How to boot CorePlus-4.5.5.iso frugally?

[Benny7440]

Sorry tinypoodle for not been clear enough. My main language isn't English. It, sometimes, is a problem when I'm expressing an idea. In other situations, it means that the ideas of others can't be grasped by me as expected.

When you add to these that I'm a nooby with respect to linux in general & to Tiny Core in particular you might expect that I become glared with respect to certain things...

I hope this time I extracted the correct ideas from your last post (read it at least 4 times --to give you an idea of how well/bad I understand English) & I'm not contributing with more smog!

Thanks for your help as well as the rest of your team!

PS. One of the thought uses for this distro was to start experimenting with running it in/with a Virtualbox, this last been started in the VAIO (512 MB of RAM) from Puppy Linux, which I'm conceiving hosting Virtualbox.

[grandma]

Hi Benny,
I have had wonderful luck with Tiny Core 3x (picked this up about 18 months ago)
and will use my installation with that to give you "A BASIS" - "TEMPLATE"
that works well.

Then we'll look at my problem with 4x - which sounds similar to your problem: folders - where to put them.

Here is what worked for me - with Tiny Core 3x - and still works well for me now.

============= FORMATTING AND PARTITIONS - step 1

1. Get a USB Flash Drive - formatted fat 32 - you can do this in DOS, Windows with

format E: /fs:fat32

or Linux

MKDOSFS and FDISK (Linux)

If you are starting in Linux, use the FDISK /dev/sdb (establishes partitions) - I usually erase them all, then create ONE, use type b, make it active and write it.

Basically, you would type

fdisk /dev/sda
d (deletes partitions)
then
n (new)
p (primary)
t (type - set to b)
a (make it active)
w (write it)

Sometimes it works - sometimes it doesn't - but I have used it (Tiny Core fdisk) to "Fix" partitions on USB Flash Drive that Windows couldn't read.

Then format it with the MKDOSFS utility - works well - I just type

mkdosfs -F 32 -I -n TCEUSB dev/sdb1

and I have also had luck with simply

mkdosfs /dev/sdb1

This should get the USB Flash Drive formatted

============== END OF FORMATTING AND PARTITIONS

=============== SETTING THE BOOT RECORD - step 2

2.  If you used DOS/Windows, use SYSLINUX to create the boot record. So far I have had poor / inconsistent results with grub and grub4dos when starting with a DOS/Windows environment, whereas typing
syslinux -m -a -s E:  (or whatever drive you have) works well in DOS and Windows

And you need this paragraph in a basic syslinux cfg file, which is in the root folder (i.e. e:\syslinux.cfg)

SYSLINUX.CFG VERSION

label TCOLD

menu label ^1) Tiny Core 3x
menu indent 1

kernel /tce/old3x/bzImage

append initrd=/tce/old3x/tinycore.gz quiet norestore bkg=splash.jpg waitusb=5 xvesa=1024x768x32


SO - what that says is the file bzImage and the file tinycore.gz are in a folder

e:\tce\old3x\bzImage
e:\tce\old3x\tinycore.gz

or using Linux drive designations

/mnt/sdb1/tce/old3x/bzImage
/mnt/sdb1/tce/old3x/tinycore.gz

That's it - 2 files...

BUT - here is where it gets a little tricky: you need to put some CONFIGURATION files in the

E:\tce folder ( /mnt/sdb1/tce )

The most important one is called onboot.lst
This is simply a text file - like menu.lst or syslinux.cfg - and it establishes what applications load when the system boots up.

For example - you could have firefox load right away (big fat and slow - better to load it later).

If you are doing this with LINUX, I have had pretty good luck with grub4dos under the TC package (and terrible luck with grub4dos in the DOS/Windows environment - so I use syslinux there).

Here is how you get grub4dos to work with Tiny Core (assuming you have downloaded it)

tce-load -i grub4dos (this loads the ap - or use tce-load -wi grub4dos to fetch it from the internet)

then type

/usr/local/share/grub4dos/bootlace.com --time-out=0 /dev/sda

and you will install a boot record on the usb flash drive.

SO - either syslinux (in DOS) or grub4dos (in Linux - confusing, eh?) will give you a boot record.

With syslinux you made a file syslinux.cfg
If you use grub4dos, you  need E:\menu.lst (aka /mnt/sdb1/menu.lst) - which is something like this:

GRUB MENU.LST version

timeout=10

default=0

title TinyCore3x USB

find --set-root /tce/tinycore.usb

kernel /tce/old3x/bzImage quiet norestore bkg=splash.jpg waitusb=10 xvesa=1024x768x32

initrd /tce/old3x/tinycore.gz


The FIND line will hunt for a file called tinycore.usb - just an empty file I put in /tce folder so grub finds the folder.

In the /tce/old3x folder I have the 2 files - bzImage and tinycore.gz

============== END OF SETTING UP THE BOOT RECORD AND CFG and LST FILES

=============== SETTING THE EXTENSION FOLDER - step 3

3. The most important extension to get working is the WiFi program, since it is used to download files. IN THEORY the Ethernet port works right away, but I haven't seen that to be true: many laptops and desktops come up dead, so I'd focus on the WiFi / USB antenna port. Get that working and you can download everything else easily in Linux.

The extension folder is the place where these programs and drivers are stored - sort of like a combination of the windows folder C:\Program Files and C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 rolled into one, except in TC its called

/mnt/sdb1/tce/optional

(Linux filename structure)

or

E:\tce\optional
(DOS/Windows file structure)

Here is where you load 101 different applications, like abiword.tcz or firefox.tcz or gimp.tcz - whatever software you want to use.

For example:

/mnt/sdb1/tce/optional/firefox.tcz

Now various Linux packages use different methods to download and install software, for example APGET is one method used in another distro...

In Tiny Core Linux there is an APPLICATION BROWSER and once your system is stable and you have a clean boot and a desktop - its probably the safest way to load stuff.

UNFORTUNATELY - I have never seen a fresh install of Tiny Core boot to a desktop and have instant internet working etc without a bit of fiddling around, unless you have an older, standard ethernet NIC card and cable and all the drivers work, then you might get lucky.

I'd focus on WiFi if possible,  but either ETHERNET or WIFI working is ok.

You might have to do this at a TERMINAL prompt (sorry) - which is what I did.

To get WiFi working you will need to have the package wireless_tools and associated libraries. In this case we will assume you have the Tiny Core 3x version (as in 3.6).
I haven't gotten the 4x tools to load correctly yet, so I'll stick with this for this lesson:

If you only have WINDOWS/DOS, try these URLs in Firefox:

http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/3.x/tcz/wireless-2.6.33.3-tinycore.tcz
http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/3.x/tcz/wireless-2.6.33.3-tinycore.tcz.md5.txt
http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/3.x/tcz/wireless_tools.tcz
http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/3.x/tcz/wireless_tools.tcz.dep
http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/3.x/tcz/wireless_tools.tcz.md5.txt

Save all these files to the folder E:\tce\optional

WARNING: (ooops) when you try to boot with Linux and go to a terminal prompt and type

tce-load -i wireless_tools

you may get an error - some file or library not found. You can simply edit the file

wireless_tools.tcz.dep

and remove the offending line (missing file) - for some reason it still works - dunno what that bug is - was never fixed - sorry - and the missing file isn't available...sorry.

But it does get you the tools you need to continue:

WHEN you get this far - THEN you may be a lucky cat and have WiFi working.

Test your WiFi - Try this:

tce-load -i wireless_tools
sudo ifconfig -a
sudo ifconfig wlan0 up
sudo iwlist wlan0 scanning
sudo iwconfig wlan0 essid "MyHotSpot"
sudo udhcpc -b -i wlan0

These are the basic commands used at a terminal prompt to connect to the internet. The last one - udhcpc - will get you an IP ADDRESS and if you see LEASE OBTAINED - you have internet.

HOWEVER - if you use the sudo ifconfig wlan0 up command and it says DEVICE NOT FOUND - there is a problem with the driver, antenna etc. - and you may be stuck trying to get ethernet working. Ethernet is supposed to be "automatic" but I have seen it work about 30% - 40% of the time and the rest - noop - so I would stick with trying to get WiFi working.

============== END OF SETTING UP WIFI AND ETHERNET

=============== GETTING MORE EXTENSIONS (APPLICATIONS) - step 4

4. IF you have internet working THEN you can get more applications. Until you have Internet working you have a dead system. Simple.

They did a lot of work with Tiny Core 4x (the latest stuff) so that there are MORE drivers for various laptop wifi antennas etc. - and an installer and other tools. Their hearts went out to users to try to make it easier for them to get up and running. Unfortunately, I haven't seen it make it any easier ... yet ... so I'd stick with Tiny Core 3x for now and when you get that basic system working, you might get lucky and get 4x to install easily.

WHEN you have a Desktop - the basic wbar menu at the bottom - THEN you can use the Application browser - the little "gears" at the bottom: you click the gears and CONNECT (after using the WIFI COMMANDS above at a terminal prompt) and poof - you can go get a word processor, firefox - and more.

This seems like a tough way to go - all this TERMINAL PROMPT work - but it really isn't that hard and there are ways to automate some of it - like loading the wireless tools on boot.

For now - if you can do it at a terminal - you can learn to use the package - and if you can create the basic folder structure - in theory - it will help you create the folders to get the Tiny Core 4x system working.