[Maz2007]

I am a brand new Linux user.
I downloaded the ISO file for DSL and burned it onto a disk. I successfully booted my (other) machine off this disk.
The machine that I want to make into a Linux machine has a 20 GB hard drive, currently blank.
How can I access the HD from DSL running off of the CD-drive? I think that it is formatted using the NTFS file system. The last OS on it was Windows 2000, but since then has been re-formatted.
I found that it is mounted, but when I use the file browser to browse it, it tells me that I don't have access to that file or directory.
What is even more interesting is that it tells me that it recognizes the 19GB HD, and says that 17GBs are in use and 2 are free.
Does the HD need to be formatted for Linux? How would I do that?

[MCole]

I'm not completely positive with Damn Small but...
If you're running DSL as a LiveCD, then there is usually an option right on the desktop/workspace to install the OS. You would definitely want to re-format the drive to either ext2 or ext3 (not sure what DSL prefers.) When installing DSL, there should be a one point an option to format the drive for Linux specifications. If you are unable to format with DSL (which I highly doubt) you can always get gparted (http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php)
DL the most recent version 0.3.4.8, and burn it as an Image to a CD. When you boot it up, there will be a basic GUI with only a few things to choose from. Pick "GParted" and from there you can arranged your partitions and format as well.

Hope I could help.

[saikee]

DSL is Damn Small Linux with a tiny footprint. It can't manage such a small size without using the smallest number of programs possible and a smallest kernel available. While every distro is usineg 2.6.21 DSL is still sticking with the 2.4.x kernel.

I think the ntfs filing system support in DSL may be missing and to write on a ntfs partition is out of the question.

DSL provides two types of installations. One as a Live CD and that is to copy itself into a fat partition and boot up by syslinux. The other is a standard Linux installation using Grub 0.91.

To install DSL in the former method the partition must be formatted into fat32 because syslinux is a Dos program.

To install DSL in the latter method or the standard Linux way, which can enable it to be mounted and has /boot, /etc, /home ...inside, the partition must be created as a type 83 permitting ext3 filing system to be formatted.

This is quite simple to achieve. Just boot up DSL, click terminal and type

su

I believe DSL will ask for the root password which should be either " " by pressing just the return key or "root". Thereafter just run cfdisk to delete the ntfs partition and recreate one with type 83 for native Linux. Click "wirte" to write the partition table, confirm with a "yes" and exit cfdisk. The partition should be displayed if the terminal command

fdisk -l 

is typed. The above command is the most definitive way to find out any existence of any partition and any hard disk in your computer. If you do not see a hard disk there that means at the hardware level the mobo doesn't recognise it (connection/jumper problems).

From memory DSL may need the partition formatted first and this can be done, say it is hda1, by terminal command

mke2fs -j /dev/hda1

After the partition is available just click the deskopt menu in DSL as there is an installer available to install DSL into the specified partition.

DSL will be more than happy in a partition of say 2Gb.