Adios TinyCore

[Fred]

I'm using an Intel board, onboard video and ethernet with a Celeron processor.  It's hooked up to a Viewsonic 19" crt monitor. 

Tinycore 1.4.3 - If I boot without an option, I get video, with 1024x768x32 resolution.  Using boot option 789 for 800x600x24 does nothing.  XvesaSetup doesn't work, only wrecks the mouse.  So, I have to edit .xsession to get the resolution I want. No problem here, but are there others?

Tinycore 2.1 - Forget it.  All I can get is a blur of a screen with a faint cursor that won't move.

Tinycore 2.2 - Doesn't recognize the ethernet connection. 

Apparently, there are considerable differences between these versions.

The other night, using version 1.43, I tried three times to install to hard drive using instructions from this site.  In each case, all seemed to go well until I tried to boot.  Result, error 15, something about not finding bzImage.

And so, ........................

[alu]

you maybe need the 915resolution extension for your graphic card, and type Xvesa -listmodes in aterm to see which resolution fits your monitor at best.

[bmarkus]

VIDEO:

Try Xorg with Intel driver and forget Vesa, XVesa. If you got onbord video it will work for sure. It offers better picture quality, faster drawing and more choices of resolutions and refresh rates.

ETHERNET:

1) Check hardware type with e.g. lspci

2) Check with other Live distro, whether it works or not. If you find one, it may help to find root cause. Example SLAX has a good hw detection and runs on most hw: www,.slax.org

Don't give up!

[mikshaw]

Result, error 15, something about not finding bzImage

This might be as simple as making sure you have the proper spelling (i.e. case).  Make sure the bzImage file is named properly in grub's menu.lst...if the file is named bzImage (capital "I"), it must say bzImage in menu.lst

[Fred]

VIDEO:

Try Xorg with Intel driver and forget Vesa, XVesa. If you got onbord video it will work for sure. It offers better picture quality, faster drawing and more choices of resolutions and refresh rates.

ETHERNET:

1) Check hardware type with e.g. lspci

2) Check with other Live distro, whether it works or not. If you find one, it may help to find root cause. Example SLAX has a good hw detection and runs on most hw: www,.slax.org

Don't give up!

Good ideas.  I tried DSLinux & Knoppix which both ran well with the onboard video. Slax couldn't run X because no screens.  I looked in /etc/X11/xorg.conf where monitor refresh was correct, but MODES not shown in screen section. I didn't try to edit.

With some diddling,  I can get onboard video with all versions   Only version 1.4 will recognize the onboard ethernet by default.  If there's a way around this, I don't know how.  Looks like I'm stuck with version 1.4, no problem.

I'd much rather use xorg, but after installation, how is it used by default when starting TC?

[Fred]

Result, error 15, something about not finding bzImage

This might be as simple as making sure you have the proper spelling (i.e. case).  Make sure the bzImage file is named properly in grub's menu.lst...if the file is named bzImage (capital "I"), it must say bzImage in menu.lst

You are probably correct. Note that I wrote "bzimage" and that's probably what I typed.  Bad eyesight. I'll try again.

[Juanito]

I'd much rather use xorg, but after installation, how is it used by default when starting TC?

You add the Xorg extension to your /tce folder, add your /etc/X11/xorg.conf to your backup, modify .xsession to call Xorg (see info file) and add that to your backup as well.

[robc]

Only version 1.4 will recognize the onboard ethernet by default.

You may need the firmware extension (firmware-2.6.29.1-tinycore.tce) to get your nic to work on TC 2.x. Note that the dhcp.sh script is ran before this extension is loaded so you will have to either manually reconnect your connection in the Control Panel or run the dhcp.sh script from bootlocal.sh.

IMO execution of dhcp.sh should be moved to after the extensions are loaded so the firmware can be used.

[tclfan]

Only version 1.4 will recognize the onboard ethernet by default.  If there's a way around this, I don't know how.  Looks like I'm stuck with version 1.4, no problem.

This concerns me... I thought Tiny Core would not reduce network support, but rather expand it to support as many network cards as possible. Network support is vital to TinyCore. All App management depends on it. What happened here, some network card drivers have been dropped between TCL 1.4 and 2.2?

[danielibarnes]

IMO execution of dhcp.sh should be moved to after the extensions are loaded so the firmware can be used.

You bring up a good point. When I load my open-vm-tools extension, it provides virtual network drivers. My startup script must wait for dhcp.sh to finish, remove the pcnet32 module, kill any dhcp client processes, load the new driver (vmxnet), then restart dhcp.sh. If dhcp.sh were delayed, I would not have to kill the dhcp client processes and restart it. I could just unload pcnet32 and load vmxnet.

IMHO, I think that the loading of network modules via extensions is sufficient reason to delay the start of dhcp.sh. The first thing the script does is wait for devices to settle, so in many cases it is a "hurry up and wait" scenario.