HELP - Installation Information

[NarakuITA]

Hello everyone, I am writing because I was advised to try this operating system. I have tried others and more or less they have worked, but not completely.
I am trying to revive my old Toshiba satellite pro 4600 with 512mb of ram with Windows 2000.
I am not a Linux expert, and I would need your help to install Tiny Core. I need to be guided, step by step, precisely because of my inexperience, but confident in learning. I have already created an installation CD.
However, unlike other distributions, I can not find the command to start the installation.
The biggest and most difficult step is to install the Belkin Wi-Fi card (Wireless G Netbook Card) Model: f5d7010.
I await help. Thank you very much!

[Stefann]

The wiki provides installation instructions.
Without Linux knowledge I think your best approach is to create a bootable cd from windows as all other methods are more complicated.
If you created such cd, you need to insert cd, turn off computer, restart.
It than should “boot from the cd”. (Boot = starts using software from….).
If it still uses the original software you will need to boot into bios and change boot order to give cd priority (Google to find out how).

With that said……
I would highly advice to first read all info on the homepage: welcome, installation, concepts and also the book.
Tinycore is not a clear cut solution, you will need Linux knowledge, you will need to be able to solve problems.

[curaga]

Your wifi card appears to be one of the difficult Broadcom ones where you have to use the Windows drivers via ndiswrapper on Linux. That's quite complex for a beginner, perhaps buy a better supported card.

[CentralWare]

@NarakuITA: I would recommend looking to purchase an inexpensive USB dongle that's more likely going to take a good deal of stress from the process of resurrecting your laptop.
Here are two examples for a 2.5ghz and 5.0ghz flush dongles which came up on Amazon in the first few results which are reasonably priced and should be compatible with today's newer kernels.

Depending on which x86 CD you created, you MAY or MAY NOT have a grey, round icon near the bottom right of your toolbar called TC-Install. If you do not, I THINK it's included in the CorePlus x86 CD image but I'm not 100% certain without looking manually.  TC-Install is the easiest method to install Tiny Core Linux onto the laptop's hard drive.

Once you have an operational internet connection (Ethernet comes onboard - T100 speed if memory serves) or any kind of wireless connection, you can then use the APPS program to download and install tc-install.  Once installed onto the laptop, you'll then want to search for and install support for PCMCIA, ACPID and if memory serves, you should find a TRIDENT graphics driver in the archives.  If you still have Windows installed on it right now, open the Device Manager and see whose chipset exists for the Ethernet - I think it's Intel but it's been forever since I've physically seen one.  If so, you'll want to also install Intel's E1000/PRO100 networking support if it's not already in the core. During that age, Sound Blaster and a thousand SB clones was audio's way to do things, so I'd speculate SB is already in the core, so you'll want to install ALSA and its mixer if you want sound.  I do remember the touchpad being really flaky, though.

[gadget42]

did a quick rough www search via DDG and found:

https://www.roe.ac.uk/~hme/tosh4600/index.html

might be of some help perhaps

[NewUser]

A friend had a Toshiba she wanted to give to her daughter, without buying Windows. I tried Mint, which wouldn't fix the wifi problem. A later version of Mint did. My problem solved.

[NarakuITA]

Thanks for the replies.
So let's get started. TC-Install installer I find through the APPS program. By chance, I happened to see a video on YouTube that explained this.
Regarding the Wi-Fi card, there is no need to buy anything else. Although this card may be difficult to install, I want to specify whether it was installed automatically under the Q4OS operating system. However the operating system is too heavy.
I tried Slitaz and after several attempts, with the help of an expert, I managed to make this wi-fi card work by installing the "b43-firmware.tazpkg" package, first removing the one present in the system "b43-fwcutter" which was not compatible.
The problem is that even though this system was very light, it gave me other problems, like Q4OS, such as the problem of reading floppy disks, and the difficulty of playing DVD movies, which freeze or block, as if the PC wasn't able to play the video because it wasn't powerful enough, a problem I don't have with Windows 2000. In fact, it is capable of playing films with InterVideo WinDVD, without problems.
Among the real tips I came here to try to bypass many problems with this lightweight Linux distribution.

My PC consists of an Intel(R) PRO/100 VE Network Connection card
You know the Wi-Fi card.
Audio device: Yamaha AC-XG Audio device.
Infrared: SMC IrCC - Fast infrared Port.
CPU 750mhz
you can see everything else from the manufacturer:
https://support.dynabook.com/support/modelHome?freeText=1073792275
The page provided by gadget42 is also useful : https://www.roe.ac.uk/~hme/tosh4600/index.html
Having said all this, do you think I can proceed with the installation?
I forgot, is it possible to install the Italian language?

[NarakuITA]

I forgot, I downloaded the 21 MB TinyCore version, is it possible to change the keyboard layout as well as the language?
Of the three versions available, which one do you recommend I download?

[Rich]

Hi NarakuITA
I would recommend using the CorePlus version. It includes
tc-install-GUI as well as most of the wireless firmware and
driver extensions.

When the boot menu comes up, hit enter to use the default.

[NarakuITA]

Hi NarakuITA
I would recommend using the CorePlus version. It includes
tc-install-GUI as well as most of the wireless firmware and
driver extensions.

When the boot menu comes up, hit enter to use the default.

OK perfect. Now a question When starting the CD there are many options, which one should I choose?
I want to format everything and only install Tiny.
Should I choose the first option?
Boot Core with X/GUI (TinyCore) + Install Extension
or
Boot Core with X/GUI (TinyCore) + Wifi Extension
Boot Core with X/GUI (TinyCore) + Wifi + Firmware?
or another option?

[Stefann]

see here: http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/install.html

What I did:
- install with what I thought I would need
- use for some time to understand what I really needed
- re-install with what I really needed.

I started with th plus but as I do not need wifi I replaced that by base later.

One recommendation I have (the way I did)
create 2 partitions:
- 1 for tiny core
- 1 "working directory"

The "working directory" is NOT my home, I have a non-persistent home.
Its just the directory where I have most of my data.

The benefit:
- now partition 1 is quite clean. It has tiny core and all extensions. it also has the backup for home, settings and opt (everything in .filetool.lst).
- partition 2 is fully customised.

IF in future I upgrade to a newer tiny core I just have to make sure to copy the backup file and the tce directory. to partition2.
Than I can install with a formatting of partition 1 again.

To do this:
- format disk with disk first to create the 2 partitions.
- in the installer select "partition" instead of "whole disk"

on a 8G flashdrive I have reserved 4G on both partitions. If it would need to fit on 1 G I would do 700M/300M.

[NarakuITA]

Sorry for my ignorance. But what is the option that allows me to install everything? as you said first you installed everything then, after you reinstalled only what you needed. being inexperienced for now I try to install everything.

[Rich]

Hi NarakuITA
When the CD boots, a (blue ?) menu will come up, Hit enter
so it boots the default configuration.

When running the install utility:
http://tinycorelinux.net/install.html
At step 3 pick ext4.
At step 5 pick Core and X/GUI Desktop, select all of the checkboxes.

[NarakuITA]

Hi NarakuITA
When the CD boots, a (blue ?) menu will come up, Hit enter
so it boots the default configuration.

When running the install utility:
http://tinycorelinux.net/install.html
At step 3 pick ext4.
At step 5 pick Core and X/GUI Desktop, select all of the checkboxes.

Perfect, I understand. Question how do I create a swap partition?
In the Boot options Reference list, I noticed a command:
Swapfile{=hda1} is this the command to specify how much swap to have? I would like to add 1GB of swap, what should I do?
To change the language and the keyboard to Italian, just write:
lang=it and kmap=it??
I was reading application installation persistence needs to use commands:
home={hda1|sda1} and local={hda1|sda1}? What exactly should I write?

[Stefann]

Step 4,
In the white line you can specify the boot options separated by space.
If you have pre made partitions in step 1 you will have a choice sda1, sda2, sda3… or sdb1, sdx2, sdb3,… or other name.
If you did whole dis ar step 1 you only can choose sda1, sdb1 ot other name. You know the name as the disk name is shown in step 1.

Note: you can change these later in the tce/boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf file