Howto: Create Bootable USB Stick

[Juanito]

This is not exactly what you're looking for, but this works for me:

Code: [Select]

display boot.msg
default tc
label tc
kernel /boot/bzImage
append initrd=/boot/tinycore.gz quiet vga=773 noswap laptop tce=sda1 waitusb=5 noscan text


implicit 0
prompt 1
timeout 300
F1 boot.msg
F2 f2
F3 f3
i.e.

1. extensions in /mnt/sda1/tce loaded at boot
2. extensions in /mnt/sda1/tce/optional in app browser options menu

Note that I don't think "laptop" is needed anymore, but I didn't get around to removing it.

[roberts]

I tried the waitusb=7 boot option together with tclocal=sda1, downloaded a couple of TCE extensions, backed up to sda1 and rebooted to find no sign of the downloaded extensions on the menu bar or within the right click menu.

Until I can find a simple way of setting up persistence on a USB stick I'll content myself by playing with TC in Virtualbox within Hardy Heron.

There is no tclocal, it was a typo on the boot screen and has been corrected in RC and FAQ:
 tinycore local={hda1|sda1}          Specify PPI directory or loopback file.

[jaygeetiny]

This is not exactly what you're looking for, but this works for me:

Code: [Select]

display boot.msg
default tc
label tc
kernel /boot/bzImage
append initrd=/boot/tinycore.gz quiet vga=773 noswap laptop tce=sda1 waitusb=5 noscan text


implicit 0
prompt 1
timeout 300
F1 boot.msg
F2 f2
F3 f3
i.e.

1. extensions in /mnt/sda1/tce loaded at boot
2. extensions in /mnt/sda1/tce/optional in app browser options menu

Note that I don't think "laptop" is needed anymore, but I didn't get around to removing it.

Hi Juanito

Thanks for that.

I've managed to get USB stick persistence in PPR/TCE mode by adding the boot options "no swap tce=sda1 waitusb=7".

I'll stick to PPR/TCE mode for the moment and try other options later.

There is no tclocal, it was a typo on the boot screen and has been corrected in RC and FAQ:
 tinycore local={hda1|sda1}          Specify PPI directory or loopback file.

Hi roberts
 
The reference to "tclocal" is still shown on the http://www.tinycorelinux.com/concepts.html page which is the first point of contact for many new TC users. Is it possible to get the doc edited?

BTW being really pedantic the PPI/TCE para has the heading "The Forth Mode".


 

[roberts]

Thanks Jay, edits done.

[3rail]

fwiw, I've spent the last couple of days playing around with tc linux and trying to get it to boot from a 2gb pendrive.  I used unetbootin at first, but it failed to boot too many times so I went with http://tinycorelinux.com/install.html route instead with my 2gb pendrive acting as the "hard drive".

the two head scratchers I had to overcome to get a bootable usb with tc linux using those instructions:

1.  How to mount the live cd from within tc linux (answer after reading the forum: cat /etc/fstab [where is the d* cdrom drive?  oh, hda]; mount /dev/hda)
2.  Trying to figure out what the right grub incantation was for "sdb1".  I gave up and borrowed from http://lists.us.dell.com/pipermail/linux-poweredge/2003-July/008898.html (answer: set sdb as the root device: "Grub>device (hd0) /dev/sdb", then follow the rest of the grub installation instructions in http://tinycorelinux.com/install.html.

next was TCE persistence.  key to this one was the kernel line "waitusb=5 tce=sdb1/tce" and "pause" was a useful debugging tool too.  home persistence was easy with adding "home=sdb1".

Thanks for TinyCore, it's very cool!

[Lee]

BTW being really pedantic the PPI/TCE para has the heading "The Forth Mode".

Thanks Jay, edits done.

So there's really no Forth mode?  And I really wanted to do reverse-polish arithmetic. 


A one-time forth geek.

_{(File systems are for sissies)}

[cdr]

I am surprised that in this discussion there was no mention of ziplinux.
That is the in doc section of the syslinux release.
The author implies that it is the only sure fire way to boot from flash media because of
geometry problems on the media, ie, the way out is to emulate a 250MB zip drive which
has disk geometry that can reliably be used on flash media with a small modification
to accound for the true size of the flash drive.

Any way, the short fille called ziplinux.txt explains it much better than I can.

Costa

[linus72]

I simply used the aforementioned grub/usb install and it works awesome
Note, anyone interested I have available tc-1.4.3-usb ready to go for both grub/ext2-3 or syslinux/fat16/32 usb
simply plop the 2 download folders(boot & flavors) onto usb, install either grub or syslinux to usb and your set
I have also "flavor" modules pre-loaded with tce's too, just stick'em in flavors folder and go!
this simplifies it all, and menu.lst/syslinux.cfg is already setup for diff usb names(sda1/sdc1/sdf1, etc)
syslinux.cfg even has sub-menu system for saving to hd, usb, or even tcvd(flavors)
( http://multidistro.com/downloads/tc_flavors/tc_flavors.html )
and cool screenshots of 2.0 here and 1.4.3 too
( http://multidistro.com/tinycore-shots/tc-scrnshots.html )

Distro of the Year?
TC hands down!:)
I'm getting ready to devote my whole site to tc!

[roberts]

I created both usbhdd and usbzip for DSL.
I am in the testing stage of porting both to TC.
Will likely be an extension.

[Juanito]

Could we have an option to create an ext2 usbhdd using the extlinux extension?

[roberts]

Will do.

[Laskody]

I want to ask an newbie question.  If a newer version is released in the future, how can i create the core instalations image on a bootable usb?

(I created the current installation flash drive under a different system)

I'm looking for something like that

 "usb disk image recorder" that works on TC.   If in the future there would be only tc on the Computer.

 

[NewUser]

If you start from Windows machine, core2usb.

[Laskody]

Thank you, but My question is that, when If you only have Tiny Core linux on your machine and you want to create an tc installation usb from Iso. 

[Juanito]

You can use the tc-install extension.