What is "PPI"?

[littlebat]

I found something like "One of our goals is the installing of extensions under /usr/local as completely as possible to support PPI method of use and RAM savings of tclocal. ", or "tinycore local={hda1|sda1}          Specify PPI directory or loopback file"

A tiny question: What is PPI?

[netnomad]

Persistent Personal Installation
https://lwn.net/Articles/340495/
PPI/TCE: In this fourth mode of operation, extensions are installed into a Linux partition or a loopback file, which can be specified with the boot option local=hdXY. The developers call this mode "Persistent Personal Installation". It boots faster than the other modes, because no loading or mounting occurs during boot. Moreover, it has the same RAM savings as the PPR/TCZ mode.

compared to

PPR/TCE: In this mode, Tiny Core uses a writable persistent storage partition, which can be specified with the boot option tce=hdXY. The storage partition becomes a "Persistent Personal Repository" (PPR) for so-called TCE extensions. When the user installs extensions, they will be saved on the storage partition into the directory tce. When Tiny Core boots, all TCE extensions on the partition will automatically be loaded into RAM. A disadvantage is that adding many TCEs may quickly exhaust system memory.

[beerstein]

Hi:
What is the difference between:

boot option local=hdXY

and

boot option tce=hdXY as well as home=hdXY and opt=hdXY

Thank you for that

Tip: On the new TCL 4.01 mostly sdXY is needed. If one does not know whether to specify hd or sd. Just boot the base only and use the mount tool to find out.

Tip2: When specifying a /home and there is another user from another distro on the same partition in that home beside /tc then the whole will be backed up during shut down. If this other /home/userx contains a lot of data the mydata.gz file will be very large.

Please correct me if I am wron on that

[curaga]

PPI / local is removed as of 4.0.

[gerald_clark]

Tip2: When specifying a /home and there is another user from another distro on the same partition in that home beside /tc then the whole will be backed up during shut down. If this other /home/userx contains a lot of data the mydata.gz file will be very large.

Please correct me if I am wron on that

When specifing /home with home= boot option, you need to remove the "home" line from /opt/.filetool.lst.
This prevents the unnecessary and probably problematic backup and restore of /home.

[littlebat]

Thanks. I know, it is an out-of-date item.

Maybe, "Core Concepts distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/concepts.html " is still need update. I found it can't explain the "onboot", "ondemand", etc. modes in Appbrowser clearly.

[beerstein]

Hi: As I understand it ---- on boot: the extension from the repo is loaded through the app browser into RAM and uses RAM
---------------------------------on demand : the extension from the repo is not loaded through the app browser  into RAM and uses no space in RAM but the extension is mounted in /tcloop ( here I am not sure)
When you start an extension which is "on demand" it will be loaded into RAM and executed.
I do not know how long it will stay in RAM? Maybe somebody else can help here.
on load: means the app loaded into what? what if I have tce=hdxy and/or opt=hdxz? or what happens when I just booted the base?

 

[mocore]

PPI / local is removed as of 4.0.

 for what reasons was this removed

[curaga]

It was more trouble that it was worth. If one needs such a setup, it's about the same work doing it manually as using the local/ppi system - many extensions need manual work in both cases.

It was also rarely used, in fact most mentions were by people new to TC, who shouldn't have had to dive that deep at first tries. If you search, you'll find many who copied the bootcode from a third party site, and then ask why some things broke.

[bmarkus]

It means there are no sense to mention in .info file whether extension is PPI compatible or not.

What is about the requirement to keep all files in /usr/local? Is there any policy restriction kept in TC 4 to have a file for example in /etc instead of copying or symlinking it in a startup script? Of corcse it is another question if it must be writable.

[curaga]

The preference is /usr/local, but it's not an absolute rule; some packages may have hardcoded paths elsewhere, and changing those would be more effort than we can require.