USB Damn Small Linux (DSL)? This is a revisit of the Windows DSL USB installation tutorial: "Putting Damn Small Linux on a USB". Damn Small Linux was originally created by John Andrews, and is basically a trimmed down version of an early Knoppix build, making it perfect for smaller drives. Based on the 2.4 kernel, DSL is great to use for older and slower computers as well. It will fit and run on portable devices or drives as small as 64MB.
Table of Contents
USB Boot Damn Small Linux
Distribution Home Page: DSL Home Page
Minimum Flash Drive Capacity: 64MB (But YUMI requires >1GB)
Persistent Feature: Yes
DSL Bootable USB flash drive creation essentials
- Fast USB flash drive
- Windows Host PC (with Admin access)
- DSL ISO file
- YUMI (to install DSL to USB and make it bootable)
How to make a Damn Small Linux USB Flash Drive
- Download and run -> YUMI
- (1) Choose your flash drive from the dropdown.
(2) Select DSL from the list of distributions.
(3) Browse to your DSL ISO, and then click Create.
- Once the script has finished, reboot your computer and set your system BIOS or Boot Menu to boot from the USB device
If all goes well, you should now be booting DSL from your Damn Small Linux Bootable USB.
I should mention that it is also possible to virtually run Damn Small Linux in Windows by using Qemu emulation, without the need to reboot the PC. For other options, see the readme file that was written by the author of DSL.
