TinyCore on a Dell Mini 1011

[emninger]

I installed on a Dell Mini 1011 (v) (1 gig ram, 16 gig internal sata flashdisk) TinyCore. So far installation went well, but i encounter several problems. Sorry,if i'm asking "stupid" questions, but i'm totally new.

1) All of a sudden the ethernet connection does not work anymore, although the physical and logical connection is set up correctly (tested on the same machine booting with other distros). I looked into mydata.tgz/opt/ and i see there are 2 eth0.sh scripts. Is that correct? Or how could i correct the net settings otherwise?

Unfortunately wlan is not working out of the box, although there is many firmware in the coreplus iso, the b43 is not working out of the box. An output of

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dmesg | grep b43 tells me to go to linuxwireless.org and to follow exactly their instructions which are

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   1 export FIRMWARE_INSTALL_DIR="/lib/firmware"
   2 wget http://www.lwfinger.com/b43-firmware/broadcom-wl-5.100.138.tar.bz2
   3 tar xjf broadcom-wl-5.100.138.tar.bz2
   4 sudo b43-fwcutter -w "$FIRMWARE_INSTALL_DIR" broadcom-wl-5.100.138/linux/wl_apsta.o

   1 export FIRMWARE_INSTALL_DIR="/lib/firmware"
   2 wget http://www.lwfinger.com/b43-firmware/broadcom-wl-5.100.138.tar.bz2
   3 tar xjf broadcom-wl-5.100.138.tar.bz2
   4 sudo b43-fwcutter -w "$FIRMWARE_INSTALL_DIR" broadcom-wl-5.100.138/linux/wl_apsta.o

But will that work? Moreover since in tiny actually i do not have web access, could i download the firmware on another computer and copy "by hand" somewhere to the tiny setup?

2) There are some secondary issues:

How and where can i set the screen resolution to a better matching value? There are ony 3 offers out of them 800 x 576 would be the best, but 1024x576 would be what i need!

There is no password to login/start ...
But i'd like to have the machine/os password protected (and better not with a pswd protection set in the bios).

Thanks in advance for your patience!

[Juanito]

But will that work?

Yes it will, but as an alternative you can use the wl-modules-3.16.6-tinycore extension - be sure to read the info file.

How and where can i set the screen resolution to a better matching value?

exit to the prompt and type "xsetup.sh" <enter> (without the quotes)

[emninger]

But will that work?

Yes it will, but as an alternative you can use the wl-modules-3.16.6-tinycore extension - be sure to read the info file.

How and where can i set the screen resolution to a better matching value?

exit to the prompt and type "xsetup.sh" <enter> (without the quotes)

I'll look into the wl-modules extension.

I already had looked into the xsetup.sh - and that's the problem: There are only offered 640x480x16, 640x480x24, 800x576x24. How can i add the option 1024x576x24 (or x16) which would be the best and the default for this netbook?

TIA!

[Juanito]

You could try Xorg-7.7 or Xfbdev instead of Xvesa

[nitram]

I installed on a Dell Mini 1011

TC runs very well on my HP Mini, wired and wireless, proper resolution using Xvesa.

Sorry,if i'm asking "stupid" questions, but i'm totally new.

Recommend reading the Core book (linked on home page) and review wiki. Core book link seems to be down ATM due to server issue, the wiki links still seem to work.

All of a sudden the ethernet connection does not work anymore...

This doesn't make sense to me. Wired connection should work 99% of the time, especially with common hardware. Try a full cold boot of system and preferably router, retest. Have you ruled out router issues and hardware failure? Does wired connection work with another Linux liveCD/USB? Also open TC Control Panel and select Services, is dhcp active? If you can get wired working properly, it will make it much easier to set up wireless.

Unfortunately wlan is not working out of the box, although there is many firmware in the coreplus iso, the b43 is not working out of the box.

My HP Mini wireless connection is through eth1, not wlan0. I also had to blacklist a couple items at boot. If you haven't already, use wifi.tcz to connect to a non-hidden wireless network for testing purposes. Not sure if this will help, but this was my struggle with wifi, everything now works very well: http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php/topic,17950.msg108506.html#msg108506

4 sudo b43-fwcutter -w "$FIRMWARE_INSTALL_DIR" broadcom-wl-5.100.138/linux/wl_apsta.o

Not sure if it's in coreplus, there's a b43-fwcutter.tcz extension in the repository.

could i download the firmware on another computer and copy "by hand" somewhere to the tiny setup?

Yes, just download the .tcz extensions you need and copy into /optional. You'll need to doublecheck to ensure you've also installed the necessary dependencies. Manually installing in this way can be tricky and time consuming. Probably easier to get your wired connection working first.

How and where can i set the screen resolution to a better matching value?

If Xvesa does not provide the desired resolution, in my experience Xorg is best. My HP Mini runs okay with Xvesa and may even give the same resolution you desire. Can't remember though if it gave me the proper resolution as an option or if i modified /home/tc/.xsession or used xvesa bootcode. If i boot this system within the next day or so i will post back with more info.

But i'd like to have the machine/os password protected...

Chapter 10 Core book:
 - bootcode 'secure' to set password at boot
 - bootcode 'protect' to encrypt backup file
 - can also try xvesa bootcode to set resolution directly

[emninger]

Yes it will, but as an alternative you can use the wl-modules-3.16.6-tinycore extension - be sure to read the info file.

No. Definitely it did not.  I followed exactly the instrcutions, but wireless is still not working. Is there any toolor "how to" for tinycore how to manage network interfaces and setup?

TIA

[emninger]

@nitram

First of all thanks for the very extensive reply. I'll check all your suggestions later on.

For the moment i'll stick with two points:

- The hardwired eth0 connection is up. I can run firefox, ping several urls so, eth0 is definitely up. BUT: When i try Apps > Browse cloud or i try to get the fastest mirror i'm prompted with a network error. I do not understand why?

- Xorg-7.7 or Xbfdev are packages or settings to put into the bootloader?

TIA.

[Lee]

- The hardwired eth0 connection is up. I can run firefox, ping several urls so, eth0 is definitely up. BUT: When i try Apps > Browse cloud or i try to get the fastest mirror i'm prompted with a network error. I do not understand why?

I think there is an on-going hardware issue with the main repo server.

http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php/topic,19021.msg116921.html#msg116921

As a temporary work around, maybe try setting your mirror to the ibiblio one:

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echo http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/ >/opt/tcemirror

[nitram]

Lee's suggestion should get you up and running with wired connection through Apps.

My HP Mini running Xvesa. Backup ~/.xsession and try the following, it's really just the resolution you're after:

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/usr/local/bin/Xvesa -br -screen 1024x576x24 -shadow -mouse /dev/psaux -nolisten tcp -I >/dev/null 2>&1 &
export XPID=$!
waitforX || ! echo failed in waitforX || exit
"$DESKTOP" 2>/tmp/wm_errors &
export WM_PID=$!
[ -x $HOME/.setbackground ] && $HOME/.setbackground
[ -x $HOME/.mouse_config ] && $HOME/.mouse_config &
[ $(which "$ICONS".sh) ] && ${ICONS}.sh &
[ -d "$HOME/.X.d" ] && find "$HOME/.X.d" -type f -print | while read F; do . "$F"; done

Note: touchpad function is poor with Xvesa. Basic functionality only, to my knowledge not tweakable. The touchpad on my Mini seems overly sensitive and there is no touchpad scroll. So you either get used to it or upgrade to Xorg, where things are more tweakable with a performance penalty.

Xorg is a .tcz extension. You should have either Xvesa or Xorg on your onboot.lst, not both. Running Xorg will require loading additional graphic drivers (see xf86-video-* extensions). If you go with Xorg you may/not require an xorg.conf file and will probably want to set up a config file for the touchpad (think in xorg.conf.d).

Regarding wireless, we may have similar components. Here's my wired and wireless hardware:

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01:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY (rev 01)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Qualcomm Atheros AR8132 Fast Ethernet (rev c0)

The additional bootcodes i need to get wireless running (showbootcodes):
blacklist=b43 blacklist=ssb

My onboot.lst for graphics, wireless and sound. I no longer use wifi.tcz anymore and connect directly through wpa_supplicant.
Xprogs.tcz
aterm.tcz
wifi.tcz
wl-modules-3.16.6-tinycore.tcz
jwm.tcz
alsa-config.tcz
Xvesa.tcz

[emninger]

@Lee: Thanks a lot. To know it earlier i'd have saved a lot of time

@nitram:

Your settings for .xsession do not work for me. Now, when i call Xvesa in a terminal i'm getting this error:

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_XSERVTransSocketUNIXCreateListener: ...SocketCreateListener() failed
_XSERVTransMakeAllCOTSServerListeners: server already running

Btw, i do not really know what Xvesa is? A slimmed X-server?

As for my hardware, this is what inxi says, and it seems pretty similar to yours:

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Network:   Card-1: Broadcom BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY driver: b43-pci-bridge
           IF: N/A state: N/A mac: N/A
           Card-2: Realtek RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller driver: r8169
           IF: eth0 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full mac:
Where (and why??) do you blacklist ssb and b43?

And two further questions: i do not really understand how to get to edit the bootloader. I tried tab and e (what i know from lilo and grub) but that does not work. F2 brings me to the bios of the netbook?

Furthermore, likely very stupid, but: i tried to set the keyboard to a german one following what is explained in the FAQ. But there, seems they point to load a finnish keyboard. Looking to the keyboard layouts i\m not sure which one is a german, and, if i'm guessing correctly which of the both is to be used.

In any case thanks a lot for your patience.

[nitram]

Believe Xvesa is an older graphic standard than Xorg. Lighter to load, tends to be more suited for older hardware. Your netbook should run Xorg just fine, however, if you choose. There are lots of old Xvesa hits on this forum:
https://www.google.ca/search?q=xvesa+site:forum.tinycorelinux.net&sa=X&ved=0CC4QrQIoBDABahUKEwiq7MSggd_IAhXPlogKHbX1Bug&biw=1024&bih=444

You can try a similar site search as linked above but with your specific Dell Mini, it is likely someone has already got a similar system running with TC.

The graphic server needs to be exited before restarting. Modify the .xsession file and reboot, provided you have persistent home backup. Otherwise can also try running 'exittc', select 'exit to prompt', maybe 'killall Xvesa' (confirm via top) then 'startx'.

Blacklist is done through the bootloader, i use Grub2, what's your bootloader?
Why, because someone much smarter than me already figured this out

Sorry can't help with keyboard layout/language.

[Rich]

Hi emninger
You can't restart X from a terminal. Pressing  Ctrl-Alt-Backspace  will kill the current instance of X and leave you at the
console. Then enter  startx.

[Juanito]

No. Definitely it did not.  I followed exactly the instrcutions, but wireless is still not working. Is there any toolor "how to" for tinycore how to manage network interfaces and setup?

The statement above is not really supported by the statement below 

Where (and why??) do you blacklist ssb and b43?

If you don't blacklist the kernel modules mentioned in the info file, re-boot and then try wl-modules-KERNEL, things will not work.

Note that once you've done things as per the info file, you can use the wifi extension to manage wireless connections.

Note also that the broadcom firmware is contained in the driver supplied by the wl-modules-KERNEL extension (so you don't need additional firmware) and your wireless connection will most likely be named "eth1".

[Juanito]

i do not really understand how to get to edit the bootloader. I tried tab and e (what i know from lilo and grub) but that does not work. F2 brings me to the bios of the netbook?

When you boot, the name of the bootloader - grub, lilo, syslinux, etc - should be displayed at the top of the screen.

The name and location of the bootloader configuration file will depend on which bootloader you have, for example:

/mnt/sdb1/boot/grub/grub.cfg

..and can be edited using, for example:

sudo vi /mnt/sdb1/boot/grub/grub.cfg

[emninger]

When you boot, the name of the bootloader - grub, lilo, syslinux, etc - should be displayed at the top of the screen.

The name and location of the bootloader configuration file will depend on which bootloader you have, for example:

/mnt/sdb1/boot/grub/grub.cfg

..and can be edited using, for example:

sudo vi /mnt/sdb1/boot/grub/grub.cfg

May be it's too fast for my eyes (i presume it's syslinux, since i installed TC for the moment on an usb-stick) ...

So there is no /etc/grub.conf (or lilo.conf of whatelse) which then has to "bless" the the real bootloader.cfg by, eg., update-grub; and you got to edit directly (?)