Thinking about switching to TC

[zettez]

Greetings,

I have been thinking about switching to TC. I am a scrub noob who have been using ubuntu for the last couple of months now, and I really like the linux world. With that said, I have some questions for you. I know some questions are not TC specific but it would be nice to have some pro linux guru like yourself answer them!

• How is the nvidia driver support? Can I download the one on their site that is for linux and install, and it will work?
• Is there any difficulties to install TC on a USB?
• Possible to load from USB and save work on harddrive aka just bring with me the OS?
• What about multiple driver support? Can I have one driver at work and one at home (I have different graphic card at home and at work)?
• Does WINE work? I play Wow
• Is it possible to customize the look and feel completely using FLTK? I want it to have black background and green text, terminal ninja style
• Do I need to configure much/install many libraries? Programs I need are eclipse, android drivers, chrome, wow, skype, wine and some media player, that is about it.

Thanks for taking your time helping me 

[bmarkus]

2) Not at all. There is a dedicated installer at http://sourceforge.net/projects/core2usb/

3) Yes, it is exactly how I'm using TC

4) It is the beauty of TC, you can have multiple setups with different desktop, programs, etc.

5) Yes

7)  No

[tinypoodle]

6) Colors of both FLTK & aterm are configurable, however there is no relation between those two.
    You can find the basics about configuring the look of at least FLTK by using the search function of this forum.

[Rich]

Hi zettez
1. There are Nvidia drivers in the repository. If you need to download a driver from the Nvidia website, there
are a couple of scripts available to package it for you.

[zettez]

Wow, thanks for the quick answers! I will certainly test TC out now 

One more question, my motherboard at home does not support USB booting, is it possible to like start the hard drive and point to the USB? Or is it advised to buy a new motherboard with the said feature?

[Rich]

Hi zettez
I've never tried this myself, but I think it's possible to install a boot loader to the hard drive and have it boot from
the USB drive. I have a machine that dates to the late 1990s that won't boot from USB. What I did was, let it boot
from a Tinycore CD, store all Tinycore applications and settings on a USB drive, and use the hard drives for
storing data. I use that machine as a file server.

[zettez]

Thanks Rich! I want will look into it 

[SamK]

...my motherboard at home does not support USB booting, is it possible to like start the hard drive and point to the USB?

Plop boot manager may be useful for this.  http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager/

[aus9]

zettez

Going back to your (1) and (4) can I assume your home pc has Ubuntu on it and
can I assume your work computer has windows on it?

Is your ubuntu using Grub2 as the bootloader?

what is your work computer using please?
If windows can you name the version ?

To anyone
I thought we had a wiki on the merits of usb stick format to be ext2?
I thought we had a wiki on the merits of using tce=LABEL=string ?

but my eyesight can't spot it at the moment.....so am not an expert eh?

ok label is mentioned in the FAQ
http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/faq.html

[zettez]

SamK, wow that looks awesome! Thanks.

aus9, No I use ubuntu on both computers. Yes I have grub2 on both.

[aus9]

ok won't stop you from putting plop or some other bootloader directly onto your usb stick but in the meantime, in case you don't know you can setup grub2 entries on each non-usb computer something like this

Code: [Select]

sudo leafpad /etc/grub.d/40_custom

paste the following to the end of that file, something like in code box for display purposes only

Code: [Select]

menuentry "TC " {
set root=(hd1,msdos1)
linux /vmlinuz tce=sdb1 waitusb=5 showapps
initrd /core.gz
}

menuentry "TC persistent opt home" {
set root=(hd1,msdos1)
linux /vmlinuz tce=LABEL=tcusb opt=LABEL=tcusb home-LABEL=tcusb waitusb=5 showapps
initrd /core.gz
}

menuentry "TC aussieland extras" {
set root=(hd1,msdos1)
linux /vmlinuz tce=LABEL=tcusb opt=LABEL=tcusb home-LABEL=tcusb waitusb=5 showapps tz=UTC-8
initrd /core.gz
}

now make that config land for each bootloader on hard drive with

Code: [Select]

sudo update-grub
cat /boot/grub/grub.cfg

change leafpad to the name of your text editor...it may be gedit?

linux /vmlinuz and other pathway, because you have grub2 /boot folder on hard drive for ubuntu you don't want a second boot folder, you can have the kernel and core file in the root of the usb drive.

Now I have one internal drive which is (hd0,msdos1) so I am hoping you insert only one usb stick so it will be the second hard drive=hd1 and its first partition if msdos partition is msdos1

If your real ubuntu is sitting on usb drives you need to tell me, or ignore me whatever?

LABEL is the safest way to detect and use usb devices, much safer that UUID
I haven't asked what format your usb stick is in. but if you use linux format usb sticks then install (ondemand is fine or onboot) e2fsprogs.tcz which gives you access to command e2label but you run it with sudo power like this
....I will do it to my hard drive

Code: [Select]

sudo e2label /dev/sda1

tc@box:~$ sudo e2label /dev/sda1 aus9
tc@box:~$ sudo e2label /dev/sda1
aus9

the first time, you are checking what the current label is
the next you are over-writing or creating a new label
then third time I am checking

change sda1 to whatever your usb partition is, likely to be sdb1

The third menu entry will make you smarter, turning your time zone into aussie time

and I assume you know there is a wealth of other bootcodes in the wiki?

good luck

[coreplayer2]

waitusb=5  ??   

if using a label, try this for a faster boot

waitusb=5:LABEL=TCUSB

[aus9]

oops sorry I forgot cos I don't use usb thingees