[Solved} USB boots to TC@BOX:~$ prompt, not Tiny Core Desktop

[PDP-8]

Even though the problem is solved, there is a big caveat.

Strictly speaking, on *this* 64 bit machine, all I really needed was

Code: [Select]

vga=791
I didn't truly need the other option.  An advanced user would recognize this.  A noob-hacker type would merely see if the kernel options - whether they are obeyed or not - brings up the gui like the ones passed in the iso.

This is where it can get REAL sticky:

A 64-bit user, needs to know their video options in the first place.  The installer does a fine job, but that's not it's job to figure out if you do or not.  Hence, video options are left to you.

I should have recognized this right off the bat with the wheel-spinning picking up extensions, and not bringing up video.  Alas.

SO - this also depends on actually reaching the bootable stage and failing at the shell prompt in the first place!  Ie, I'm providing a weak hint to those that actually reach this stage.

The problem that you may encur before this even starts, might be wondering why the iso-release burned stick is even recognized and booted in the first place by your machine, but the subsequent tc-installer burnt stick is not recognized as a bootable device at all on another machine!

Never-mind dropping to a shell prompt - you can't boot something that's not recognized, and THAT is highly dependent on how your 64-bit machine is setup for legacy/csm/uefi options and if the target stick built with syslinux is formatted such to take all these additional variables that are not present on 32 bit environments.

I don't know how the devs deal with all that - I mentioned to Jason W that I'd probably end up stamp-collecting as a hobby.

Or just toss in the towel on all this variable nonsense, and run a cluster of raspberry-pi's using piCore where at least some sort of standard is not totally out of hand.

So long answer is that even as an end user these days, especially with 64 bit, you have to be on your toes with TC.  They gratefully provide some great tools to get around problems that might totally stump other distros.  There are solutions to be found, but depending on your skills or needs, what solves one problem, may not be the absolute best.

But in classic Unix tradition, given the environments the ops described, this seems to be the 90% solution.

Still, hat's off to TC, and the community helping to build tools to make it even possible in the first place.

So, still SOLVED.