The rise and fall of Damn Small Linux is one of those tales along the lines of a great concept executed well. The idea was to create a Linux distro that was small enough to fit on a credit-card sized CD-ROM. With a target size of 50MB or less, this format certainly concentrates the developers' minds if they also want to create a hassle-free user experience.
For the most part, DSL does succeed. Based on the grandfather of all Live CDs, Knoppix
Pnr Status TextNow VPN, DSL strips out layer after layer of non-essential stuff, while leaving a core working system.