{"slug": "damn-small-linux", "name": "Damn Small Linux", "category": "os", "category_name": "Operating systems and desktop", "description": "", "recommenders": 3, "commenters": 6, "warners": 0, "score": 3.333, "rising": -0.98, "first": "2025-12-06", "latest": "2026-10-11", "why": "I suppose you could also try Damn Small Linux 2024.", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 3, "compare": 0, "warn": 0}, "spark": [0, 2, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "I suppose you could also try Damn Small Linux 2024.", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://www.damnsmalllinux.org", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["Damn Small Linux"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 779211571, "item_id": 48700723, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48700723", "by": "initramfs", "date": "2026-06-27", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I suppose you could also try Damn Small Linux 2024.", "excerpt": "That's great information. I had no idea Chromebook prototypes started as early as N455, but since you're skilled with Arch, I'll recommend two distros(one isn't really a distro, but a toolkit) for your cr-48 : Tiny Core Linux, and NanoLinux. The latter is built on TCL and a distro was released on Sourcefourge around 2015- no releases since.. One could really optimize an N450 using a very light package manager over TC", "context": "", "use_case": "lightweight Linux", "switched_from": "", "story": "Linux on Older Hardware: The Complete Revival Guide"}, {"id": 739034672, "item_id": 46189667, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46189667", "by": "compounding_it", "date": "2025-12-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "a distro that boots up quickly", "excerpt": "Distros like these help troubleshoot boxes that are old/slow but also not used as computers in the traditional sense. For example network boxes, NAS, video recording boxes etc that can't run the latest LTS ubuntu well but can boot a distro like DSL. getting a vga out on these things with a fast to boot distro helps you fix things like corrupt drives, bad partitioning, bad boot loaders etc which needs a few terminal c", "context": "", "use_case": "troubleshooting old boxes", "switched_from": "", "story": "Damn Small Linux"}, {"id": 738825346, "item_id": 46176584, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46176584", "by": "girvo", "date": "2025-12-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Made it actually usable!", "excerpt": "I used to run Puppy Linux and then TCL (and its predecessor DSL) on a super old Pentium 3 laptop with like 700mb of RAM or something. Made it actually usable!", "context": "", "use_case": "old laptop OS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Tiny Core Linux: a 23 MB Linux distro with graphical desktop"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["lightweight linux", "portable ssh and email access", "running linux from usb under windows", "troubleshooting old boxes", "old laptop os"], "compared": [{"slug": "tiny-core-linux", "name": "Tiny Core Linux", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46187387", "title": "Damn Small Linux", "mentions": 3}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50036571", "title": "50MB operating system can resurrect your old PC", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48668747", "title": "Linux on Older Hardware: The Complete Revival Guide", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46173547", "title": "Tiny Core Linux: a 23 MB Linux distro with graphical desktop", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {"recommend": 2, "neutral": 2}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {"neutral": 1}}, "quotes": [{"id": 800619745, "item_id": 50038734, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50038734", "by": "iamnothere", "date": "2026-10-11", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "", "excerpt": "Tiny Core requires less than 50 MB of RAM and a 486. I like DSL but I\u2019ve come to appreciate Tiny Core more. If you have a use case for an extremely light Linux system I recommend it. (I like it for single app GUI VMs.)", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "50MB operating system can resurrect your old PC"}, {"id": 779211571, "item_id": 48700723, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48700723", "by": "initramfs", "date": "2026-06-27", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I suppose you could also try Damn Small Linux 2024.", "excerpt": "That's great information. I had no idea Chromebook prototypes started as early as N455, but since you're skilled with Arch, I'll recommend two distros(one isn't really a distro, but a toolkit) for your cr-48 : Tiny Core Linux, and NanoLinux. The latter is built on TCL and a distro was released on Sourcefourge around 2015- no releases since.. One could really optimize an N450 using a very light package manager over TC", "context": "", "use_case": "lightweight Linux", "switched_from": "", "story": "Linux on Older Hardware: The Complete Revival Guide"}, {"id": 739115056, "item_id": 46194691, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46194691", "by": "neilv", "date": "2025-12-08", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I used to use this on a CD-ROM, for SSH-ing into my personal server", "excerpt": "I used to use this on a CD-ROM, for SSH-ing into my personal server to check email (from work or SO's place), when I didn't have a laptop or handheld with me. USB flash drives often didn't boot by default on PC hardware, but CD-ROMs did. Later, I made an immutable \"Swiss Army knife\" USB stick distro called LilDeb, based on Debian Live. And literally carried it on a Swiss Army pocketknife on my keychain. LilDeb was im", "context": "", "use_case": "portable SSH and email access", "switched_from": "", "story": "Damn Small Linux"}, {"id": 739069824, "item_id": 46191864, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46191864", "by": "MisterTea", "date": "2025-12-08", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Back in the early 00's I used DSL in university as it has an x86 emulator included.", "excerpt": "Back in the early 00's I used DSL in university as it has an x86 emulator included. I could plug the USB in and run Linux under Windows. Kept that on a \"huge\" 512MB thumb drive that cost over $100. Still have that drive and it still works.", "context": "", "use_case": "running Linux from USB under Windows", "switched_from": "", "story": "Damn Small Linux"}, {"id": 739034672, "item_id": 46189667, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46189667", "by": "compounding_it", "date": "2025-12-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "a distro that boots up quickly", "excerpt": "Distros like these help troubleshoot boxes that are old/slow but also not used as computers in the traditional sense. For example network boxes, NAS, video recording boxes etc that can't run the latest LTS ubuntu well but can boot a distro like DSL. getting a vga out on these things with a fast to boot distro helps you fix things like corrupt drives, bad partitioning, bad boot loaders etc which needs a few terminal c", "context": "", "use_case": "troubleshooting old boxes", "switched_from": "", "story": "Damn Small Linux"}, {"id": 738825346, "item_id": 46176584, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46176584", "by": "girvo", "date": "2025-12-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Made it actually usable!", "excerpt": "I used to run Puppy Linux and then TCL (and its predecessor DSL) on a super old Pentium 3 laptop with like 700mb of RAM or something. Made it actually usable!", "context": "", "use_case": "old laptop OS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Tiny Core Linux: a 23 MB Linux distro with graphical desktop"}]}