Why does Tiny Core have higher systems requirements than Win98?

[willz06jw]

Hi and thanks for reading,

Why does Tiny Core have higher systems requirements than Win98?  Is there any way to lower the systems requirements for memory?

Thanks again,
Will

[curaga]

Why shouldn't it? Win98 isn't and hasn't been any kind of target.


As for running in low ram, MC will run in 36mb, and there are other tweaks possible (do a forum search).

[gerald_clark]

Where can you buy W98?

[tclfan]

Why does Tiny Core have higher systems requirements than Win98?  Is there any way to lower the systems requirements for memory?

This is to be expected and not an indication of being memory inefficient. As a matter of fact TC has higher memory requirements than Win 98, NT, Win 2000 and Win XP, not speaking of most Linux distros.  I was able to get XP to run in 64M and Win 2000 in 32M after optimization. The reason is that it runs entirely in memory, rather than from disk and swap file, which means you need more memory lo load all these apps you want. What you gain is high speed (no disk access) and ability to run without any hard drive. You can even remove the TCL CD after boot. None of Windows systems can do this and only a few Linux, such as SliTaz and Austrumi.

[tclfan]

Just to add, by doing this (running entirely in memory) you not only make operation and response much faster by removing bottlenecks slowing down your system (such as reading from disk and swapping memory) but also increase reliability of the system since now potentially you do not need any moving parts in the hardware configuration, such as hard disk, which is the most likely point of failure...

[willz06jw]

Thanks for the replies.  That makes a lot of sense tclfan. 

I just wish there was an option for a Tiny Core - running from hard drive with low memory - installation for us "vintage" computer owners.  I know there are many different install options, but the memory requirements don't change.  I bet if you had a version like this, Tiny Core would gain a [more] massive following -- but I also understand how the work on Tiny Core isn't only to win popularity contests.


Willz06jw

[gerald_clark]

If that is what you want, then why don't you run something that is designed to run that way instead of something that is not?
If strawberry icecream was chocolate flavored, it might be more popular too.
TC is designed to fill a need, not to try to be the most popular distribution.

[^thehatsrule^]

There is a 'traditional' installation (try a search on 'scatter') but keep in mind that it is not supported at all.

[Jason W]

The default mode of loading extensions is mounted mode, and also using 4096 block size of the squashfs extension images to minimize runtime memory usage.  The base system takes up about 32 megs of ram, and mounted extensions take up some but not nearly as much as when the files are copied to ram.  Running apps take ram, of course, too.  Copying to ram requires a file flag to be invoked anyway.  

If older or low resource apps are used, Tinycore will perform quite well on a 64mb ram system, I have used it on one.   It is mostly newer apps and not the OS, at least for Linux, that take up so much RAM.  Especially web browsers.  The modern web is a huge memory hog when a fully compatible browser is used.