsystem som är allt för krävande när det gäller resurser. Jag kunde köra ett par riktigt lättviktiga operativsystem som bygger på Linux. Damn Small Linux nämnde jag ovan, men det gick även med Puppy Linux. Tyvärr är det inget man sätter i händerna på barn som är 3 – 5 år gamla.

Nej, min plan gick inte att sätta i verket. Jag får vänta till nästa år, då Stockholms stad ska byta ut de datorer de har nu. Om det nu inte dyker upp någon yngre dator som jag kan använda.

I came about Damn Small Linux or DSL for short while searching through Linux’s other distros.  I wanted to try out Red Hat and Debian, but the ISO files are way too big.  Then I came accross Knoppix and DSL.

Information from wiki on DSL here.

I downloaded the installer for DSL from here and installed it in my VBox.  I’ll post my reviews next time.