Reinstalling (frugal) TC on VMware Player

[Eitan]

Hi everybody,
I installed TC on a VMware Player with a 2GB IDE hdd and 256 MB ram.
I downloaded a few extensions, one of which was FIREFOX10, then I uninstalled it and rebooted;
and now what I see is the message "-sh: cannot open xstart". "-sh: startx: not found"
1. I don't know why it happened, and it's the second time that tc fails after deleting an extension (and this time I was cautious and only marked "firefox10.tcz" for deletion!)
2. I don't know how to fix this, and so far I've been deleting my hdd from the machine and creating a new one because I don't know how to format it either...
Could you please explain these issues?

Thanks,
Eitan

[edit]
P.S. It happens that sonetimes TC starts to work extremely slow, or once the mouse and keyboard stopped working, in which occasions I just power off the machine. Do these things happen often? taking into account that I do pretty basic operations here..

[genec]

Do you have a persistent TCE directory?

Did you do the recommended way of deleting an extension by rebooting first with 'base notce'?

"Format" with mkfs.vfat or mkfs.ext3, just like any other Linux system.

[Eitan]

Do you mean a TCE directory on my harddisk?
Then yes: /mnt/sda1/tce. (with all my extensions inside ./optional or ./ondemand)


I followed this: http://wiki.tinycorelinux.net/wiki:remove_apps

[edit]
The thing I don't understand is: since I'm still able to see everything when I boot from "cd", and the hdd is still visible (and mounted) and all extensions are still there, there nust be an easy way to fix this issue (the desktop loading I mean).
I checked both /mnt/sda1/tce/boot/core.gz and /mnt/sr0/boot/core.gz and they're the same size,
I swapped mydata.tgz with mydatabk.tgz, but nothing happened.

[coreplayer2]

While you are booted to the cd, download and run tc-install  (using Apps)  then follow the prompts to install frugally to your HDD or VDD.   use the option to point to core.gz on your cd and all it's apps,  it's best to start over erasing any previous installs if tc is new to you, hopefully it'll go according to the plan first time, but there is no harm trying all the options several times (assuming you have no drives connected with valuable data you want to save, if so please be sure to disconnect these drives first.

[Eitan]

Thanks, I tried to reinstall, and this is what hapened:
1. I downloaded tc-install and executed it, but it told me to umount the hdd first.( and I closed the window)
2. umount wouldn't umount the drive since it's busy, won't work with force as well, but it did work with -l
3. tc-install wouldn't open though it appeared on the wbar.
4. I rebooted, opened tc-install, unmounted sda1 with -l, then proceeded installing with tc-install choosing "whole drive" and formatting to ext4.
5. Now everything works from the hdd, and both my home directory and all the extensions I  downloaded including tc-install are still on the disk.

Wasn't the hdd supposed to be formatted?

[genec]

I'd guess you booted from your HDD install and that #3 was caused by #2.  You can't launch an app from nothing.

"Format" as "high-level format" which really means creating a file system.  Did you need to create a fresh file system?  I'd say you needed to do whatever you wanted to do to satisfy you goals.  It's certainly a fresher start to have a fresh file system.

[Eitan]

I decided to create a new 2GB hdd and copied (using fluff with sudo)  /mnt/sda1/tce to /mnt/sdb.
Then I removed the first hdd and now it seems to work as I wanted and the partition is 2GB.
Did I actually copy the whole hdd contents or am I missing something? (Assuming I only have tc installed and I downloaded a file to home)

Copying is not as intuitive in linux..

[coreplayer2]

Thanks, I tried to reinstall, and this is what hapened:
1. I downloaded tc-install and executed it, but it told me to umount the hdd first.

3. tc-install wouldn't open though it appeared on the wbar.


Wasn't the hdd supposed to be formatted?

Sounds so complicated.  Better to boot to an ISO/CD with tinycore, install tc-install  then your HDD is not mounted.
It's possible tc ran from the cd but loaded extensions from the HDD preventing a format or unmount
Then you should be able to select options to use/format the whole drive, which obviously deletes any previous content.

When an application will not start, try running it from the terminal  (Open terminal, enter the app name), which often indicates the reason for the malfunction.  Often this is due to a missing dependency

I'd try again

[tinypoodle]

Copying is not as intuitive in linux..

Hrm? Compared to what exactly??

You might want to look into file managers to find one which suits you best.

[Eitan]

Copying is not as intuitive in linux..

Hrm? Compared to what exactly??

You might want to look into file managers to find one which suits you best.

What I wanted to do is copying the whole hdd's contents, in DOS/windows it's straightforward. In linux, I wasn't sure where the disk contents "sit" (since when I start the machine I see "root"/"home" folders, which obviously came from somewhere.
To my knowledge, everything is stored in /mnt/sda1 (archived or not). Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Thanks, I tried to reinstall, and this is what hapened:
1. I downloaded tc-install and executed it, but it told me to umount the hdd first.

3. tc-install wouldn't open though it appeared on the wbar.


Wasn't the hdd supposed to be formatted?

Sounds so complicated.  Better to boot to an ISO/CD with tinycore, install tc-install  then your HDD is not mounted.
It's possible tc ran from the cd but loaded extensions from the HDD preventing a format or unmount
Then you should be able to select options to use/format the whole drive, which obviously deletes any previous content.

When an application will not start, try running it from the terminal  (Open terminal, enter the app name), which often indicates the reason for the malfunction.  Often this is due to a missing dependency

I'd try again

Do you know how to boot from CD without using the extensions from the disk?

And I'll definately try again, thanks 

[genec]

Do you know how to boot from CD without using the extensions from the disk?

http://www.tinycorelinux.net/faq.html#bootcodes

While in the Syslinux menu.c32, hit <tab> and add " base" to the end.

[Rich]

Hi Eitan

I decided to create a new 2GB hdd and copied (using fluff with sudo)  /mnt/sda1/tce to /mnt/sdb.
Then I removed the first hdd and now it seems to work as I wanted and the partition is 2GB.
Did I actually copy the whole hdd contents or am I missing something? (Assuming I only have tc installed and I downloaded a file to home)

No, you only copied the tce directory. From the command line:

Code: [Select]

cp -r /mnt/sda1 /mnt/sdbCopies everything from the first partition of the first drive to the second drive.

Code: [Select]

cp -r /mnt/sda1/tce /mnt/sdbCopies the tce directory and its subdirectories to the second drive. The  -r  makes the  cp  command recursive.

Code: [Select]

cp /mnt/sda1/tce /mnt/sdbCopies the tce directory without its subdirectories to the second drive.

[Eitan]

Do you know how to boot from CD without using the extensions from the disk?

http://www.tinycorelinux.net/faq.html#bootcodes

While in the Syslinux menu.c32, hit <tab> and add " base" to the end.

Thanks, that was exactly what I needed!

Rich: Thanks, I'm not sure why I wrote /mnt/sda1/tce last time, but in any case

Code: [Select]

cp -r /mnt/sda1 /mnt/sdb

was what I meant to do.

I'm starting to get the hang of it, one step at a time.