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Troubles installing 14.0

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nurbles:
If this is the wrong forum for this, please direct me to the correct one and accept my apologies.

It has been a few years since I last built up a new TinyCore system. I'm trying to use TC again because my previous experience was excellent, but sadly this time that is not the case...

First, my "new" hardware uses an Intel Atom E3845, Quad Core processor with 8GB RAM and a 256GB SSD.  (The exact device is a DFI model EC200-BTA881 https://www.dfi.com/product/index/218.)  OK, here's what's been happening:

* Any time the SSD has a hint of a bootable partition, the system seems to start it when I choose to boot with the 'X/GUI + Installer Extension' option from the TC boot menu.  So I need to use a bootable GPartEd to delete the partition(s) on the SSD between every attempt to install.  Annoying, but do-able.
* When I can get the ISO image to boot from CD (not a guarantee), it does not ever start the GUI and dumps me at a $ prompt.  I'm hoping to use the graphical installer that I used in the past, so that's not good.
* When I boot the ISO from a USB stick (built with Rufus), I always get to the GUI and can start the GUI installerWhen I run the GUI Installer, I also have some issues:

* The default location for the 'core*.gz' file(s) is a sort of a '^' char.  This was with both the CorePlus and TinyCore images.  I expected the installer to have the correct default built in, because I don't know what it should be.
* I have tried using /mnt/sdb1/boot with little success.
* When I try use the 'download' option, I've been choosing the 64-bit edition and it skips the questions about Install Type, WiFi, etc. that I get is I choose the local copy of core.gz from /mnt/sdb1/boot.
* The download option at least installs something bootable, but it only ever goes to a $ prompt and I don't know enough TinyCore to get the GUI and other things I want installed from there. (Yes, I'm a sad old man, sigh.)
* When installed using the /mnt/sdb1/boot/core.gz file, the system never actually boots.  Some of the BIOS messages appear, the screen goes dark, there's a 'click' and we're back to the BIOS messages coming out.  Repeat ad infinitum.So, I'm sure this is something I'm doing wrong, but I'd swear that things worked much better in the past (valid defaults) and I don't think I ever needed to try to install TC more than once to get it working.  Sometimes I'd need to reinstall because I screwed it up by poking something I shouldn't have touched, but it always "just worked" until *I* broke it.  Now I can not even get it to start -- at least, not as it did in the past.

Can (will) anyone help me figure out what's wrong?  Is my hardware not supported?  Are there some specific requirements for booting from USB (or CD) that I'm not meeting?  Could me SSD model be a problem?  I'm at a loss here and praying for help!

jazzbiker:
Hi nurbles,

Sad that You have no success yet with the fresh TinyCore. Have You tried the previous versions which worked ok for You on Your new hardware?

curaga:
The installer is presumably confused by the emulation that rufus does. Can you try dd'ing the iso to the usb stick instead of rufus?

Alternatively, the command to install the default desktop on a 64-bit command line would be "tce-load -wi Xfbdev Xlibs Xprogs wbar flwm aterm".

CardealRusso:
Unfortunately I'm unable to help you, but I leave my personal opinion that TinyCore works much better portable, USB - I assume that's standard.

Additionally, currently TinyCore's EFI boot simply doesn't work because of bootx64.efi. Something I managed to get around by following the tutorial: https://www.parkytowers.me.uk/thin/Linux/TinycoreUSB_UEFI.shtml
TL;DR:

--- Quote ---Format USB to FAT32
Extract Iso
Copy https://www.parkytowers.me.uk/thin/Linux/bootx64.efi to /EFI/BOOT/
Move /EFI/BOOT/grub/grub.cfg to /grub.cfg
--- End quote ---

nurbles:
Thanks for the hints!  Some comments:

* I tried several older versions that I still had around with similar results.
* It never occurred to me that Rufus could be the problem.  I will try a dd, and perhals also UNetBootIn, and maybe the Universal-USB-Installer as well.
* Portable is fine, but not for a device embedded in a factory or things like that.  I've found TC to be great for simple embedded devices because, by default it gives me a linux core, networking and little else unless I want to add it.  The basic GUI is even fine because, while it costs very little when the device is operating "headless", if/when a customer needs to connect a monitor/keyboard/mouse it is much more familiar (and less daunting) to them.
* I'm not sure if this will have any effect, but the BIOS says it is configured for what it calls "dual boot" mode, supposedly supporting UEFI or legacy (or something like that.)  I will set it to legacy and see if that helps.

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