Tiny Core Linux

Tiny Core Base => TCB Q&A Forum => Topic started by: navoye on November 21, 2010, 04:29:16 PM

Title: problem with free space
Post by: navoye on November 21, 2010, 04:29:16 PM
Hello,
I'm a newbie in linux.
got TC instaled on DOM on HP terminal. It works fine and do almost all things that i need, but it was realy hard for me to install and configure it.
Now i need to install Samba on it, but when i try to do it appbrowser gives me error and cant do that. I realized that propably my problem is free space. In home/tc/stats.txt it looks like this:

Filesystem          Size          Used          Available            Use%            Mounted on
tmpfs                  96.6M       29.6M           66.4M               31%             /
tmpfs                  53.3M             0             53.3M                 0%            /dev/shm
/dev/hda1           22.8         16.7M             4.9M                77%            /mnt/hda1

So i dont have enough free space on hda1 to download samba.

My question is: Is there any way to instal samba on my machine without new instalation?
Please help, due my small knowledge about linux systems step by step instruction will be the best for me, but i will be grateful for all hints.

ps. sorry for my english, i tried to do my best
Title: Re: problem with free space
Post by: maro on November 21, 2010, 04:52:05 PM
I assume you have set your 'tce' directory to be on '/dev/hda1' (check via cat /opt/.tce_dir). According to the 'Size' tab in the 'appbrowser' the 'samba3.tcz' extension will need (with it's dependencies) ca. 29MB. So you are out of luck.

If you wanted to do just a "once-off" installation I'd image you could force yourself back into "cloud mode" via echo /tmp/tce > /opt/.tce_dir But that means the downloaded files are "lost" as soon as you reboot.
Title: Re: problem with free space
Post by: tinypoodle on November 21, 2010, 05:11:08 PM
Note that doing as maro suggested (and appears to be the quickest fix) would leave you with 29 MB less of working RAM.

According to your circumstances you might want to consider to extend your available storage or to mount extensions over a local net.
http://wiki.tinycorelinux.com/Netbooting&highlight=nfs%20extensions#PXE_and_PPR_TCZ_on_an_NFS_share
Title: Re: problem with free space
Post by: navoye on November 21, 2010, 05:30:21 PM
yes, my tce directory is on /dev/hda1
i dont understand "back to cloud mode" - i will lost all my settings, programs  and files?
i must back to cloud, then change partition size and then i need to instal all over again?
is there any way to mount for exacly pendrive and download samba on it, then install it?
i need samba becouse i want to mount pendrive and share space on it for others computers.
Title: Re: problem with free space
Post by: tinypoodle on November 21, 2010, 05:41:28 PM
1. When running in cloud mode you can still use backup/restore for all personal and customized files.

2. If you have a pendrive at disposition then just use that instead of your current hda1 to set the tce dir.

Title: Re: problem with free space
Post by: navoye on November 21, 2010, 05:49:46 PM
can You please tell me how to set tce dir on pendrive? like i said, i'm a newbie
Title: Re: problem with free space
Post by: tinypoodle on November 21, 2010, 05:55:57 PM
can You please tell me how to set tce dir on pendrive? like i said, i'm a newbie
http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php?topic=7877.msg42164#msg42164
Title: Re: problem with free space
Post by: navoye on November 21, 2010, 06:11:55 PM
thank You! last questions(i hope) - can i place tce dir on tmpfs? why do i have 2 tmpfs, and only one is mounted?
If You dont mind and answer it i will read it tomorow couse i live in gmt+1 zone and now is time to go to bed, but i will go much happier after all Yours replies :)
thank you one more time
Title: Re: problem with free space
Post by: Guy on November 21, 2010, 06:54:26 PM
I don't know what kind of computer you have.

You can only have the tce directory on a usb drive, if you have a newer computer which can boot from a usb drive.

If you have an old computer which cannot boot from a usb drive, you cannot put the tce directory on the usb drive, as it cannot access the drive early enough in the boot process to load extensions.

I mention this because some people are using old computers.
Title: Re: problem with free space
Post by: tinypoodle on November 21, 2010, 06:55:42 PM
thank You! last questions(i hope) - can i place tce dir on tmpfs?

That sounds to me as what maro suggests in post #2.
Title: Re: problem with free space
Post by: tinypoodle on November 21, 2010, 07:08:11 PM
I don't know what kind of computer you have.

You can only have the tce directory on a usb drive, if you have a newer computer which can boot from a usb drive.

If you have an old computer which cannot boot from a usb drive, you cannot put the tce directory on the usb drive, as it cannot access the drive early enough in the boot process to load extensions.

I mention this because some people are using old computers.

Wrong, the boot medium which needs to contain the kernel and probably (not 100% sure if there could be ways around that) the initrd has to be accessible by the BIOS.

Nothing speaks against mounting the tce dir from USB when USB is not a boot option, even with onboot items (the same applies for restoring the backup from USB).

In fact there are certain ways to bootstrap to a kernel and initrd contained on a USB device even if the BIOS does not offer any USB boot options, but that would be more complex and beyond the scope of this thread.
Title: Re: problem with free space
Post by: Guy on November 21, 2010, 07:38:59 PM
Quote
If you have an old computer which cannot boot from a usb drive, you cannot put the tce directory on the usb drive, as it cannot access the drive early enough in the boot process to load extensions.

Quote
Wrong, the boot medium which needs to contain the kernel and probably (not 100% sure if there could be ways around that) the initrd has to be accessible by the BIOS.

Nothing speaks against mounting the tce dir from USB when USB is not a boot option.

Have you done this in real life, or are you speaking theoretically.

This information is to make it simple for new users.

If a person simply puts their tce directory on a usb drive, and the computer cannot boot from the usb drive, it cannot access the drive early enough in the boot process to load extensions.

It is possible to do many things.

Theoretically, it is possible to start Tiny Core without extensions, and then use Install Local later. You could also write a script to load extensions. This is a waste of time, and new users will get confused.

There are also other boot methods which enable the usb drive to be accessed. Again, this makes it more complicated, and would confuse new users.
Title: Re: problem with free space
Post by: Guy on November 21, 2010, 07:49:57 PM
To make this information more complete:

If people want to boot Tiny Core, or any other operating system, from a usb drive, but their bios does not allow for this, they can use the Plop Boot Manager.

http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager.html

Most people who have a computer which cannot boot from a usb drive, are better off installing Tiny Core on the hard drive.
Title: Re: problem with free space
Post by: tinypoodle on November 21, 2010, 08:05:59 PM
Quote
If you have an old computer which cannot boot from a usb drive, you cannot put the tce directory on the usb drive, as it cannot access the drive early enough in the boot process to load extensions.

Quote
Wrong, the boot medium which needs to contain the kernel and probably (not 100% sure if there could be ways around that) the initrd has to be accessible by the BIOS.

Nothing speaks against mounting the tce dir from USB when USB is not a boot option.

Have you done this in real life, or are you speaking theoretically.

Yes, on more than one PC which had no BIOS option to boot from USB and even with USB 1.1 ports.
Booting as well from CD, PATA HDD, pxelinux netboot (and with onboot items).

As far as I understand, the way TC is designed, there is no direct relation between the boot medium and the medium of the PPR (tce) and the backup.

Quote
If a person simply puts their tce directory on a usb drive, and the computer cannot boot from the usb drive, it cannot access the drive early enough in the boot process to load extensions.

Yes it can, all that is required is proper usage of the "waitusb=" boot parameter which is sufficiently documented.
Never having booted TC myself from a USB medium, but I could not see that there would be any difference at all, as when it comes to mount the storage medium, the system is already extracted to RAM (theoretically the boot medium could have been removed).
Title: Re: problem with free space
Post by: Guy on November 21, 2010, 08:32:37 PM
If it does work, I stand corrected. I have not checked.

I tried this a long time ago, with version 1.x, and it did not work then.

Maybe things have changed with the newer versions.
Title: Re: problem with free space
Post by: tinypoodle on November 21, 2010, 08:47:12 PM
Most people are better off installing Tiny Core on the hard drive.

If by
Quote
on the hard drive

an internal HDD is implied - as opposed to e.g. USB HDD

then all of the following 3 preconditions have to be met:
1. The mere presence of an internal HDD.
2. A FAT* or ext* file system. (At least without remastering)
3. Sufficient free space on upper.

Since post #1 by OP it is apparent that the PC in question does not feature a HDD.
In post #2 maro made it absolutely clear that the extension required is bigger than the size of the storage medium hda1, and therefore hda1 was out of the question for tce storage.
Therefore feasible approaches (alternatives to using hda1 as tce) had to be examined and suggested.
Title: Re: problem with free space
Post by: Juanito on November 21, 2010, 08:48:24 PM
..as when it comes to mount the storage medium, the system is already extracted to RAM (theoretically the boot medium could have been removed).

It's easy to test - if you boot "base norestore" from a usb stick, when boot completes the stick is not mounted and you can remove it and tc continues to work.
Title: Re: problem with free space
Post by: tinypoodle on November 21, 2010, 09:28:01 PM
..as when it comes to mount the storage medium, the system is already extracted to RAM (theoretically the boot medium could have been removed).

It's easy to test - if you boot "base norestore" from a usb stick, when boot completes the stick is not mounted and you can remove it and tc continues to work.

Even way earlier actually, according to following description:
http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php?topic=7825.msg41922#msg41922
Title: Re: problem with free space
Post by: navoye on November 22, 2010, 01:22:38 PM
Most people are better off installing Tiny Core on the hard drive.

If by
Quote
Since post #1 by OP it is apparent that the PC in question does not feature a HDD.
I think we got some kind of missunderstanding. So, to be exact:
my computer is: HP COMPAQ T5500 Thin Client - i can boot from usb, thats no problem
instead of hdd i'v got DOM - something like this http://www.ravirajtech.com/diskonmodule.html but of course larger capacity.
So, my computer seeing DOM like normal HDD
Now, after all i read i think the best way for me is to buy HDD 2,5 and connect it instead of my DOM, i think it will take all my problems away.
but...
My pc have only one ata slot so i cant connect DOM and HDD at the same time....
how to move all my system to new hard disk wihout loosing programs and data?

[fixquote]
Title: Re: problem with free space
Post by: maro on November 22, 2010, 03:10:35 PM
navoye: Sure having a hard disk would probably give you the best in terms of speed and capacity. OTOH I don't see a reason why you'd rule out storage on a USB pendrive. At least it would allow you to explore TC further than your DOM currently allows on it's own and may not incurr an upfront cost for new hardware (mind you I wonder how long we can buy 2.5 HDD with IDE interface).

I assume you have a boot loader (e.g. GRUB) plus the kernel (i.e. 'bzImage') and the initrd (i.e. 'tinycore.gz') installed on your DOM. They could remain there, you just need a USB pendrive to hold your choosen extensions plus the backup file (to store configuration etc.). If you've got a USB pendrive with a VFAT or EXT[2-4] partition (and enough free capacity) that could be utilised for that purpose. You don't need to use the 'usbinstall' script (which would wipe the USB pendrive and prepare a TC system that is bootable from the USB pendrive).

If you intend to give this a go please describe what you've got and we'll try to guide you through the next steps.
Title: Re: problem with free space
Post by: navoye on November 22, 2010, 03:50:10 PM
#maro
I think You are right in case no new hardware, just usb pendrive. it will give me posibility to test if all works fine for me without spending money. If all my plans will work and i realize that i need more space to share with other computer i will think about buying new hdd.  You give me way to test all i need without costs :) .I got  new 8gb pendrive. its fat32 but i think there will be no problem to format it to another file system. There are no data on it.
If it's possible i will be happy to use for example 1gb of its space for extentions and backup and rest space for sharing with samba to another computer.
Could You please tell me how to do it?
Title: Re: problem with free space
Post by: maro on November 22, 2010, 05:00:28 PM
OK, you could partition it into several partitions (e.g. one EXT3 or EXT4 for TC and the remainder as a VFAT), or you just leave it as a single VFAT partition. The latter might not be optimal in terms of performance, but it's the option with the least effort and greatest flexibility (i.e. no commitment of a dedicated space that might turn out to be either too large or too small at a later point in time).

Certainly one point in favour of EXT3 or EXT4 would be the fact that those are journalling file systems. But for a USB pendrive that does not need to be an advantage. The idea has to be to minimise the write activities to the pendrive. TC is optimised in that regard (compared to the usual "scatter installation" done by most Linux distributions), so I think VFAT is an acceptable choice.

If you still need partitioning advice please "sing out". Otherwise the use of 'fdisk' or 'cfdisk' (from the 'cfdisk.tcz' extension) or some GUI partitioning tool like 'gparted' (needs the 'gparted.tcz' extension) and the appropriate formatting command (e.g. 'mkfs.ext3', 'mkfs.ext4' or  'mkfs.vfat' from the 'dosfstools-3.tcz' extension) should be all you need. There should be plenty of other posts in this forum regarding the use of those tools.

After inserting your USB pendrive to your target system you could use blkid /dev/sd* to get an idea about the device name and the label and / or the UUID of your target file system. As I have written just a few day ago another post (http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php?topic=7864.msg42110#msg42110) about what is important for USB pendrive setups I recommend you read that post instead of me reapeting most things here again.

In summary, the 'waitusb=...' boot code is mandatory the 'tce=...' boot code is optional. One thing you should be doing is to remove the 'tce' directory from your DOM. As the USB based filesystem of your choice need to have a 'tce' directory anyway I'd suggest you just move it over there. Otherwise (if you want to start from scratch) remove it from the DOM and create a new one on the USB pendrive.

After all those changes to file systems and the boot loader configuration I'd suggest before you start to download and install more extensions that you make sure that TC does the correct 'tce' directory detection. I mean: boot the system and check with cat /opt/.tce_dir that the intended directory was identified.
Title: Re: problem with free space
Post by: tinypoodle on November 22, 2010, 05:49:03 PM
Most people are better off installing Tiny Core on the hard drive.

If by
Quote
Since post #1 by OP it is apparent that the PC in question does not feature a HDD.
I think we got some kind of missunderstanding. So, to be exact:
my computer is: HP COMPAQ T5500 Thin Client - i can boot from usb, thats no problem
instead of hdd i'v got DOM - something like this http://www.ravirajtech.com/diskonmodule.html but of course larger capacity.
So, my computer seeing DOM like normal HDD


Speaking for myself, no misunderstanding at all, that was my impression from the first post, and whatever I wrote was based on that.
BTW, you are not the first person I would have come across who is using TC on a HP Thin client   ;)
Title: Re: problem with free space
Post by: tinypoodle on November 22, 2010, 06:18:51 PM
In case of deciding to run gparted, note that there is not sufficient free space available on your hda1 to do so.
It might be possible to install gparted with all its deps if you would free up all space not needed to boot TC. Otherwise you would have to run in default mode, so that extensions would be stored in tmpfs.
Title: Re: problem with free space
Post by: tinypoodle on November 27, 2010, 12:57:26 AM
If it does work, I stand corrected. I have not checked.

I tried this a long time ago, with version 1.x, and it did not work then.

Maybe things have changed with the newer versions.

Guy,

I have to admit I had not tried to access attched USB devices at boot time earlier than with version 2.3

By looking at kernel config now it appears that USB storage support is compiled into the kernel - a look at 'lsmod' while USB storage devices are in use could indicate the same.
Therefore there is no such issue as USB storage not being available early enough during boot process.

Your statements led me to compare the config files for the kernel used in 2.x vs. 1.x.

the basic obvious difference I found that in the kernel used in 1.x: CONFIG_USB_OHCI_HCD=m

The assumption could be made that if someone would use a USB OHCI port, then indeed there could be an issue of timing at boot time, depending on when exactly the module gets loaded within boot sequence and how boot scripts relate to it.

On a sidenote: whether BIOS do or do not support boot from USB is irrelevant to the whole subject of USB devices being activated at boot time by the kernel, IMHO.
Title: Re: problem with free space
Post by: Guy on November 27, 2010, 01:54:47 AM
This is not an important issue, as all new computers can boot from a usb drive (as far as I know). So as the years go by, less and less people will use computers which cannot boot from a usb drive. However, some people run Tiny Core on older computers.

I did not plan to start a debate. However, since the issue is being discussed, I just did an experiment. I started Tiny Core 3.3 on a computer which cannot boot from a usb drive, with the tce directory on a usb drive connected to the computer. I tried waitusb=10, waitusb=20, waitusb=30, and others.

The extensions were not loaded.

I can connect the usb drive after starting Tiny Core, and install them using Install Local.

I use Grub legacy.

The same thing occurred when running Tiny Core from a CD.


Quote
Have you done this in real life, or are you speaking theoretically.

If you do have this working, what might you be doing different to me?
Title: Re: problem with free space
Post by: tinypoodle on November 27, 2010, 05:03:26 AM
Your last question came somehow redundant for me, as I had already asked that myself before I ended up reading it...

To make sure, I did some testing here as well.

USB flash stick attached to a USB 1.1 port of a 2002 Toshiba Satellite.
I had usually restored backup from it which didn't require 'waitusb' as it appears that loading extensions from internal hdd provides for enough time for the USB stick to be initialized until it is needed.
1. Adding boot parameters 'tce=sda2 restore=sda2' resulted in failure to load both.
2. Further adding 'waitusb=20' resulted in success of mounting onboot apps and restoring backup.
Upper was done with TC 2.10, bootloader being linld, though I do not think that bootloader per se would matter (correct syntax would), as long as it passes boot parameters correctly to the kernel.

What you could try: Increase waitusb value to be very high at least just for once, in order to exclude. Is that a USB 1.0 or USB 1.1 port?

Boot with parameters 'debug syslog', then have a look at /var/log/messages, particularly at the timing of USB device being recognized and everything else being related.
Title: Re: problem with free space
Post by: Guy on November 27, 2010, 05:20:56 AM
This is not an important issue, and it is not worth wasting a lot of time on.

Maybe it works on some computers and not others.

I have found it did not work on more than one computer. All desktop computers.

Are you sure the bios in your computer cannot be set up to boot from the usb drive?

Do you have any other computers to test it on?

Is waitusb= the only thing different?

How are you booting Tiny Core?
Title: Re: problem with free space
Post by: tinypoodle on November 27, 2010, 06:25:30 AM
Absolutely sure about BIOS options, I mentioned 2002, there was no booting from USB back then.
The Toshiba is booted from FreeDOS with linld, kernel and initrd on internal hdd.
Same experience with a Thinkpad from 2000, booted by pxelinux over the net (would not want to ruin uptime on that one to test).
Also I had success with a USB hdd instead of a pendrive on both laptops in the past.
I have never used a desktop.

Both boxes have USB 1.1 ports, you didn't reply my question if your USB port is 1.0 or 1.1.

Again, if I were you I would check syslog about the timing.
Title: Re: problem with free space
Post by: Guy on November 27, 2010, 08:01:17 AM
It seems like it works on some computers but not others.

Because it is not an important issue, it is not worth wasting a lot of time trying to determine what makes the difference.

Maybe it is the motherboard.

I could try FreeDOS and see if that makes any difference. You could try Grub and see if that makes any difference. Because it is not an important issue, it is not worth wasting the time to find out. There are more important things. (You can if you want to)

If someone finds it works for them, great.

If someone has done everything correctly and it does not work, maybe it will not work on their computer. If it is important, there is always the Plop boot manager.

Maybe FreeDOS works like Plop.
Title: Re: problem with free space
Post by: gerald_clark on November 27, 2010, 11:09:31 AM
This discussion has strayed from the topic, but I would suggest running
cat /proc/cmdline
to be sure the waitusb option is being passed to init.
Title: Re: problem with free space
Post by: Guy on November 27, 2010, 01:08:12 PM
As this subject may be debated for some time to come, I have started another post to get the opinions of others.

http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php?topic=7942.0