DSL was a tiny Linux distro that was reliable, fast and equipped with decent applications. Run an old DSL CD on your computer and it will probably boot.. but the web browser won't be accepted on today's interweb.
New DSLStill fits on a CD. Download the iso file from the webpage. Today rc7 release candidate 7 is the up to date file. Check that it is around 685MB in size. Right click and select Burn disc image.
We can make a live USB to boot our computer. Our iso can fit on either a CD or DVD. Combo drives can handle multiple formats. Look for DVD and Blu-ray labels on your machine. Burn disc image will fail if there is no drive. The process may take several minutes.
On Linux K3B is a good program for creating bootable CDs and DVDs. K4B even works with Windows installer. There is also the DD data destroyer command.
This depends upon your computer. It may already be set up to boot from your CD. Or you may have to go into something called the BIOS basic input output system.
In our project Troubleshoot an Old PC with Puppy Linux we got this boot override menu by pressing F12 after power. Arrow keys move the highlight up and down to select.
This is a good sign. We are booting the CD and reading our startup options for our DSL session. If your computer hangs for an extended period of time, restart and try Safe Video Mode or Failsafe Boot. Boot from hard disk may get you into old Windows.
Watch your boot progress and read error/warning messages. If you see a message p - poweroff or r - reboot then poweroff, DSL is not compatible with your computer.
This is a new user interface/experience called fluxbox. Right-click on the screen and you get a long menu. Your username is demo and the password is demo. Stats show RAM/network status.
This is a very basic set of programs to connect and surf the web. You can write word docs and edit pictures.
Open a terminal and try some Linux CLI commands: ls, pwd, which, ifconfig. $ sudo dmesg gives you a useful log of messages showing device information.
df disk free shows our live iso mounted as /live/linux 685MB. /dev/sr0 is our CD drive. Mount more drives and see them here: sda, sdb, hdd, fdd, etc.
Menu Applications->Internet->Connman UI Setup and check your network hardware. It is quite likely wifi will not work and you have to connect an Ethernet cable.
Try Connect enter Passphrase then OK to save.
Install ApplicationsNow that we are connected to the network. Terminal CLI $ sudo apt update to refresh your database of available apps. $ sudo apt install gparted to get a better tool to analyze your computer.
See if you can open the Windows harddrive in this old computer. I get an error message until I can mount with read and write privileges. I can open USB memory keys.
Are you ready for this? Do you like DSL enough to use it? Does it run well on your old PC? Full Hard Drive Install is easiest. You have many options.
Blank SSD solid state drives are $10 inexpensive. It could be fun to take out the old drive and put in the fast new technology. In Dell D410 32bit computer we saw the older PATA harddrive.
Installer is on the desktop and on the click menu. Remember, on the live CD your password and user name are demo.
Check MediaThis Linux distro is based on MXLinux and is like AVLinux. It checks the iso burned onto the CD for validity. On DSL it goes quite quickly. We can safely press the esc key and skip this step.
Copy any error messages to this point. Many are warnings about settings and not fatal errors. To this point we have not made any permanent changes to our computer. Click next.
This panel selects a drive to be erased. MXLinux has this great feature where we install to USB flash drive sdb and have a portable live Linux operating system with persistence.
The easiest installation choice is to take an entire disk. This capture is about to erase, format and re-use an NVMe gumstick. Click Next to begin.
One Last Warning!Click Start to erase and format the drive.
A progress bar shows how fast our installation is going. Defaults are good, Next.
Select your time settings. Progress bar may pause until you click Next.
Very personal settings. Choose wisely.
Finishing touches will be making a startup menu and a Linux feature called GRUB. This program controls your booting up and may let you dual boot with Windows or another Linux.
Remove your DSL CD disk. We don't want to leave the CD in or the computer will start over again with a new live session. I untick the Automatically reboot box and use terminal $ eject command.
Right-click to get the menu Exit Session. This panel pops up. Remember to remove your CD or USB media. We will use Log Out after we install XFCE desktop.
Desktop will look similar but username and password will be from our install. Open a CLI terminal and use df disk free. We are using 4.35GB of drive space.
Connect to the internet. CLI terminal $ ifconfig -a to see all network interfaces $ ping. Find the Connman UI networking program. Ethernet cable is most certain way of getting connection.
According to df disk free, our installed DSL MXLinux from the CD takes up 4.35GB of space on drive /dev/sda1. Run $ sudo apt update and $ sudo apt upgrade and we add 22MB of updated program data.
df disk free before and after first upgrade. Still have 5.1GB of space for more programs, movies, music.
Add ApplicationsDSL installed a basic set of programs and utilities. CLI terminal $ sudo apt install synaptic. Run Synaptic Package Manager program. Reload and check progress. We now have a nice GUI to find more software.
Search for and select xfce4 package for installation. Other packages, part of the xfce4 desktop will be added shown in green. This will add about a Gigabyte of data to our drive.
Logout/F1/LoginExit fluxbox desktop and logout. Tap the F1 key and watch how it shows you a different desktop name. Now we have xfce.
Look at that. Same stuff, different day. You may prefer using this Xubuntu kind of interface. We have added quite a few familiar Linux programs in one installation.
Install a system profiler program called hardinfo. Look at Operating System. It says we are running a i686 kernel. DSL runs on really old computers, 32bit machines. It can still run on new 64bit processors, some of them.
Lenovo M57 with E6550 dual core processor. Performing better than when it was new.
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