Six years ago after exploring some 20 distros
and forums I met the Tiny Core Team and found
both capability in the form of a lightning
fast distro, and reliability, as we understand
complexity tends to lead to a logarythmic
increase in rate of failure.
Surely I had that equation hit me between the
eyes repeatedly as I built a "WRAPPER" so my
clients could enjoy Tiny Core; a package who's
thin design turns off a lot of users who won't
tolerate the "light" desktop look and feel.
I narrowed my "pick" of where I'd make my jump
off Windows to a half dozen, including Puppy and
Knoppix; where forums were generally congenial,
as was the TC forum, unlike ARCH which I will
only say had the feel of a barb wire school chair,
while Ubuntu had so many "expert" users with so
many ideas and methodologies of teaching you,
it was hard to get a straight, effective answer.
I was seeking a distro that had:
Speed
Reliability
A wealth of APs
A team dedicated to improving the product
(as I hate systems level programming)
A "core" I could shape for clients so whether
they were multimedia heads or office bound,
it could do what they needed it to do, fast
and easily; no tinkering around. Click and Go.
I needed something my dummy clients could get their
arms around; something ".y" which generally,
TC is not. Stripped down and running like a
rocket does not lend itself to a lot of glitz
and gloss. A couple of my clients tried bare
TC and ran for the exits. Sorry to be the
messenger.
Nor can most users be expected to easily embrace
TC, nor does the staff suggest they should; though
I do...given the right "wrapper". When you have to
support people, you want a fast, tight, reliable
base and while several distros have some reliability,
I have never had few issues with TC; save the lack
of wifi drivers in the 3x version. I solved that
with a universal antenna awhile ago; no drivers
required.
The big problem that haunted me for years was
getting users from Windows to Linux effortlessly.
Microsoft has poured on more and more ROAD BLOCKS
every time a user has to burn a bootable USB, whether
its syslinux or grub4dos. Its been a nightmare quest
and I even went so far as to include p.ec on some
mail outs so once a user allowed that to run, things
"sort of worked"; though never really smoothly.
That meant I was choked; forced to rely on netbootin
or some other gui or mail out USBs myself; a royal
pain and so so archaic in this age of the net.
Finally I threw in the towel, admitting most users
today can burn a CD; so I began exploring that
pipeline, allowing users to:
a) Download an ISO and create a bootable CD, that;
b) Automatically did just one thing: create a THIN
(fewer files) grub4dos bootable USB that did just
one thing;
c) Rebooted and then fetched all the office aps
and multimedia stuff, then;
d) Rebooted again once it was "all up to date"
and the user had what they had originally
sought; a reliable LINUX distro that ran fast
and had darn near everything they wanted and
I wouldn't have to hold their hand to get them
there.
It took a few months to get it sewn together,
and it works...I think...I'll be beta testing
it with an 80 YO man and an engineer and NY
retired banker this week. I'd like your comments
as well if you wish.
You'll need a blank CD and a blank USB, though
theoretically, if the USB has data on it then
it doesn't reformat it...though it WILL repartition
and reformat drives that it can't read; so as usual;
never rely on any promise you won't lost your data.
Blank is best.
The link is at
http://pocketrocketlinux.com and the
version is 3.x, which I tend to love because everything
is SMALLER...so those who want 4x - 7x will have to
wait until I get this thang updated and running wth
the newer stuff.
...one step at a time. From my perspective, just getting
my friends and clients out of Windows or at least giving
them a Windows alternative they can use to recover Windows
data is a huge plus.
For the record, Svolli (who I don't hear much about anymore)
was instrumental in inspiring me to grant NTFS access,
and Lee (who will deny everything heh heh) was instrumental
in providing the key tool for seizing the opportunity to
"fork" during the boot without remastering. My attempts to
get bootlocal / bootsync to behave were rather futile or
had mixed blessings. And Juanito for all his contributions
to the project, always seemed to have time to answer sticky
questions...so I am gonna figure six years ago I chose
wisely.
Enjoy.
p.s. Pocket Rocket Linux uses a TOR Browser, which unfortunately
DOES NOT sign in easily to this forum (very sad). Your HONEY POT
SPAM API is a P.o.S., but that's my two cents. There are better
methods for protecting forums from spammers than junky, klunky
third-party detection services that lock out honest users that
have been around for awhile...my two cents.
Then again, for those who hate my long winded posts, perhaps
delaying my login is a good thing...heh heh.
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