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Here I'm republishing an old blog post of mine originally from November 2014. The article has been slightly improved.
It has been more than two years since I wrote about XFDOS, a graphical FreeDOS distribution with the FLTK toolkit and some applications for it.
Mr. Potthast didn't stop after this achievement however. Soon afterwards he published Nanolinux. And now I finally found the time to re-visit the world of tiny FLTK applications - this time on a genuine Linux system! And while it shows that it is closely related to XFDOS (starting with the wallpaper), _Nanolinux_ does not follow the usual way at all according to which newer things are "bigger, badder and better". It is rather _even smaller, more sophisticated and simple to use_!
I needed three attempts to catch the startup process properly for a screenshot because Nanolinux boots up very fast. Probably the most important difference from the DOS version is that Nanolinux can run multiple applications at the same time (which is something that goes without saying today). But there's of course more to it. If it weren't then this review wouldn't make much sense, would it?
The startup process of Nanolinux (PNG)
Yes, that is what Nanolinux basically is. But that's in fact more than you might expect. The first thing that is noteworthy is the size of Nanolinux: Just like the name suggests, it's very small. It runs on systems with as little as 64 MB of RAM - and the whole ISO image for it is only 14 MB in size.
The Nanolinux desktop (in a VM; second cursor is from the host machine) (PNG)
While many people will be impressed by this fact, I can hear some of you yawn. Don't dismiss the project just yet! It's true that people have stuffed some Linux 2.2 kernel on a single floppy and still had enough space remaining to pull together a somewhat usable system. But Nanolinux can hardly be compared to one of these. You have a Linux 3.0 kernel here - and it features a graphical desktop together with a surprisingly high amount of useful applications!
Speaking of applications: Most of which are part of XFDOS can be found in Nanolinux, too. E.g. FlWriter, FlView and Dillo. There are a few exceptions as well: The DOS media player, PDF viewer etc are missing. However there are also a few new programs on board which you don't find in the graphical DOS distribution. I'm going to concentrate on these.
Showing off the Nanolinux menu (PNG)
A nice one is the system stats program: As you would expect it gives you an overview of system ressources like CPU and RAM usage. But it does a lot more than that! It also lists running processes, shows your mounts, can display the dmesg - and more. Pretty useful small tool!
Then we have Fluff from TinyCore. It is a minimalist file manager. Don't start looking for icons or things like that. It follows a text-based approach you may know from some console file manager. It's small but functional and works pretty well once you get used to it.
System stats and the Fluff file manager (PNG)
Want to communicate with others on the net? Not a problem for Nanolinux. While it comes with Dillo, this browser is not really capable of displaying today's websites correctly. But Nanolinux also has FlChat - a complete IRC client! So it allows you to talk to people all over the world without much trouble.
FlChat – a FLTK-based IRC client! (PNG)
Or perhaps you want to listen to music? In this case you've got the choice between two FLTK applications: FlMusic and FlRadio. The former is a CD player and the second one let's you listen to web radio stations. Since Nanolinux runs from RAM after it has started, it is no problem to eject the CD and put in some audio CD of your choice instead.
FlMusic and FlRadio to treat your ears (PNG)
Even though that's a pretty formidable collections of programs already, there's of course always the point where you need something Nanolinux does not provide. Like it's mother, TinyCore, Nanolinux supports _Extensions_ in this case. These are binary packages which can add pre-build applications to your system.
Let's imagine you want to burn a CD. Nanolinux has an extension for FlBurn available. After clicking on it from the extension list, the system downloads and installs the extension. Once this is finished, FlBurn will be available on the system.
FlBurn installed from the extensions (PNG)
There are a few extensions available for you. And what to do if you need a program that has not been packaged for Nanolinux? Well, you can always try to build it yourself. If you feel like it, there's the _compile_nl_ package for you which provides what you need.
Don't be too ambitious however! Nanolinux comes with _Nano-X_, remember? That means any program which depends on some Xorg library won't compile on your system. You'll just end up with an error message like the one shown in the screenshot below!
Compiling your own packages with "compile_nl" (PNG)
Nanolinux builds upon the core of the TinyCore Linux distribution - and while it remains below the ordinary TinyCore in size, it comes with many useful applications by default. It can run on a system with as little as 64 MB of RAM and is extensible if you need any programs which did not fit into the 14 MB iso image.
This little distribution can do that thanks to the use of Nano-X (think X11's little brother) and a special version of the FLTK toolkit modified to cope with that slim windowing system. It is definitely worth a try if you're at all into the world of minimalism. And even if you're not - it can be a nice playing around just to see what is possible.
While I do have something in mind which would be fitting after this post, I'm not completely sure yet that I'll manage to get it done within the remaining time of this year. Just wait and see!
