piCore-8.0 released

[bmarkus]

Team Tiny Core is pleased to announce the immediate availability of piCore-8.0 All major components updated to latest upstream version:

* Kernel 4.4.20
* glibc 2.24
* gcc 6.2.0
* e2fsprogs 1.43.3
* util-linux 2.28.2
* BusyBox  1.24.2 with latest patches
* MicroPython 1.8.2-19

Extensions updated and rebuilt with piCore-8.0, no tcz's used from previous releases.

Download location:

http://tinycorelinux.net/8.x/armv6/releases/RPi/

There is only one SD card image, it supports all RPi boards, including CM3.

Please read README and don't forget to expand mmcblk0p2 partition according to your needs to make room for persistent data and installed applications.

Please note, new graphics stack rebuild is in progress, GUI will be added in next few weeks.

For support visit http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php/board,57.0.html

[sbp]

Hi Bela.

Good to see the continued development and improvements and we are looking forward to use it for piCorePlayer.

I would like to ask it would be possible to keep the kernel-specific modules a little longer for each update you do. The problem is that piCorePlayer is dependent upon downloading some of the module-specific.tcz. So when you update the kernel and remove the modules piCorePlayer will not be working until we find the time to update.

In the past you kept the kernel-specific.tcz in your repo for weeks to months - so would you please consider to keep these tcz a little longer, as we otherwise will have massive problems.

Regards
Steen

[bmarkus]

Hi Steen,

kernel specific modules for stable releases are kept in the repo but for test releases, beta and rc are dropped as well as test images when they are needed for testing. Please use test versions for testing only, not for production use.

Regards... Béla

[Paul_123]

Hi Steen,

kernel specific modules for stable releases are kept in the repo but for test releases, beta and rc are dropped as well as test images when they are needed for testing. Please use test versions for testing only, not for production use.

Regards... Béla

Normally we wouldn't, but If we never used a beta for a pcp release, we would net even have rpi3 support in pcp until today.  Maybe a shorter beta to release cycle.   New hardware and hardware changes is really starting to ramp up the kernel updates.   Not sure how we can help with this.

Anyway, thanks for 8.x release.  It's been a major change and improvement for the community.

[bmarkus]

Hi Paul,

a long beta period was due mainly to frequent kernel changes which brought support for new hw, specially sound devices Now in the last few kernel updates there were no new hw, but in the mean time all major parts got update, like GCC, GLIBC, etc. We can say now that piCore 8.0 is the most up to date RPi distro

I got private comments appreciating it, specially GCC 6.2.0 availability

[Paul_123]

As you know anything with computers and software will be outdated in a week.  Anything the pCP team can do to help keep the piCore distro up to date and bleeding edge releases, please let us know.

Anyway 8.0 Release tested on

Zero v1.3
B+
rpi2
rpi3

On a couple of systems, I did a update of only the boot partition, updated kernel module extensions, and then ran tce-update to grab the rest of the updates.   Running tce-update, when it downloads a new version that contains a dependency it is hardcoding the kernel version in the dep file, rather than leaving the -KERNEL in the dep

[beerstein]

as you mentioned in your first post bmarkus I was not able to install a gui using the:
tce-load -iw TC.tcz
So i will wait a few weeks for that. Is there a way to install a simple gui in the meantime using individual extensions?
Or can I user the TC.tcz from version 7?

thanx

[dsmithmonroe]

When attempting to DL the latest PiCore image I receive "An error occurred while loading the archive." I was able to DL the beta's before without issue. Feel like I am probably missing something obvious.
Thanks for any help

[bmarkus]

We experience a server problem.

[MysticGriffin]

Hi, I just got my Pi3 board today! I'm really looking forward to using piCore. Am I understanding correctly that the GUI is not yet available? How soon until that update? Does everything else work?

[bmarkus]

Hi

system is rock solid and everything works fine what you find in the repo. It used by many members. GUI, I mean TC-lake graphical environment works fine also on my dev system, just ptting together and testing for release, it takes cca. 1 week.

Than everything depends on what application you want to run. It may or may not be available in the repo.

Béla

[beerstein]

Hi: installed piCore 8.0 today on 2GB uSD card. Expanded files system and booted on a RASPI 3
Did the:
$ tce-load -iw TC.tcz
after install:
$ startx
cat:can't open '/etc/sysconfig/Xserver' : No such file in directory
no GUI

from the dep file I leaned that the following dep extensions are listed:
Xprogs.tcz
Xlibs.tcz
flwm_topside.tcz
wbar.tcz
aterm.tcz


Please HELP!

[bmarkus]

TC.tcz is in test phase, sorry for inconvenience. For example Xorg servers missing in dep list, but I found few other bugs. It works fine in the development environment, just need fixing packages on o clean system

[beerstein]

Ok thanx for the quick response. In the meantime I installed xorg-server.tcz and xorg-fonts.tcz and did a:
$ xsetup
Now after:
$ startx
failed in waitforx

PS: I remember seeing this error message before?

[bmarkus]

It means xorg server did not start. In our case due to a missing xkb config. It will be fixed.