Damn Small Linux Help

[wannabprogramma]

Hey guys,
First let me tell you im a newb to Linux (obviously) I've been searching for this answer for about 2 months now and I even posted a thread a while back but I still haven't solved my problem. I am running DSL on a very old computer (I know DSL isn't still an active project but I really want to use it because it makes my old computer seem faster). I have been following tutorials but can't seem to do any of the following successfully:
1) boot from Live CD onto HardDrive
2) use dpkg to install a program
3) use the commands to install a tar.gz
4) get my wifi card to function properly
Can anyone give me suggestions on how to move forward? (tutorials, advice, knowledge) I'm trying to install Flash, install a driver for a wifi card, and boot from a hard drive.....Thanks in advance for any help

[oz]

1) boot from Live CD onto HardDrive
2) use dpkg to install a program
3) use the commands to install a tar.gz
4) get my wifi card to function properly

Hello

1) You should be able to use the SuperGRUB liveCD to boot a hard drive.
2) Here is a nice little cheat sheet for using dpkg commands.
3) Check out our HowTo for installing software from source.
4) Sorry, I don't do any wireless at all so can't help with that but perhaps someone else will chime in with some tips for you.

If you should still have problems, post back with the details and we'll try to help you.

[hrasdt]

DSL may be dead, but there are others that are close to it.
I have loved using a French distro called Slitaz, it's 30MB, so considerably smaller than DSL, has a compositing window manager, and a package manager with current packages. It's got a 2.6 kernel, and excellent hardware detection. My wireless (uses the ath5k driver) detected immediately, while on bigger distros I had to muck around a bit. It also installs to the hard disk, with a bit of command-line know-how.
Good luck.

PS: To install programs from a .tar.bz2 these commands usually work, if you've got all the dependencies installed.

tar xvf package.tar.bz2
cd package
./configure
make
make install

[wannabprogramma]

ok...so if Slitaz is a current project I may be switching (assuming, of course, that when you say French distro, the OS is in English) the reason being that I used the correct dpkg commands and it says "command not found", and it also said the same thing when trying to compile software, and it tells me it loaded onto my hardrive, but it doesn't and when I click Backup/Restore and select hda1 it freezes and I have to hard shut down.....and this one is actually smaller too...so if you are skilled with Slitaz, then please help me out...I just started reading the site and I'm not sure it's as easy to follow as DSL and I had problems with that one....O and just to be sure Slitaz has a good internet program and flash capabilities right? This is going to eventually be a movie watchin, music playin machine Thanks for all ya'lls help...

edit: and I plan to post some more details on exactly what happens on DSL later...but the fact it can't find the hard drive is getting to be very upsetting because everytime I reboot everything I had done previously is erased so also any help getting it to find my hard drive is helpful

[hrasdt]

Slitaz is indeed English enabled, and it has a very nice GUI, in my opinion far prettier-looking than DSL.

As for packages, Slitaz has a large number of packages, from their online repository. It comes with a Firefox 3.5 remix, and you can download flash plugins for it.

I'm not really very experienced with it, but the forums are excellent.
Good luck!

[reed9]

You might also check out TinyCore Linux, created by one of the former lead devs from DSL.

[wannabprogramma]

I'm open to either....whoever can give me some help getting it installed from a cd to the hard drive and getting my wifi and flash to work, I'll use that one haha.....tinycore seems to have more info to me though but I'm new to this so i dont know much