Absolutelly persistent TCC installation on HDD, instead load everything into RAM

[asm_tcz]

Hi there, first post!

I know, that probably it is against of the TinyCoreLinux philosophy, but... Is there a relatively documented process of how could I persistently install TCC on HDD, without using initramfs and the unpack-into-RAM .tcz package mechanism?

Goal is to save as much RAM as possible for userspace softwares. Here's why:

I have an old Compaq evo N410c notebook (mass produced in 2003), with composite analog video output what I really need for my project. I'm searching a system only, and just only for playing 800x600 MPEG1 video files. Slow booting time and much used diskspace is not a problem. Therefore, the goal would load the kernel, kernel modules, daemons and other software stuffs that needed but everything from HDD, uncompressed form where it's possible and save the RAM for the video files.

Is it possible with TCC with "not so many" additional efforts?

I've searched and tried other distros as well, but... the recent SliTaz is buggy, was a two-day nightmare to install it persistently and unfortunatelly XOrg/MPV/mplayer cannot do the task : mpv can't see any usable output driver (despite the XOrg and the VM can run with the legacy ATI Radeon driver), and almost nor mplayer. However, mplayer can somehow find it's way to produce a video output, but has no color on X11 (it's grayscale there), and despite with a little hack it could produce output using the framebuffer on tty1, the produced color palette was a TOTAL mess/misleading. Whatever I tried, didn't help anything. =(
I've tried also PuppyLinux, but the output with the composite was even more crashy/buggy. Other distros even couldn't detect the composite output. =[

[mocore]

related topic ( wrt ram use and 'scatter mode' install )
https://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php/topic,27314.msg175742.html#msg175742

[patrikg]

There is a good wiki with a list of distros that running from RAM.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_distributions_that_run_from_RAM

[curaga]

In theory you'd just extract the initramfs and all extensions, and go through any permissions and startup scripts that may need adjusting. But I doubt there are any docs for that, it's not the intended usage. Search for scatter mode.

[gadget42]

with respect to your specific target hardware(Compaq evo N410c notebook, circa 2003)

it would be interesting to see how an earlier version of TinyCoreLinux performs given your requirement regarding composite analog video output.

versions 1, 2, and 3 have been removed to conserve space(see threads in this area for reference: https://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php/board,49.0.html)

give the flavors/versions in the TCL 4.7.7 a try and keep us posted on your progress(http://tinycorelinux.net/4.x/x86/archive/4.7.7/)

you might also find this previous thread entertaining as well(https://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php/topic,25098.0.html)

20241015-0151am-cdt-usa-modified: minor grammar edit.