btw, damn small seems fucked up:
Current status of the project
Due to infighting among the project's originators and main developers, DSL development seems to be at a standstill, and the future of the project is uncertain, much to the dismay of many of the users.[1] The web site for DSL is currently offline as of March 21st, 2012.
nati: usb is fast enough m8, without swap and eventually with a small partition on the disk for /home, /tmp and stuff. not a big drama, has been tested.