The official Damn Small Linux book : the tiny adaptable Linux that runs on anything

Summary: Damn Small Linux (DSL) started as an exercise by John Andrews to fit an entire desktop computer system into a compressed 50MB image. Within a few years, DSL grew to one of the most popular Linux systems in the world (in the Top Ten, by some accounts) without growing beyond that 50MB target. In a world where desktop systems are bloated with eye candy and many rarely used features, you may wonder what makes this little operating-system-that-could so popular? Well, it could be that people don’t want to throw away a usable computer because the latest Windows system won’t run. It could be that people are tired of waiting for common computer operations to complete while who-knows-what goes on in the background. Or maybe it’s just a love for simplicity and elegance. DSL sets out to include all the basic features you need in a modern desktop computer system—and then makes those features functional, fast, and efficient. As a result, DSL can run well on hardware that is smaller, older, or less powerful than what most of today’s desktop systems demand.