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I just checked Wikipedia, and was surprised to see the original DSL only had releases for about 3.5 years. > Though it may seem comparably ridiculous that 700M

I just checked Wikipedia, and was surprised to see the original DSL only had releases for about 3.5 years. > Though it may seem comparably ridiculous that 700MB is small in 2024 when DSL was 50MB in 2002 If you go all the way back to 2002, 50 MB for an old computer wasn't that small. I bought a new computer with 192 MB of RAM as late as 2005. My 32-bit, $400 discount laptop from 2009 has 4 GB of RAM, so 700 MB is reasonable.

anthk 3y ago
50MB for a pocket OS was perfecly small. Compare it to a 6-7-8 CD release of SuSE, Debian or Mandrake. Or the 700MB Knoppix CD back in the day. You could download DSL in reasonable time.
maxmalkav 3y ago
IIRC 50MB was not the space needed in RAM but the size of the whole basic installation on disk
pimlottc 3y ago
I remember running Linux Router Project [0] on a 1.44mb floppy disk back in the late 90s! Of course, it didn't have a GUI, but I don't think you could even fit the linux kernel on a single floppy disk today. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_Router_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_Router_Project
- fs_tab 3y ago
  Technically, you can compile the 6.8 kernel using "make tinyconfig" (which results in a 509kb image). Of course, this isn't usable on actual hardware, but it is a good baseline to build off.
- mobilio 3y ago
  In 2000 i was using FloppyFW for same reason.
  - pimlottc 3y ago
    Was that reason running IP Masq to share a 56k modem connection? :)
    - jasomill 3y ago
      In 2000, I was using Yellow Dog Linux on a Power Mac 7500 for this. I even had it set up to use "dial knocking" to force it to connect remotely and send me an email with its IP address so I didn't need dynamic DNS. In addition to NAT for my Ethernet (10BASE2) connected devices, it provided an Internet connection to my Telnet-accessible PDP-11/73 (15.2 MHz CPU, 4MB RAM, 456 MB hard drive [14" / 36 cm platters, 148 lb / 67 kg]) running 2.11BSD via SLIP.
leeman2016 3y ago
You're right. 50 MB used to be big back then. I remember my rig back in around 2002 had only 96 MB of RAM. I used to get the best out of it using Puppy and Slax distros.
e12e 3y ago
Iirc DSL used to fit on mini/business card CDs. No real motivation to get much smaller - unless fitting on a floppy. Then for a while there were small usb drives that were interesting, and with better options for persistent user data than r/w CDs.
Dunedan 3y ago
Aren't you mistaking disk space for memory size? Available disk space in 2002 was much larger.
- watersb 3y ago
  1993, can confirm 40MB was a standard and popular hard disk capacity.
saltcured 3y ago
Back in 2002, DSL was already a reaction to the CD-ROM based distributions which had bloated so much compared to the early days. One of the first "approachable" Linux distributions circa 1993 was the Soft Landing Systems (SLS) 2-floppy disk set. One held the bootloader and kernel, the other the root filesystem. The kernel disk was swapped out during the boot process, so after that you only needed to leave the root system floppy in. Then, you could use a not uncommon second floppy drive for removable data disks. The SLS system was text console only, but I think (?) had an editor and gcc. My first persistent installation, Slackware, was on a system with about 8 MB RAM and a 40 MB HDD dedicated to Linux. This had X Windows, Emacs, multiple dev tools, and modem based internet.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

anthk 3y ago

50MB for a pocket OS was perfecly small. Compare it to a 6-7-8 CD release of SuSE, Debian or Mandrake. Or the 700MB Knoppix CD back in the day. You could download DSL in reasonable time.

maxmalkav 3y ago

IIRC 50MB was not the space needed in RAM but the size of the whole basic installation on disk

pimlottc 3y ago

I remember running Linux Router Project [0] on a 1.44mb floppy disk back in the late 90s! Of course, it didn't have a GUI, but I don't think you could even fit the linux kernel on a single floppy disk today. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_Router_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_Router_Project

fs_tab 3y ago
Technically, you can compile the 6.8 kernel using "make tinyconfig" (which results in a 509kb image). Of course, this isn't usable on actual hardware, but it is a good baseline to build off.
mobilio 3y ago
In 2000 i was using FloppyFW for same reason.
- pimlottc 3y ago
  Was that reason running IP Masq to share a 56k modem connection? :)
  - jasomill 3y ago
    In 2000, I was using Yellow Dog Linux on a Power Mac 7500 for this. I even had it set up to use "dial knocking" to force it to connect remotely and send me an email with its IP address so I didn't need dynamic DNS. In addition to NAT for my Ethernet (10BASE2) connected devices, it provided an Internet connection to my Telnet-accessible PDP-11/73 (15.2 MHz CPU, 4MB RAM, 456 MB hard drive [14" / 36 cm platters, 148 lb / 67 kg]) running 2.11BSD via SLIP.

leeman2016 3y ago

You're right. 50 MB used to be big back then. I remember my rig back in around 2002 had only 96 MB of RAM. I used to get the best out of it using Puppy and Slax distros.

e12e 3y ago

Iirc DSL used to fit on mini/business card CDs. No real motivation to get much smaller - unless fitting on a floppy. Then for a while there were small usb drives that were interesting, and with better options for persistent user data than r/w CDs.

Dunedan 3y ago

Aren't you mistaking disk space for memory size? Available disk space in 2002 was much larger.

watersb 3y ago
1993, can confirm 40MB was a standard and popular hard disk capacity.

saltcured 3y ago

Back in 2002, DSL was already a reaction to the CD-ROM based distributions which had bloated so much compared to the early days. One of the first "approachable" Linux distributions circa 1993 was the Soft Landing Systems (SLS) 2-floppy disk set. One held the bootloader and kernel, the other the root filesystem. The kernel disk was swapped out during the boot process, so after that you only needed to leave the root system floppy in. Then, you could use a not uncommon second floppy drive for removable data disks. The SLS system was text console only, but I think (?) had an editor and gcc. My first persistent installation, Slackware, was on a system with about 8 MB RAM and a 40 MB HDD dedicated to Linux. This had X Windows, Emacs, multiple dev tools, and modem based internet.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]