I have used Tinycore on a USB key often on many machines for a couple of years now. So, first of all, THANK YOU for all your hard work. I really do appreciate it!
But recently I continue to run into more & more issues with machines that have the latest hardware.
For example. I have a Toshiba Satellite P850-ST3N02 laptop and it does not boot my Tinycore USB key. After spending a few days debugging it, I finally figured out that the Toshiba UEFI firmware is not backward compatible to BIOS. In other words, it can only boot GPT devices with an EFI parition and refuses to boot any MBR based USB/CD-Rom (or for that matter hard drive).
I have another development machine HP Z620 which actually does allow MBR based USB keys to boot. But my Tinycore USB key comes up with a blank screen. The num lock works, so it's not that the system freezes. After debugging it for a few days, I am convinced that unless the kernel, along with the graphic drivers be updated, I won't be able to get it to boot on this HP system.
I figured that out by actually installing latest version of ArchLinux on a USB, by first configuring my USB key in GPT layout & adding an EFI partition + rEFInd boot manager on it.
Trust me, I went through tinycore forums here with all the helpful tips about changing the boot options, changing the graphic mode options etc. Nothing worked. But that latest & greatest GPT based USB key with ArchLinux boots up on both of those machines without any problem.
I suspect the reason why Archlinux works is because it is using the latest kernel which has EFI stub support + latest graphics drivers, so with the help of rEFInd boot manager can boot native UEFI mode on these latest machines.
My question is...do you guys have a plan to support native UEFI boot any time soon? Because it seems like that's the only way Tinycore will work on systems like my Toshiba Laptop. But if not native UEFI boot, how about plans to upgrade the kernel to something like 3.6+ (used by Knoppix, ArchLinux etc.)??
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