Setting extensions from Windows ?

[stabul]

Hi all !
I just installed TinyCore on a USB key, from Windows XP, using UNetbootin, and it boots fine on my Lenovo T400 laptop.

When reading the downloads pages, it seems that the single mean to install extensions is to do it from TinyCore with the Application Browser. Isn't it possible to do it from Windows ?

Thanks a lot for this exiting distro,
stabul

[curaga]

Yes, you can download them manually, but then you won't get automatic dependencies.

Go to any mirror, directory tce or tcz depending on which extension type you want.

[samedirection]

More specifically.  Visit (a mirror or) the main TC download page.  Select "Downloads" Select the repository you want (1.x or 2.x; TCE or TCZ).  When you find an extension you want, what you want to download is the URL of the '.info' file minus the '.info' part. 

I don't think there is anywhere in the 2.0 repository where you can actually see the list of .tce or .tcz files. 

Note that you may also want to download the .md5 hash, so that automatic upgrading will work at a later time.  Pay attention to the dependencies in the .deps file.  You'll need each of them as well.

You'll see that manually downloading extensions this way is a bit inconvenient, but sometimes it's the only way (for example, when you don't have a wired internet connection to start with). 

I'd be glad to see Tinycore improve extension installation from local repositories. (dependency handling, upgradeability).  There are still a lot of cases where you can't manage the kind of direct interntet connection that TC expects, but still want to use TC.

[alex]

Hi:

I downloaded from ftp

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ftp://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/tinycorelinux/2.x/
alex.

[Lee]

I downloaded from ftp

Code: [Select]

ftp://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/tinycorelinux/2.x/

To elaborate a little (using .tcz in this example):

1. Starting at the above url, navigate into the tcz subdirectory.

2. Download info.lst which contains a list of available .tcz extensions.

3. For each extension from that list which is of interest, download <extension_name>.info and read the description to make sure it really is what you think it is.  For instance, if you are interested in abiword.tcz, the .info file is abiword.tcz.info.

4. For each extension that you actually want to install, download the dependency file (in our example, abiword.tcz.dep).  If no such file exists then there are no dependencies.  For each extension listed in the .dep file, recursively follow steps 3, 4 and 5 of this procedure.

5. For each extension that you actually want to install download the extension itself (abiword.tcz) and the checksum file (abiword.tcz.md5.txt) and make sure the md5sum of the downloaded extension matches that given in the checksum file.

Store all downloaded extensions in either your tce directory (to be loaded at boot) or your tce/optional directory (to be loaded as needed).  No need to keep .info, .dep and .md5.txt files other than for your own reference.

If you run across an extension that has no .info or no .md5.txt, say something...  I downloaded the whole mess (2.x tcz repo, a bit over 1GB) after having some trouble with appbrowser and it doesn't look like I got quite enough .md5.txt files to go around - I'm at work now and don't have time to research further right now - might have just been a download problem.