Yet Another Reason To Learn Linux – It’s Free
By Levi Reiss

Are you old enough to remember the 1992 Janet Jackson song entitled The Best Things In Life Are Free? Or maybe you are so old that you can remember the 1956 Hollywood movie of the same name. In any case we do not guarantee that you will find Damn Small Linux and our associated tutorials to be among the best things in your life. But we do guarantee that they are both completely free. Well, wait a minute. They are both free, but…

You may have to shell out some of your hard-earned cash to learn Linux, especially if you are downloading the software and running the tutorials on your home computer. Yes, you will have to pay for an Internet connection at least during the time devoted to downloading the files. Now by today’s bloated standards Damn Small Linux is really small; it weighs in at a mere 50 Megabytes. So downloading this software distribution is fairly quick, especially if you have a high-speed connection. And yet as we all know, sometime during the following month your Internet Service Provider will want money.

Once you have downloaded Damn Small Linux you won’t need the Internet to run it. But you may want to activate one or both of the Internet browsers that are part of this distribution. And you may want to download additional applications; there are lots of them and since this version of Linux is so small, you should still have scads of disk space available.

Your Linux costs don’t end with the Internet. I don’t think that the electricity that powers your computer is free. And the longer your days and nights spent in front of the computer the higher your light and heat bill. Furthermore, the more time you spend on Linux the more money you may end up spending on snacks, new eyeglasses, and taxis when you miss the bus to work because you just couldn’t tear yourself away from the computer in time. I think you get my drift. But we repeat. Linux, this website, and many of the references on the web are free. Should you outgrow Damn Small Linux the larger versions of Linux are free, or at least quite inexpensive when compared to ostensibly similar versions of Microsoft Windows.

Most people don’t run operating systems for their features but for the applications they enable. Reason number two: Damn Small Linux provides lots of free applications.

Levi Reiss has authored or co-authored ten books on computers and the Internet. He loves the occasional glass of wine as exemplified by his wine websites including http://www.theworldwidewine.com. He teaches Linux and Windows operating systems plus other computer courses at an Ontario French-language community college. Visit his new website http://www.linux4windows.com which teaches you how to download and run Damn Small Linux on Windows computers, even if they are “obsolete.”

Recycle Old Desktop PCS With Linux
By Alex Colcernian

As more and more computers find their way to the garbage, we generate e-waste. Everyday the e-waste heap grows, and many of the computers within can be re-purposed and recycled. Re-purposing and recycling computers is extremely beneficial to our environment and light on the check book. After examining why computers typically fail, you will learn how you old desktop PC can become a “new” thin client, allowing you to work with documents, browse the web, and more.

Why Do Desktop PC’s “Fail”?

It is incredibly rare for all of the components in a computer to go bad. Typically, one component tends to be the main culprit… the hard drive. Until the more recent SSDs (Solid-State-Disks), all hard drives spin. The movement within the drive creates the opportunity for damage one way or another. As the hard drive gets older, bad sectors start forming, and eventually the hard drive is considered useless. Damaging the CPU, RAM, Motherboard, or Video Card is less likely compared to the hard drive. Just be sure your fans are doing their job… cooling.

Why Linux Recycles Desktop PC’s

After your hard drive fails, do yourself a favor…

1. Unplug it
2. Remove it
3. Dispose of Properly
4. Keep Reading

Sure you can put a new hard drive in and keep using it, but what if there was something better? There is…

As long as your Network Card (NIC) has the capability of Network Booting using the PXE protocol, you can turn that used computer into a lively, fully functioning “Thin Client”.

Use the CPU, RAM, Sound and Video Cards, and forget the source of problems – the hard drive.

With Linux Terminal Server Project (LTSP), you can load your desktop operating system and applications over your LAN. With a server and a switch, you are well on your way to a license free thin client environment. LTSP has allowed people all over the world the ability to deploy computers that may have found their way to a landfill. Not only are they recycled desktop PCs, but they become centrally managed providing benefits for the IT department. Brand new thin clients are really nice, but if you have the opportunity you should be in the practice of recycling older computer hardware. When acceptable hardware exists, re-purpose it, recycle it, and put it to good use.

Recommended Specifications – Recycling Desktop PC to Thin Client

• CPU: 800MHz +
• RAM: 256MB +
• Video: 64MB +
• NIC: 10/100 or Better (Must Network Boot via PXE)

Sound Interesting? Get in touch with the open source community. You can join us in the IRC channel #LTSP @ irc.freenode.net. We will point you in the direction of some documentation and a very friendly open source community always jumping at the opportunity to help others.

Alex Colcernian is the Director of Marketing and Sales at DisklessWorkstations.com. DisklessWorkstations.com founded alongside the Linux Terminal Server Project (LTSP) in 1999, provides thin client hardware and solutions. DisklessWorkstations.com is the global leader in LTSP deployments, serving businesses, government, non-profits, and schools.

Important Concepts For Linux Beginners – Shells and Utilities
By Levi Reiss

A shell is the command interpreter program that serves as an interface between some users and the operating system itself. We say some users because most users rely on the graphical user interface. The Windows shell is the DOS command line interface accessed by clicking on Run and then entering the cmd command. The Windows graphical user interface is Explorer. This article describes the Damn Small Linux shell interface and several utilities, useful programs that may be launched from the shell. A subsequent article will describe the corresponding graphical user interface.

Why would anyone want to bother with a shell when the prettier, easier-to-learn and easier-to-use graphical interface is available? The answer is: It depends who you are and what you want to do. For system administrators or their associates it’s often much less cumbersome to use the shell rather than the graphical user interface. While Damn Small Linux commands may be quite arcane, they are often very powerful. And efficient. The Linux way of performing administrative and other technical tasks admittedly takes time to learn and master. But it does the job and does it well. In all fairness, many Windows systems administrators often apply command-line utilities. But they don’t have a powerful shell to help them do their work.

Historically Unix used the Bourne shell, the C shell which resembles the C programming language, and the Korn shell. Linux’s most widely used shell is Bash, also spelled BASH, the (Bourne-Again Shell). Damn Small Linux offers many shells but most people go with Bash both to communicate interactively with the operating system and to write programs known as shell scripts. If you program in Linux no matter which programming language you use you should learn some Bash specifics.

Utilities enable you to handle some very sophisticated processing. You can think of them as commands or as prewritten programs. Unix-Linux people often send the output of one command or utility to another command or utility for further processing. For example, the ps command displays active processes. It tends to generate voluminous output, especially in a busy system. Let’s say that you are interested only in the processes associated with a given terminal. You send (the technical term is pipe, expressed by the | character) the output of the ps command to the grep utility which looks for patterns within the input. You code a single line, multipart command to obtain the list of processes associated with that particular terminal. Unix and Linux are well known for elegant solutions. In contrast the Windows solution to this information need is much more clumsy.

The grep utility has many other uses including validating e-mail addresses. Let’s say that your web site asks potential subscribers to furnish their e-mail accounts when signing up for a newsletter. A sophisticated but relatively short statement coded in grep could validate e-mail accounts.

Other Damn Small Linux text processing utilities include the related egrep and fgrep commands, mawk a pattern scanning and text processing language, sed an editor that handles large files, and diff a utility that compares files. DSL provides utilities that compress and archive files, and a wide range of other utilities. If you need them, these Linux utilities can be very useful and time-saving.

Our next subject is Linux programming support.

Levi Reiss has authored or co-authored ten books on computers and the Internet. He loves the occasional glass of wine as exemplified by his wine websites including http://www.theworldwidewine.com. He teaches Linux and Windows operating systems plus other computer courses at an Ontario French-language community college. Visit his new website http://www.linux4windows.com which teaches you how to download and run Damn Small Linux on Windows computers, even if they are “obsolete.”

Yet Another Reason to Learn Linux – Linux Certifications
By Levi Reiss

There are currently four programs that enable people to become certified as Linux Systems Administrators. These programs are offered by the Computing Technology Industry Association, the Linux Professional Institute, the Novell Corporation, and Red Hat, Inc. The first two are professional industry associations whose certification programs do not depend on any specific Linux distribution. Novell and Red Hat Linux certifications are closely associated with their popular Linux distributions. Should you wish to prepare for either of these two certifications you will definitely need access to their Linux version.

What’s involved in obtaining a Linux Certification? You must pass one or more extensive tests that demonstrate your prowess in dealing with the typical and some atypical problems faced by Linux systems administrators. We’ll take a closer look at the CompTIA Linux+™ Certification, the one often recommended as the first certification for people new to Linux. This certification does not apply to any specific Linux version. The test is designed to validate the knowledge of individuals with a minimum of six to twelve months of practical Linux experience. According to the Computing Technology Industry Association, professionals achieving the CompTIA Linux+ certification can explain fundamental management of Linux systems from the command line, demonstrate knowledge of user administration, understand file permissions, software configurations, and management of Linux-based clients, server systems, and security. Many of these functions are available on Damn Small Linux.

The Linux+ certification is a basic, entry-level certification for Linux system administrators. It is intended for people with six-months experience installing, operating and maintaining Linux operating systems. To achieve Linux+ certification, candidates must pass the 98 question Linux+ exam which covers seven areas: Planning and Implementation; Installation; Configuration; Administration; System Maintenance; Troubleshooting; and Identify, Install and Maintain System Hardware. This multiple-choice exam costs about $232 and is a good starting point for those who want to continue with other Linux certifications including those from Novell and Red Hat.

Why would anybody want to start preparing Linux certification on a limited version of Linux? The answer is simple – certification is not to be taken lightly. Don’t make a major financial and time investment unless you know that you really want to be certified and that you possess the required skill set. It’s not hard to find schools that promise you success in Linux certification and in any of their course offerings. But Linux certification may not be for you. Don’t make a major certification investment only to find that it wasn’t what you had in mind. Work your way through my tutorials including the suggestions for going further. Get your hands on a variety of Linux books. I would start with books designed for learning Linux and for running Linux systems before working with Linux certification books.

Don’t be satisfied with running computer exercises in your mind, and nodding your head at the appropriate times. To succeed you must do the exercises on a computer running Linux. Since installation is a component of all Linux Certification exams don’t stint on installing several versions of Linux on your computer. An external USB hard drive is not very expensive. Try to make friends with someone who knows better than you how to do things. Ask a lot of questions. And good luck!

And while you’re working on your certifications take a look at some of Damn Small Linux’s other advantages in our final article in this series.

Levi Reiss has authored or co-authored ten books on computers and the Internet. He loves the occasional glass of wine as exemplified by his wine websites including http://www.theworldwidewine.com – He teaches Linux and Windows operating systems plus other computer courses at an Ontario French-language community college. Visit his new website http://www.linux4windows.com which teaches you how to download and run Damn Small Linux on Windows computers, even if they are “obsolete.”

Free Linux Games – Part 1
By Levi Reiss

Damn Small Linux can be an excellent tool for learning Linux commands and running the Linux operating system. But what if you are not interested in becoming a computer nerd; can this software still be useful to regular people? The answer is a resounding yes; you can make use of this tiny operating system whether or not you want to learn the sometimes gruesome details of operating systems. This article presents several free games that are immediately available once you have downloaded and installed Damn Small Linux.

To access these games either click on the DSL button in the lower-left hand corner or on the Apps icon toward the top of the screen. Then open the Games: there are eleven; Canfield, Freecell, Golf, Mastermind, Minesweeper, Pegged, Slide_Puzzle, Solitaire, Taipei, Thornq, and Xtris and Taiedit which is not a game, but a game editor. We will examine the first six games in this article saving the rest of them for a companion article. As with any gaming systems, be careful not to get addicted.

Canfield is a relatively complicated single-deck solitaire card game. If you are not familiar with this game you’ll have to go to a source such as Google to find out how to play it. There is no help function. And sometimes the cards move fast, too fast to learn what is happening if you don’t know the game.

Freecell is a relatively complicated single-deck solitaire card game. I think that it’s easier to win than Canfield but maybe that’s because I am an ex-semi-Freecell-addict. It’s a lot easier to get addicted to Freecell on Windows because their version includes a seed number that lets you replay it. There is no such seed number in this version of Freecell.

In spite of its name, Golf is yet another card game one that is fairly well known. For more information about this game access http://www.delorie.com/store/ace/docs/golf.html

Mastermind is a game in which you use a mouse to drag colors from the palette (on the left) to the empty cells in the guess row. When the four cells in the guess row are full, right-click on the right of the screen to see how you did. There will be one black peg for each cell that is the correct color, and one white for a color that is not in the correct sequence. Keep going and you can eventually figure out all the colors in the row. If that’s your thing.

Some people will remember Minesweeper from the days of Windows 3.1. The goal is to clear a field of mines by clicking on a square that has no mines and right-clicking on a mined square to deactivate it. The screen indicates how many mines are adjacent to a square that has been deactivated or clicked on. One false move and you lose. When you start the game you can choose from four levels by enter 1 (the easiest), 2, 3, or 4. I vaguely recall that Windows 3.1 gave me more options, but frankly Damn Small Linux’s Minesweeper is a good time waster.

Pegged is a field of thirty penguins and thirty-one spaces. Initially one space is empty. A move consists of one Penguin jumping over another generating an additional empty space. You win if at the end of the game there is a single penguin. You really win if the solitary penguin is in the center square. Some would say that you really, really win if you close the Games menu and get back to work.


Levi Reiss has authored or co-authored ten books on computers and the Internet. He loves the occasional glass of wine as exemplified by his wine websites including http://www.theworldwidewine.com. He teaches Linux and Windows operating systems plus other computer courses at an Ontario French-language community college. Visit his new website http://www.linux4windows.com which teaches you how to download and run Damn Small Linux on Windows computers, even if they are “obsolete.”

Free Linux Games – Part 2
By Levi Reiss

Damn Small Linux can be an excellent tool for learning Linux commands and running the Linux operating system. But it’s also great for playing games. This article presents several free games that are immediately available once you have downloaded and installed Damn Small Linux.

To access these games either click on the DSL button in the lower-left hand corner or on the Apps/ icon toward the top of the screen. Then open the Games: there are eleven. A previous article discussed several. Now we will look at Slide_Puzzle, Solitaire, Taipei, Thornq, and Xtris and Taiedit which is not a game, but a game editor. As with any gaming systems, be careful not to get addicted.

Do you remember a hand-held non-electronic game in which there were fifteen moveable tiles and sixteen squares? By moving the tiles correctly you could reconstitute a series of numbers. Slide_puzzle is similar but even more challenging. First you load an image, a graphics file such as a jpg file. I didn’t have one readily available so I opened Firefox went to google images and downloaded into the /home/dsl directory the first crayfish image that Google offered me. Then I loaded it into the game which chopped into into pieces to be reassembled. Left-click on a tile to slide it into the adjacent empty space. Right-click to see the original image. If you are really good you won’t have to take a peek at the original image. It helps if you have chosen an image that’s easy to reconstitute. I don’t recommend crayfish.

Solitaire is the good-old Klondike solitaire card game. While testing it for this article I did win twice in a row and came close the third time. This is the solitaire that I remember as a kid. Watch out, it’s moderately addictive.

Taipei is a very addictive game in which you try to remove pairs of corresponding tiles. Of course if a tile is covered by another tile you must first remove the covering tile. To find out if a tile may be removed right-click on it. If it changes colors it may be removed by clicking on its available partner. The partner tile is usually a copy (9 and 9, Heart and Heart) but any direction tile may be paired with any direction tile, and any color tile may be paired with any color tile. The numbers in the lower left hand corner of the screen indicate the number of remaining tiles and the number of tiles that are presently removable. In one game I started with 144 and 12. By judiciously removing two tiles I went to 142 and 15. I lost that game, like I lose most of the time. If the rules sound a bit complicated, they are. But you can learn by playing. And you can always press the Backspace key to undo your latest tile removal. The last time I played I was blocked, pressed the Backspace key, and went on to win. Some would say beginner’s luck. The instructions claim that every game can be won. I don’t believe it.

Taiedit lets you modify the game of Taipei. Good luck, this application looks moderately sophisticated.

Thornq is yet another solitaire card game. For more information about this game access delorie.com/store/ace/docs/thornq.html

You may not believe me, but I won this game without knowing how to play it. Beginner’s luck. The point is that Damn Small Linux offers a wide variety of solitaire card games. The final game offered with the system is xtris, a version of Tetris, the game in which you arrange falling blocks. This version offers a few controls including the possibility of playing several games at once.

Levi Reiss has authored or co-authored ten books on computers and the Internet. He loves the occasional glass of wine as exemplified by his wine websites including http://www.theworldwidewine.com. He teaches Linux and Windows operating systems plus other computer courses at an Ontario French-language community college. Visit his new website http://www.linux4windows.com which teaches you how to download and run Damn Small Linux on Windows computers, even if they are “obsolete.”

I am currently trying to find the best live Linux CD for an old notebook computer I have, a Compaq Presario 1700 XL260. This computer has a 500 MHz Pentium III processor, 192 MB of RAM, and over 5 GB of hard drive space. It looks like it also has a DVD-ROM, two USB ports –One currently used by my mouse, the other buy either a USB memory stick, or a USB wi-fi adapter.

Initially I tried to get the PC working with a Linux distro that would allow me to get online wirelessly with my router using that USB wireless-G adapter mentioned earlier. I was pretty sure that I’d have to use a lightweight distro since the dearth of RAM would be probably the biggest limiter in my distro selection choices.


My first try was with …. DSL — Damn Small Linux. Weighing in at 50MB, the highly-regarded, extremely light weight distribution proved to live up to its billing, however it certainly wasn’t as user friendly as I would have liked. It comes with JWM and Fluxbox, no Gnome, or KDE with this one, obviously. One big problem I encountered with this version as I occasionally did with subsequent ones is that getting Linux to talk to a USB wi-fi adapter is much tougher than I would suspect a PCI wi-fi adapter. Not to mention I’m sure all distros will connect to a network with no problem these days using a hard-wired ethernet.

My next Linux distro to try was Puppy Linux, the 100MB powerhouse. This was truly an exciting version to use since it had so many advanced elements for such a small size that it really seemed like that could be a daily user that could keep up with the big fellas in the Linux world. It was really fast, too, since it booted itself entirely into the minuscule RAM on the computer! The distro ships with JWM / IceWM + ROX Desktop user interfaces for your convenience. So, it’s still a small distro but it has more modern desktop environments than the previously mentioned DSL.

I eventually tested around a dozen distros, and understandably the more “packed-with-features” distros like the Ubuntus and the Arch Linux types were really too much for the mature system. Unfortunately since the system doesn’t have an ethernet port, it really limits the functionality of the networking aspect.

It’s certainly true that there are some modern albeit light-weight distros out there today that can certainly bring life back to this baby. It still has Windows 98se installed on its hard drive, and I certainly wouldn’t consider trying XP but it’s a lot of fun looking at the latest in mini-Linux and seeing what this machine is still capable of.

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