Beginner install issues

[SWR]

Hi 

I've been using Windows until now but want to learn about Linux. Searching info on the different distributions, the philosophy behind Tiny Core Linux really appeals to me. I have ordered some boards (Raspberry Pi and Odroid-U2) but have not received any of them yet. In the meantime I thought I could read up on Linux on these pages and experiment a little by creating an USB stick for my Windows PC.

Reading about how to get started, I found the Core2usb-1.6.exe to be a promising shortcut. I cleared an USB stick and downloaded the CorePlus-current.iso file because my PC is using wifi, a danish keyboard and bluetooth connection to keyboard and mouse. When I get the small boards I'm planning to just use the Tiny Core.

When I have selected the iso file and target remote drive in Core2usb, the Wiki tell me to press Install, but this button is greyed out and the status field says "Status: Extracting ISO file". The Wiki also tell me to be patient, but it's been more than one hour now without anything changing.

Should I just be more patient or is there something wrong?

Best regards
Soren

[SWR]

Hi,

I found the problem. You have to doubble click the target drive.
Doh! ... sorry to bother you with this. 

Soren

[SWR]

Hi,

Another newbie issue: I managed to boot CorePlus from a USB-stick to CLI, but it won't start the graphical desktop even though I select the top FLWM option from the list during boot. Any ideas?

Best regards
Soren

[tinypoodle]

Tried to run "xsetup"?

[SWR]

Thank you for helping me out, and sorry for the late reply (I'm just back from a week of skiing in Austria).

I tried your tip, but it says:
-sh: xsetup: not found

I looked at the USB key from windows, and in the tce directory there's an installer.instlist file that only has one line with tc-install.tcz inside. There's also a onboot.lst file that has many lines including Xvesa.tcz, Xlibs.tcz and Xprogs.tcz together with a bunch of flwm files and stuff. All these files are present in the tce/optional directory on the USB disk. Could there be a path missing or some environment variable not set properly?

Best regards
Soren

[tinypoodle]

Try boot code:

Code: [Select]

waitusb=20

[SWR]

Thank you for the tip. :-)

I tried it without any noticable difference, but I'm not sure that I'm doing it right.
I tried three different approaches.

At the boot menu where you choose the graphical desktop (I always go with the default top option) I pressed F2 before selecting the top option with Enter. When the prompt screen shows all the options, I start typing waitusb=30, but as soon as I hit the w key the screen returns to the boot menu.

This didn't work so at the CLI I typed "tinycore waitusb=30" without the quotes, but is says that tinycore is not known.

As the third attempt I typed waitusb=30 at the CLI, and there was no error message, but nothing else happened, so I tried rebooting to see if something would change next time. I didn't notice any difference though.

I'm wondering if it's too late in the boot process to type waitust=30 with the keyboard, because the keyboard is a wireless USB keyboard. If the keyboard is working the USB must be working at that point right?

I was looking for a file to put the command into, and the only one that is looking logical to me on the USB stick is the syslinux.cfg file in the boot/syslinux directory. Is that a good place to put it, or is there another file that is executed before this?

If it is the right place where in the file should I type exactly what? (with or without "tinycore" in front of "waitusb=30"?)

How do I find out if there is an USB timing problem? Shouldn't there be some kind of error message on the screen or in a log file?

Thanks a lot for your kind help. :-)

Best regards
Soren

[SWR]

Some random thoughts:
How can the USB not be ready when the boot device is an USB stick?
Doesn't the BIOS wait for the USB hardware to be ready?
Otherwise I thought the system would to boot into Windows from the harddrive.
That's what happens when I remove the stick before booting.

Maybe these are stupid newbie questions, but please bear with me. :-)

[tinypoodle]

At the boot menu where you choose the graphical desktop (I always go with the default top option) I pressed F2 before selecting the top option with Enter. When the prompt screen shows all the options, I start typing waitusb=30, but as soon as I hit the w key the screen returns to the boot menu.

Yes, that's where you can specify boot options.

This didn't work so at the CLI I typed "tinycore waitusb=30" without the quotes, but is says that tinycore is not known.


As the third attempt I typed waitusb=30 at the CLI, and there was no error message, but nothing else happened, so I tried rebooting to see if something would change next time. I didn't notice any difference though.


I'm wondering if it's too late in the boot process to type waitust=30 with the keyboard, because the keyboard is a wireless USB keyboard. If the keyboard is working the USB must be working at that point right?

No sense in boot options after you have already booted 

I was looking for a file to put the command into, and the only one that is looking logical to me on the USB stick is the syslinux.cfg file in the boot/syslinux directory. Is that a good place to put it, or is there another file that is executed before this?

If it is the right place where in the file should I type exactly what? (with or without "tinycore" in front of "waitusb=30"?)

Append to line which contains "initrd" (w/o "tinycore")

How do I find out if there is an USB timing problem? Shouldn't there be some kind of error message on the screen or in a log file?

No.
Once you have booted to prompt, you can try to manually load all those extensions from your onboot.lst

Code: [Select]

tce-load -i Xvesa.tcz Xprogs.tcz ... ... ...then try

Code: [Select]

xsetupand after that

Code: [Select]

startx

[Rich]

Hi SWR

How can the USB not be ready when the boot device is an USB stick?

Read this:
http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php/topic,14030.msg83812.html#msg83812

[chattrhand]

Hi SWR.
if you are using spin.de you could find a german help on my blog (same nick)
greetings
chattrhand

[SWR]

Hi Tinypoodle, Rich and chattrhand

I succeeded in getting TC to boot into the graphical desktop by appending waitusb=4 to the line you described. I configured the Wifi network and installed the Firefox browser. I'm writing this on my first Linux machine and I'm looking forward to an exciting journey of exploration.

Thank you for your patience and kind advise.

Best regards
Soren