Remastering Tinycore.gz HowTo - A simple way

[Pats]

This is the procedure for extracting and repacking of tinycore.gz file. I think same may apply to core.gz.

Extracting tinycore.gz :
----------------------
mkdir /tmp/temp
Copy tinycore.gz to /tmp , then
cd /tmp/temp
zcat /tmp/tinycore.gz | sudo cpio -i -H newc -d >/dev/null

Remaster/make changes to the extracted tinycore.gz which must be now somewhere under /tmp.
re-packing tinycore.gz from remastered version:

Delete /tmp/tinycore.gz , then
cd /tmp/temp
sudo sh -c "find . | cpio -o -H newc | gzip -2" > /tmp/tinycore.gz

Note: Use sudo where-ever required. Also there is good explanation in Remastring section of Wiki and the Forum's posts.
Posted on the request of a newbee. Hope this helps to others also.

[bmarkus]

Pats@

Why -2 used with gzip?

Some optimization:

Code: [Select]

zcat /tmp/tinycore.gz | sudo cpio -i -H newc -d >/dev/null
can be replaced with

Code: [Select]

zcat ../tinycore.gz | sudo cpio -i -d
to make it shorter and portable.

For packing

Code: [Select]

sudo sh -c "find . | cpio -o -H newc | gzip -2" > /tmp/tinycore.gz
can be shorten to

Code: [Select]

find | cpio -o -H newc | gzip -9 > ../tinycore.gz

[Misalf]

Why -2 used with gzip?

As described in the wiki but  advdef -z4 tinycore.gz  is mentioned in the wiki, too.
http://wiki.tinycorelinux.net/wiki:remastering#packing

I'm wondering, could we remaster core.gz using any compression level or do certain requirements need to be met? I have slow network connections and CD drives in mind. I recently booted tinycore on an ancient 233MHz laptop via CD which took quite some time after choosing a menu entry from the boot loader. I guess it was either decompressing the initrd or reading it from the CD which took so long.

[coreplayer2]

I make it easy by using core-remaster.tcz  extension
 

[bmarkus]

I'm wondering, could we remaster core.gz using any compression level or do certain requirements need to be met?

Use whatever you want.

[curaga]

Note that gzip compression level does not affect decompression speed. It's the same mb/s no matter if you compressed with -1, -9, or higher with advdef.

[Misalf]

Interesting. I wouldn't have guessed that.

[Pats]

@bmarkus

I am not sure but think, -2 may be more reliable/less time comsuming on old and slower machines. Anyhow curaga has already answered abt it.

Do you think, in your code:

find | cpio -o -H newc | gzip -9" > ../tinycore.gz

should be something like:

"find | cpio -o -H newc | gzip -9" > ../tinycore.gz

?

Thanks to all for expert comments.

[gerald_clark]

No you should not add the quotes.
Higher numbers in gzip take longer to compress, but not to decompress.
The more highly compressed files will be read faster off the drive/CD so it will load faster.

Advdef will compress it even more, making it load even faster.

[bmarkus]

Pats@

" was a typo, deleted in orignal post.

[Pats]

Quote from: gerald_clark
 No you should not add the quotes.

Yah, I know, it was just a little politeness, towards a senior memmber's un-intentional typo/error.

Thanks to you also.