General Thoughts about TinyCore Linux...

[Coburn64]

Hi everyone,

I was looking around for a distro that doesn't chew up a lot of resources when I was on LinuxQuestions.org. I stumbled across TinyCore Linux, and decided to take the plunge and try it out.

I downloaded the TCL 2.2RC build, and man, I was like "Holy ****!!  " at the speed it loaded. I couldn't believe a distro this tiny would kill a full-blown distro in the terms of speed.

However, the build I downloaded (2.2RC) didn't seem to like installing new apps, so I swapped it with the 'classic' 1.43 build.

Now, I'm planning to use it as a little server, possibly to run a blog or something like it. 

I just thought I'd share my two cents, and I'd say long live TCL!

Cheers,
Coburn64

[bmarkus]

However, the build I downloaded (2.2RC) didn't seem to like installing new apps, so I swapped it with the 'classic' 1.43 build.

Hi,

what does it mean didn't like? What did you try?

Regards...

[Coburn64]

Well, when I went to install a TCZ package in that said version, the app manager just crashed (hung). 

[linus72]

Hey Coburn:)
yeah, the apps-browser sometimes does that...>?
I usually wait a moment then use xkill from the "tools" menu to kill it and proceed
I have also noticed many times the tcz's download with an error
and I get a segmentation fault when booting

a server huh?
http://www.raiden.net/articles/mini_howto_tiny_core_linux_14_liveusb_home_web_server/

http://www.raiden.net/articles/mini_howto_setting_up_a_home_web_server_by_chrooting_busyboxs_httpd_in_tiny_core_linux_v20/

Now, coburn
you gotta put some eye-candy in there too

[thane]

Re the app browser, I get a lot more of the "unable to connect, try later" errors with TCL 2x than I did with TCL 1x. But I usually just try again (sometimes twice) and have always been able to connect.

[junan]

in my experience with appbrowser @ tcl 2.2rc2 never crashed or hung again. but once appbrowser can not (or error when) install an application , then i can not install it. only with reboot the machine and delete the application name @ /usr/local/tce.installed (if there any) then i can install it. sometime appbrowser don't install the depedencies of the application, but after reboot i can install it with all depedencies.

with tcl 1x i prefer to use Download Only than Install Selected, then Install Optional or Local.

[bmarkus]

As I already posted, same issues here with 2.1 and 2.2rc1 download is freezing randomly and I have to kill appbrowser and wget and restart appbrowser. Unfortunately than missing items are skipped. Restarting TC helps, but when the dep list is long, little chance to get it finished in one run.

Not networking issue. 9 msec latency, 10 Mbit/s free bandwidth and all other applications are fine, including my download script from the same repo.

Definitely appbrowser problem.

[roberts]

I have not been able to reproduce this. So, I decided to check which extension has the largest dependency list. And sure enough, it is Xfce4.tcz.

So, I begin with appbrowser, and sure enough, the dreaded "An Error Occured" occured!

So, I reboot and try with several other options, window managers, etc. I even tried slowing down between downloads and still failure everytime.

Come to find out that Xfce4 depends on fortune-mod.tcz which has a bad md5sum file in the repository. This was causing the failure.

Fixing the md5sum issue in the repository, fixed the problem. After many attempts, even with the largest dep file, Xfce4, I  cannot reproduce a failure.

Lately, there has been reported several file consistency issues in the repositories.
I will focus some time and creating some audit tools to prevent future failures that would appear to be an appbrowser problem.

I will also work to improve the content of the error message(s) in appbrowser. Still the failure that I was observing is something that appbrower nor the remote user would be able to handle.

[junan]

how about add an option Disable md5sum checking @ appbrowser ?
and add At Your Own Risk warning

[roberts]

You have that. Right click from webpage and then save as.
Just because of some issues with the repository does not mean to throw caution to the wind.

[Jason W]

There were some md5sums that were incorrect, and those have been corrected.  I had gotton lax on checking md5 as I was uploading, but I have automated the checking of the md5sum files as well as testing the tce tarball and tcz mountable files for integrity in the event the original md5 was issued on a corrupt file.

I will run a test on the repo occasionally to ensure that each and every md5sum is valid.  The usual case is not that the md5 hash was wrong, but other things like the full path to the extension was used.  Md5 is to be generated like this while in the extensions directory:

md5sum extension.tce > extension.tce.md5.txt

The wrong way below will result in an unusable md5 file:

md5sum /home/tc/extension.tce > /home/tc/extension.tce.md5.txt

[Coburn64]

Heh, I'm already working on a pimped TinyCore Linux for my little IRC Bouncer rig.

However, the install guide seems to screw my SD Card in my IDE to SD Card adapter (directories are corrupt when I run fsck and GRUB hangs when installing the loader). Maybe it's just the SD Card at the end of it's life, I dunno.

The server setup is going to be interesting, I need to PXE TinyCore over to it via TFTP, and then mount USB with the TinyCore files... Should be a piece of cake. Chocolate Cake. Wait a minute...

[Friedl]

Lately, there has been reported several file consistency issues in the repositories.
I will focus some time and creating some audit tools to prevent future failures that would appear to be an appbrowser problem.

Another problem which happens now and then is that a typo in a package name in the .dep file prevents a package download.
BTW: would it be possible to follow dependency chains?

I will also work to improve the content of the error message(s) in appbrowser. Still the failure that I was observing is something that appbrower nor the remote user would be able to handle.

A simple workaround might be to add some "start appbrowser in a terminal to get a more qualifying error message" because on stdout you will immediately see any wget errors.