The little Genius. Review on Demi Size Linux

Yes, Demi Sized Linux (DSL from now on) can be called the Tendulkar of Linuxes. It's USP is its size (50 MB!) and yet it can do almost all that your normal linux can do!

DISCLAIMER: This article is meant for people who have used linux (and more importantly , installed) on their machines.

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DSL is a live-cd. That means you dont need to install it to your hard drive before using it. Just pop the cd in, use it , pop it out , reboot and you are back in good old windows (or whatever else you were using)

Advantages:

1) Extremely small size: Its all of 50 MB in size. And its not text-only. Has a complete point and click interface (X Server for the technically inclined, with OpenBox as the wm).

2) Versatile: It can boot from regular size cd's, small size cds and even bizcards and USB drives.

If you are interested , you can even install it to your hard drive

3) Easy to remaster: Suppose you want ''that app'' . And its not there in the DSL cd. What do you do? Well it has a wizard using which you can add/remove any apps to the cd and then burn your own customized cd. This process is called ''remastering''. In DSL we can do it easily (normally its a nightmare, trust me!)

4)Excellent Hardware Detection:: I have used in on all kinds of machines. I have even managed to run it on a laptop without a hard disk and then managed to browse the net while listening to mp3s on it. All on a laptop without a hard drive! Don't believe me? Please go to https://livejournal.com/community/wearesphinx/82849.html

5)Multimedia Support You can play mp3s on it out of the box. I normall boot via the cd, then eject it, insert the mp3 cd and listen to the songs while browsing the net. As I told you before, this laptop does not have a hard drive (got damaged in an accident)

6) Good, lightweight Graphical User Interface: It's a pleasure to use and a joy to experiment with. Is not heavy like GNOME or KDE. Has the most common features on the screen by a futuristic-looking panel.

Use as a rescue cd:: DSL makes a very good rescue cd, especially for novice user, thanks to its rich collection of tools, aided by an intuitive interface

Use to introduce somebody to linux: Want to convince your friend that linux is better than windows? Simple! Take out his hard drive, and boot into DSL. Play some songs, browse the net (yes, it has FireFox in built!), administer your network and do a myriad set of things

Anybody is guranteed to be impressed!

Drawbacks

1) No support for videos: Yup you wont be able to play videos on this OS. For a multimedia alternative to DSL try Puppy Linux (puppylinux.org)

2)Requires 256MB or more RAM- this is because the entire OS is stored in memory (technically on ramdisk)

Conclusion

Use it as a rescue cd or for using previously-thought-unusable hardware. Use it amaze your friends. And most importantly use it as a risk-free learning tool (you dont even need to shut down DSL, you can simply pull the plug, as DSL does not touch the hard disk!)

USE DSL!