Heard at SCALE 6x: Damn Small Linux moving to Firefox 2

Damn Small Linux won't add just any application to its 50 MB distribution. But when there's a big hue and cry, things that users really need tend to get added. I thanked Robert Shingledecker for adding my favorite lightweight image editor, MtPaint, to DSL, and I'm anxiously awaiting another improvement:

Firefox in DSL will move from the current version 1 to the GTK 1 version of Firefox 2. That's a big deal because a lot of Web sites require at least Firefox 1.5 for full functionality. It means, for one thing that it'll be possible to use Google Docs and Spreadsheets with Damn Small Linux.

Robert has two machines running DSL at the booth. One was that really, really small Sony laptop, on which DSL looked great. The other was one of those great little Damn Small Machine fanless Mini-ITX PC's that are sold at the DSL Store. It had no hard drive. DSL booted off of a USB key, which was then pulled out of its jack.

I really, really want one of these little computers. I'm a huge fan of Mini-ITX and fanless machines in general. They save space as well as energy, and I really enjoy the quiet.

As far as the 3 series of Damn Small Linux, Robert is keeping its development going for at least the near future because it's the version that the Damn Small Linux book is based on.

As far as competition among the smaller-footprint distros go, Robert said there's no bad blood between DSL and Puppy Linux. "We're doing our own thing -- there's no rivalry," he said.

I mentioned the nascent Damn Small BSD project to Robert, and all he would say was that DSL's John Andrews was looking into the situation. I took that to mean they're not ecstatic about another project appropriating the "Damn Small" name.