DSL Ideas and Suggestions :: More UCI



John, Robert, all DSL contributors:  Kudos.  You have succeded at creatihg the long-sought, much-debated, often maligned "Internet Appliance" - a good, reliable, tool to surf the Internet.  

DSL has the latest, best browsers - Opera and Mozilla.  DSL has a nice and easy firewall.  And Java.  And the promise of more easy updates and extensions.

Knoppix has outdated, incomplete Internet software.  It is effectively impossible to update for an ignoramus like myself - and all the "normal" people out there - 99% of the species.  

Windows is unreliable.  With DSL on CD, you just press hardware reset and in a couple minutes all viruses, key loggers, trojan horses, spyware, worms, whatever;  are gone.  A lifesaver.  

The last point might be worth greater focus from all of you.  The fact that it does take two or more long minutes on my poor old machine might tempt one to install DSL on a new fast SATA hard drive.  But then you lose the lifesaving "clean CD boot" capability which I insist is crucial.  

Soooooo...  The UCI format is the solution.  Boots fast.  Runs from CD.  MORE UCI!  Especially:  -The Gimp  -Abiword  -Flash Macromedia [[licensing??]]  -A really good hex edotor  -FreeBasic [[yes, FreeBasic]]....
You can still have that 'lifesaving "clean CD boot" capability' by doing a frugal installation.  However, SATA drives are only supported in the 2.x-2.1b versions of DSL (2.4.31 kernel).

I agree, I like uci's - they're essentially 'clean' and contained,
but I might suggest for you to try the new unionfs-type extensions (DSL 3+), as they are also another low resource extension solutions but easier to make.
SATA;  SCHMATA;  whatever;.  The point is: A Live CD is THE solution to Internet software damage,  but it is way slower than the fastest IDE; SCSI; whatever.  I guess I do not understand "frugal install".  I don't see how any HD install can gaurantee a clean boot.

Anybody working on Gimp / Abiword for UNIONFS?  I am very satisfied with DSL 2.x.
I guess you were missing out on some of DSL's benefits :p

See http://damnsmalllinux.org/wiki....d_Drive
I think this is a good point. We shouldn't overestimate users. Some of them really do enjoy the convenience of the portable CD. I'm not sure if boot options can be incorporated to be saved/loaded to the backup file, but they can certainly be modified on a floppy bootdisk in syslinux.cfg (i think it's the 'sata' cheat code), it means you also have to carry around a CD+floppy, this is most reliable boot-kit you can have.

I love the 2.4.31 dsl-2.1b kernel, it tends boot most of the PCs I use (compared to later versions), it's the most robust version I've ever used, but it doesn't support .UNC (dsl-3.x), which is why i don't make .UNCs yet.
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