What is the practical difference in tce vs tcz ?

[tobiaus]

On ther otherhand tczs were never intended to run in cloiud mode.

???!!!!!!!!!! but they're great for that! i mean sometimes they're a lot better... and not only because a tce extension in cloud mode is permanently installed until you use tce-uninstall or reboot, and in cloud mode when you reboot you have to download and reinstall all the tce's again. tcz's are trivial to unmount, delete and update (sometimes a tcz is updated twice in one day) in cloud mode. no potentially messy (actually it's a nice util) tce-uninstall's needed.

[thane]

I'm running TCL on a Compaq box using PPR/TCE mode, booting off a read-only CD and saving to a USB stick. I've arrived at a set of apps that does what I want (Opera + Flash, XMMS (using ALSA), and epdfview). Thinking of trying out the TCZ mode. Would this have a big impact on performance since I'm using a USB stick? And would converting to TCZ just be a matter of deleting everything out of the TCE directory and downloading the TCZ versions of the apps/dependencies?

[tobiaus]

would converting to TCZ just be a matter of deleting everything out of the TCE directory and downloading the TCZ versions of the apps/dependencies?

oh i wouldn't do that. tcz's are often converted tce's, and although i love and use tcz when possible, it doesn't always work. wpa-supplicant.tcz still doesn't work for me, it closes with an error, but switching to the tce worked. you have the right idea, delete a tce and replace it with a tcz, but don't do all of them at once, unless you're only using a few of them. then again if you're feeling crazy, go for it. note that you can usually mix tce and tcz's, and many people do. also note that a few extensions do not exist in tcz.

[thane]

Thanks for the advice. A few decades ago I WAS known as a wild and crazy guy, but now I'd have to think about it.

Something I'm not clear on with TCZ's. Are they also stored in the TCE directory and just mounted rather than being loaded to RAM, or do they end up somewhere else? If I try changing them over a few at a time I'll need to know how to keep track of where everything is.

[tobiaus]

Something I'm not clear on with TCZ's. Are they also stored in the TCE directory and just mounted rather than being loaded to RAM...

yes. it's possible (for you) to load them from other folders than the tce folder, but no one recommends it. (the exception being tce/optional, that's technically part of the tce folder.)

[thane]

The warning from tobiaus was timely. Apparently there's no TCZ version of Flash, so I assume not only Flash but also its dependencies have to be tce? If that's the case then there's no point in using the TCZ version of epdfview since the dependencies are almost the same.

Opera, alsa, and xmms do have TCZ versions (and few dependencies) so I may try those.

[tobiaus]

I assume not only Flash but also its dependencies have to be tce? If that's the case then there's no point in using the TCZ version of epdfview since the dependencies are almost the same.

i think you misunderstood (or missed, but no worries) at least part of what i said. you should be able to mix tcz and tce, sometimes. what do i mean by this? two things:

1. that just because you're using some tcz extensions doesn't mean you can't use tce (and vice versa.)

2. that although you can't tell for example, ff's tce to get its deps in tcz, if you already have the deps (for example, gtk2) as tcz's, it will consider those deps "already installed" and use them.

i realize that's a mouthful, but i hope it makes sense. if the deps for flash are already installed by edfview's tcz, you won't need doubles of them as tce.

[thane]

Thanks, that's the info I needed. I was under the impression that since Flash itself is TCE only, all its dependencies had to be too.

I'm using a USB stick for storage and it's stated below that may impact TCZ performance. Since I find I'm actually using Opera (with Flash off) and XMMS/ALSA all the time I plan to leave them as TCE for now. epdfview and Flash I use much less often so I'll try them (or in the case of Flash its dependencies) as TCZ.

[tobiaus]

Thanks, that's the info I needed. I was under the impression that since Flash itself is TCE only, all its dependencies had to be too.

nope

I'm using a USB stick for storage and it's stated below that may impact TCZ performance.

that's true it may, and i can tell you why but someone already did and you'll figure it out anyway. it's worth saying that just because it can affect performance doesn't mean it always will (noticeably.)

ram only holds so much, and i'm happier using tcz whenever possible, including on usb. my experience with ppr/tcz is that overall it's the best thing for everything i do, but i spend as much time using cloud mode, where i also find tcz helps even if it should/shouldn't. there are situations that people have mentioned, where tce is simply better. they exist! i've seen them, though for me they are rare. for those rare situations, and for testing new extensions, i too use tce. heed warnings, but use what suits you.

[mcewanw]

Thanks, that's the info I needed. I was under the impression that since Flash itself is TCE only, all its dependencies had to be too.

In practice, it is usually quite easy to make a tcz out of a tce. The wiki tells you how to make a tcz. I haven't done so for a few days but I think (without being able to double check at this second) the procedure goes like this for making a flashplayerX.tcz from a flashplayerX.tce (where X is the flashplayer version):

You probably need to install extensions advcomp and cramfs-utils for the following to work.

1. Make a temporary folder in which to extract your flashplayerX.tce contents. For example:

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mkdir pkg2. Put a copy of your flashplayerX.tce into folder pkg.
3. cd into folder pkg and extract flashplayerX.tce by entering:

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tar xvf flashplayerX.tce4. Delete the copy of flashplayerX.tce in folder pkg.
5. cd out of folder pkg by entering:

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cd ..6. You should now be able to create flashplayerX.tcz by simply entering:

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mkfs.cramfs pkg flashplayerX.tcz7. You can now move flashplayerX.tcz into your tce/optional folder  (or put it in your main startup tce folder ready to go on next boot after removing your previous flashplayerX.tce version from there).

[I did in fact make a tcz version of flashplayer9 for myself some while back (after making the tce from an old libflashplayer.so I had lying about on my system) and it worked fine; just double check the tiny core wiki incase I've missed anything out. Note that the above assumes the cramfs method rather than the zisofs method].

[Jason W]

The same method but a little simpler is to be in the same directory as your tce, and then:

mkdir pkg
tar xzvf extension.tce -C pkg
mkfs.cramfs pkg extension.tcz

[thane]

I changed everything except Flash9 over to TCZ -- only took a few minutes since I didn't have many apps installed. Not seeing much obvious difference in performance or RAM usage, but it boots faster.

As far as making Flash9 a TCZ, when you say be in the same directory as your tce, I assume you mean (starting from root) to cd /mnt/sda1/tce and then run the commands?

[Jason W]

Yes, in your case:

cd /mnt/sda1/tce
mkdir pkg
tar xzvf extension.tce -C pkg
mkfs.cramfs pkg extension.tcz
rm -r pkg

[thane]

Well, it worked. Not all that sure it made much practical difference, but interesting.

The pkg directory with a number of sub-directories is still in the tce directory. I assume that's supposed to stay there? The libflashsupport.so and libflashplayer.so files are in there.

Also, is it necessary to keep the md5.txt files after download?

[^thehatsrule^]

No, both can be removed.