Hello all, I couldn't find the topic that would suit the things I wanna write, so, with your permission, I'll write it in a new topic.
[btw, sorry for my mistakes if there'll be some because English isn't my native language]
Long ago I began a very complicated search. It's the search for the ultimate OS. Not bad, not good, but ultimate. I've tried dozens (if not hundreds yet) proprietary builds, free distributions and embedded versions of possibly all popular OSes (including different Linux, BSD, Windows, OpenSolaris, Mac OS X, OS/2 eComStation, BeOS versions, as well as some exotic such as QNX, Kolibri/Menuet OS, ETHZ A2 aka BluebottleOS and some more). About a year (or two - I don't remember) I came accross an early TinyCore version. I liked the concept but there were no good Unicode fonts for the moment in the repos, and I gave it up quickly. And now I occasionally came accross the newest TC release for the moment - 3.2. Now Unicode fonts are in place and I began studying TC's work. And.. I was impressed. Positively. So, there's summary of TC base system advantages and drawbacks. IMHO:
Advantages:
- Lightweight modularity. The nearest modular competitor's base system - SLAX - weighs about 200 megs, and TC base system weighs 11;
- Fast flexibility. My current main distro, Arch Linux, has taught me about flexibility but it's too difficult for a regular user to configure Arch to boot fast and load only what you need. In TC, these tasks are incorporated into the core. And I think everyone will admit that AppBrowser is much more easy to use than pacman+yaourt. (My opinion is AppBrowser is as simple for the user as Ubuntu Software Center
) And don't forget about size - ~650 megs Arch base console system compared to 11 megs TC base GUI.
- Great portability. To make a new installation, you have to move a very few files and directories. You can specify any system-wide things (e.g. locale, timezone) as a kernel boot option, and you can load the userdata segment (mydata.tgz) and extensions from any place you want. It's not stated in the wiki but you can specify any suitable device for restore, even cdrom. No other OS would allow you to make it load its parts from different places in such a simple way.
- Obvious security. Everything loads into RAM filesystems, runs in RAM and saves into RAM. You backup and restore only the files and folders you've specified. That means that even if you go root and remove the linux kernel it will appear upon reboot, unless you have specified the boot directory in filetool.lst explicitly
And even if you have specified it and backed it up, and after that your system can't boot, you can just rebuild mydata.tgz from any other OS removing boot directory from there, and that will fix the things. Moreover, each externsion loads into a separate loop virtual filesystem, so they can't interfere one another.
- Simplicity. No difficulties to install something and just use it (except for something like Monto but it's not officially supported by TC repos)
I was truly impressed with instant Wbar integration. Great work, guys.
Drawbacks:
For me, Arch-educated, there are none
(it's not critical for me to have multiuser access rights on my laptop) Possibly TC seems to be the closest to ultimate OS because of this fact. However, from the point of regular user, it would be obvious to have some things that are absent in the default installation: taskbar/systray panel (with clock and laptop battery monitor if needed), desktop switcher, file manager, browser(w/Flash), keyboard layouts, Unicode fonts, sound support, some IM/Torrent client, media mount applet, text (at least plain) editor, graphical look-and-feel configuration tools, system load monitor. The "instant backup button" on the panel also would be good for the user to save the results of his work without having to go to control panel or launching filetool - just a button on Wbar that would do a userdata segment backup to a predefined place. That would prevent loss of important data due to unexpected power failures because the user working with important data will obviously more frequently press "Backup" button when it's placed in a handy position.
So, I've tried to implement all these features (except for instant backup button yet) in my first userspace TC build called UltimateTC
Userspace build means that no modifications to core system were made, just to userdata and extensions. You can download the current testing version by looking for the link in my profile or signature.
What does it have now?
- Base TC system
As for UI, native Wbar and background settings engine are really great.
- Openbox. Don't get me wrong but I think that it can be called an ultimate WM
- Tint2 panel. Better see once than hear 100 times. Truly ultimate panel
- OSS4 sound system with ossxmix.
- ROX Filer file manager.
- Monto mount dockapp with custom update script according to fstab. Right click on a mounted media opens it in ROX Filer.
- Conky system monitor.
- Leafpad text editor.
- Chromium web browser.
- Transmission bit torrent client.
- Nice wallpaper
- Custom keyboard layout and wallpaper settings engine. All the settings of used layouts and wallpapers are in MySystemSettings folder. Currently Alt+Shift layout toggle combination only.
- Xorg included. That means the system is started with Xvesa (and probably that causes Conky to blink) but when you install the drivers for your video adapter from AppBrowser it won't download Xorg as a dep 'cause it's already present in the system. With NVidia drivers, everything works perfect. Other Xorg video drivers weren't tested as I have no appropriate hardware.
- Openbox and tint2 graphical configurators.
- GTK2 with theme engine.
- Some other stuff I can't remember right now, you can find everything in the Openbox menu (right click anywhere on the desktop)
Here's the screenshot (with NVidia drivers installed so my native laptop's resolution 1280x800 is supported):
Any improvement suggestions are welcome. Have Fun!