This is a great way to extend the life of your older computers. In my case, I’ve installed it on a IBM T21 with 256MB of memory and a 30 GB hard drive. This tutorial assumes that the user has some linux and command line experience.
First, download the current.iso image and burn it to a CD. Then stick it in the CD drive of the computer in question and boot into DSL.
Then, open a terminal session, and type
sudo -s
Then launch cfdisk to partition your drive.
cfdisk /dev/hda
Once launched, delete any existing partitions (that you don’t want of course) and create two partitions. The first, hda1 will be a swap partition. The second will be where everything else goes. Swap should be at least 128 MB in size, and hda2 will contain everything else.
Knoppix.net has an excellent tutorial on using cfdisk.
You’ll want to create your swap (hda1) as type 82 and your linux partition (hda2) as type 83.
Once this is done, reboot your system and boot again from the DSL liveCD.
Back up? Good. Now let’s create your swap file by opening a terminal and typing the following:
sudo -s
mkswap /dev/hda1
swapon /dev/hda1
Now we’re going to launch the hard drive install script in your terminal session. Type:
dsl-hdinstall
The script will ask you which parition you want to install too. Choose hda2. You may be prompted to choose /dev/hda2 or just /hda2. Choose the method (i.e. with /dev or without it) that the script suggests.
If you wish to allow multi-user logons, say yes. This will allow multiple simultaneous log ons.
Then it will ask if you want to use journaled ext3 filesystem. You can choose yes, but this may effect performance on really old systems.
One final sanity check. Are you really sure you want to do this? If so, type yes.
DSL is now installing onto your hard drive.
The script will ask you if you want to install a boot loader. If DSL is the only OS on the machine, then this would be a splendid idea. Say yes.
I prefer Grub, so that’s what I chose. You can also use Lilo.
Finally it will ask you to reboot.
Once the script finishes, you’ll want to remove the DSL liveCD from the drive on rebooting and boot from the hard drive to finish your install.
You’ll boot back into DSL and after creating passwords for the users root and DSL you’ll be ready to go.
I had to monkey around a bit to get wireless working. DSL has a decent Wiki with instructions on doing such things. In my case I had to download the windows driver and use NDISWrapper to get it to work.
December 14th, 2006 at 7:39 pm
Hi,
Your instructions are the only ones that worked for me and got DSL installed successfully to HDD. Thanks! (-A small note, where you’ve mentioned “hda2″ above, I had a partition that could only be named “hda5″. Otherwise, fine.)
Thanks again!
-Scott D.
December 26th, 2006 at 10:31 am
Hi
I recently formatted my PC with my external hard drive connected at the time of formatting. I am pretty sure that it should have not affected my external hard but as soon as i was done, i noticed that my next. hard drive wasn’t showing up. I go into Computer Management then Disk Management and it shows up. It does not have a Drive Letter assigned to it. I right click on it and all that shows up is the “help”. I cant change drive letter or even open it from there. Its a FireLite Model#USBFLB60-C 60 gig. I have had it for a few months now. Please help.
April 15th, 2007 at 10:25 am
Hi, thanks for this tutorial. I’ve gone through all the steps but get a message in the early stages of installation. Any help would be appreciated.
Some message from mkfs:
mke2fs 1.34-WIP (21-May-2003)
/dev/hda2: Invalid argument passed to ext2 library while setting up superblock
Thanks,
Colin
April 16th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
Hey Colin,
Sounds like you may not have your partitions set up correctly. Do you have a primary partition and a logical partition?
If you do an fdisk, what does it tell you?
AG
April 22nd, 2007 at 10:36 pm
hey AG! This is the first and ONLY post that I understood about installing DSL, and although the install i had made on my Toshiba Satellite M10 works, i will redo it your way when i get home from work tonite. You wouldn’t by any chance have a how to use DSL post somewhere in here, would you, because that’s the next most difficult thing to find. Thank you very much for this post!
April 23rd, 2007 at 6:36 am
Hi Bambit,
Glad you found the article useful!
I don’t have a general usage article about DSL at the moment. What are you looking for? Some basic how-to’s or something more along the lines of a complete user guide?
AG
April 23rd, 2007 at 7:20 am
Hi AG, basic how-to’s like how to make the sound card work, and how to get dvd movies to play on the dvd drive, or can i play mp3’s on the player (but that will need the sound card working, right). I’m home now and about to redo the whole thing according to your guide. Hope I don’t leave out any of your instructions — will let you know how I fared when I get back online
Thanks again.
April 23rd, 2007 at 7:29 am
Let us all know how it works out!
I’m about three versions behind in DSL - I’ll have to download the latest and start it up to see what’s new.
Maybe I’ll get a chance to write a few how-to’s as well.
AG
April 23rd, 2007 at 8:13 am
Hello again AG,
Am back up, this time with everything showing up where they should, hard disk space displayed correctly and swap file up and running. I had the same issue as Scott Davies where i have an hda5 instead of an hda1, but otherwise fine and dandy. Now for the hard part — learning how all these icons work! Looking forward to those how-to’s.
Bambit
April 23rd, 2007 at 8:53 am
Cool!
I’m downloading DSL 3.3 right now. I’ll be puttering around with it shortly.
AG
April 30th, 2007 at 8:45 am
Hi again AG,
after more than a week, a hard drive crash, several hairs pulled out, i am back with my Toshiba Satellite Pro M10 installed with no less than Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn, on which may I say you have many intersting posts which I daresay I will find as useful as I did this DSL one. I’ve written about the resurrection on my blog. Will be buzzing through your posts on Feisty through the following days.
April 30th, 2007 at 8:52 am
Ouch.
Glad you’re on Feisty though! It’s a lot of fun. Right now I’m setting up a VirtualBox install of WinXP in full screen mode so I can have an XP install to troubleshoot users still on Windows.
The best part is, it’s *easy* to do!
AG
June 20th, 2007 at 4:12 am
Hi this is realy a nice topic..I tried it and its good as well… But I want to do the same in an USB pen drive of 512 MB. Can anyone please tell me reagarding FULL installation of DSL into a USB pen drive of 512 MB.
Thanks in advance
Dhruba
June 20th, 2007 at 7:50 am
Hi Dhruba, check out this link:
http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/index.php/Installing_to_a_USB_Flash_Drive
AG
June 27th, 2007 at 12:22 pm
i follow you until typing ”cfdisk /dev/hda” and i get no such file. anyway i run simple cfdisk and i have
hda1- primary- win98- fat32-5000mb
hda2-primary-linux- -5000mb
when i try to write partition i get from console
”wrote partition table, but re-read table failed. reboot to update”
i boot again and nothing change. pls help im stuck
July 9th, 2007 at 4:29 pm
when i resize the partitions one is hda1 swap then other is hda5 linux… i did dsl-hdinstall but it said… /dev/hda2: Invalid argument passed to ext2 library while setting up superblock i dont know what to do if any one could help… and the computer im using is…. Compaq Presario 1655, 4.1gb hd and 64mb ram… if that helps…. please help soon!!!!!!
July 9th, 2007 at 11:56 pm
you just put hda5 instead of hda2 while installing. and hopefully it will work.
July 10th, 2007 at 8:13 pm
thanks i did figure it out i wasn’t choosing to write the partitions so when i rebooted they didn’t save!!! And i have 1 more question. the computer im using is old, 64 MB RAM. any way i successfully installed it but when i boot it up the desktop is a light green color and i cannot read any of the words, like when i right click all i see is white… is there any way to fix it… if not is there another linux/ubuntu/ any other os besides windows that will work?
July 10th, 2007 at 10:46 pm
well u can go for Ubuntu but it will be very slow with ur present configuration. u can change the color depth or the resolution in the dsl itself. or keep ur monitor with less brightness. I think the problem is with ur VGA card or ur monitor. so the above steps may fix ur problem.
July 10th, 2007 at 10:58 pm
I had tried installing Ubuntu Feisty Fawn 7.04 but it always stopped at 6% on select and install software. also the computer i am using is a Compaq Presario 1655(laptop) and i dont know where i adjust brightness or any thing like that
July 10th, 2007 at 11:08 pm
That you have to find it out.. [:)]..better u contact with your vendor.
July 10th, 2007 at 11:11 pm
ok well is there a command prompt or setting to change color or resolution or something!?
July 16th, 2007 at 3:27 pm
Thanks AG. This helped me too.
Alan.
February 20th, 2008 at 12:24 am
I have been having trouble, it seems to install fine, but where you say “The script will ask you if you want to install a boot loader.” mine never gets there, it stops at some blue text that says “now the root filesystem is filled with data…” and never goes anywhere from there. What should I do?
February 24th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
yeah, i seem to be having the same problem as ben up there
the one time it has gotten past that point for me, it gets hung when setting up grub
any ideas?
May 19th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
Hello,
I have the same problem, the installer asks if i want to install a bootloader, i answer “y”, and gives several messages, after that i can’t boot from my new DSL HDD install, its says Grub error 17 (Already has a other Linux on HDD).
However, DSL is amazing because its the only Live CD who detects at startup my soundcard SBAWE
July 21st, 2008 at 4:38 am
Thanks !
This is really good document.
Now ny old PC is alive and running again.
Best regards
Asko
January 6th, 2009 at 9:06 pm
Hello ARSGEEK.
I am trying to install to a Compaq Armada E-500, but I am having trouble. The installation seems to run fine until I go to install a boat loader. It then comes back with a message error: no suitable miniroot was found. When I look in cfdisk, it reads linux is installed, but when I boot from my HDD, i get an error message - Error loading operating system. So apparently, it didn’t work for me.
January 6th, 2009 at 9:07 pm
boot loader* sorry
March 1st, 2009 at 5:08 pm
i just wanted to say that I love this site
May 6th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
Hey, I’m wondering if anyone could tell me if this is worth it; I’m planning to use DLS-N as a home server, to get everything I can out it. Worth it?
PS: I’m also planning to run a virtual machine or two on it.
October 11th, 2009 at 9:25 am
dearest AG,
hey your method worked correctly…
B4 reading ur artical i installed DSL by entering booting by pressing F3 on CD bootup screen…after installing i got ‘ erro loading operating system’.
So I tried ur way and it worked..im new to linux..but im loving it already.
do u know is there a possibility to make computer clusters(integrate computer resourses in a network and share among working users)in DSL..
seemz u r no longer reading comments on this article..this is 2009 and u hv published it in 2007…anyway im writing this..
wish u will see this…may the spirits mk him to peep into this article once again…thankz..goodwork.
May 21st, 2010 at 9:52 pm
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