Damn Small Linux was at least partly responsible for the craze for miniature live distros. At around 50MB, DSL could fit onto a credit-card CD-R disc. This lead to many engineers carrying it around in their wallets as a catch-all fix-it disc, or simply so they could boot Linux on any machine they came across.

Alas, 50MB doesn’t give you much to play with. So some of the DSL developers have come up with DSL-N (the N stands for “not”, as in Damn Small Linux – Not). This is a parallel project, running alongside DSL. Additions with DSL-N include a 2.6 kernel, incorporating better driver support, and GTK2 support. There are some other refinements, such as Abiword word processor and Gnumeric spreadsheet. (Isn’t it about time somebody created a vastly hacked-down version of OpenOffice.org, so that it could be used in situations like this?)

At circa 80MB, DSL is no longer miniature. But it’s still damn small. It will fit onto (and can be booted from) a USB memory stick, for example. There’s no size cap but the developers point out on the website: “DSL is being developed by the DSL team and we hate bloat! So, don’t expect DSL-N to get too big.”

See the mirror page to download an ISO image. DSL-N can even run from inside Windows!