problem with free space

[tinypoodle]

Most people are better off installing Tiny Core on the hard drive.

If by

on the hard drive

an internal HDD is implied - as opposed to e.g. USB HDD

then all of the following 3 preconditions have to be met:
1. The mere presence of an internal HDD.
2. A FAT* or ext* file system. (At least without remastering)
3. Sufficient free space on upper.

Since post #1 by OP it is apparent that the PC in question does not feature a HDD.
In post #2 maro made it absolutely clear that the extension required is bigger than the size of the storage medium hda1, and therefore hda1 was out of the question for tce storage.
Therefore feasible approaches (alternatives to using hda1 as tce) had to be examined and suggested.

[Juanito]

..as when it comes to mount the storage medium, the system is already extracted to RAM (theoretically the boot medium could have been removed).

It's easy to test - if you boot "base norestore" from a usb stick, when boot completes the stick is not mounted and you can remove it and tc continues to work.

[tinypoodle]

..as when it comes to mount the storage medium, the system is already extracted to RAM (theoretically the boot medium could have been removed).

It's easy to test - if you boot "base norestore" from a usb stick, when boot completes the stick is not mounted and you can remove it and tc continues to work.

Even way earlier actually, according to following description:
http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php?topic=7825.msg41922#msg41922

[navoye]

Most people are better off installing Tiny Core on the hard drive.

If by

Since post #1 by OP it is apparent that the PC in question does not feature a HDD.

I think we got some kind of missunderstanding. So, to be exact:
my computer is: HP COMPAQ T5500 Thin Client - i can boot from usb, thats no problem
instead of hdd i'v got DOM - something like this http://www.ravirajtech.com/diskonmodule.html but of course larger capacity.
So, my computer seeing DOM like normal HDD
Now, after all i read i think the best way for me is to buy HDD 2,5 and connect it instead of my DOM, i think it will take all my problems away.
but...
My pc have only one ata slot so i cant connect DOM and HDD at the same time....
how to move all my system to new hard disk wihout loosing programs and data?

[fixquote]

[maro]

navoye: Sure having a hard disk would probably give you the best in terms of speed and capacity. OTOH I don't see a reason why you'd rule out storage on a USB pendrive. At least it would allow you to explore TC further than your DOM currently allows on it's own and may not incurr an upfront cost for new hardware (mind you I wonder how long we can buy 2.5 HDD with IDE interface).

I assume you have a boot loader (e.g. GRUB) plus the kernel (i.e. 'bzImage') and the initrd (i.e. 'tinycore.gz') installed on your DOM. They could remain there, you just need a USB pendrive to hold your choosen extensions plus the backup file (to store configuration etc.). If you've got a USB pendrive with a VFAT or EXT[2-4] partition (and enough free capacity) that could be utilised for that purpose. You don't need to use the 'usbinstall' script (which would wipe the USB pendrive and prepare a TC system that is bootable from the USB pendrive).

If you intend to give this a go please describe what you've got and we'll try to guide you through the next steps.

[navoye]

#maro
I think You are right in case no new hardware, just usb pendrive. it will give me posibility to test if all works fine for me without spending money. If all my plans will work and i realize that i need more space to share with other computer i will think about buying new hdd.  You give me way to test all i need without costs .I got  new 8gb pendrive. its fat32 but i think there will be no problem to format it to another file system. There are no data on it.
If it's possible i will be happy to use for example 1gb of its space for extentions and backup and rest space for sharing with samba to another computer.
Could You please tell me how to do it?

[maro]

OK, you could partition it into several partitions (e.g. one EXT3 or EXT4 for TC and the remainder as a VFAT), or you just leave it as a single VFAT partition. The latter might not be optimal in terms of performance, but it's the option with the least effort and greatest flexibility (i.e. no commitment of a dedicated space that might turn out to be either too large or too small at a later point in time).

Certainly one point in favour of EXT3 or EXT4 would be the fact that those are journalling file systems. But for a USB pendrive that does not need to be an advantage. The idea has to be to minimise the write activities to the pendrive. TC is optimised in that regard (compared to the usual "scatter installation" done by most Linux distributions), so I think VFAT is an acceptable choice.

If you still need partitioning advice please "sing out". Otherwise the use of 'fdisk' or 'cfdisk' (from the 'cfdisk.tcz' extension) or some GUI partitioning tool like 'gparted' (needs the 'gparted.tcz' extension) and the appropriate formatting command (e.g. 'mkfs.ext3', 'mkfs.ext4' or  'mkfs.vfat' from the 'dosfstools-3.tcz' extension) should be all you need. There should be plenty of other posts in this forum regarding the use of those tools.

After inserting your USB pendrive to your target system you could use blkid /dev/sd* to get an idea about the device name and the label and / or the UUID of your target file system. As I have written just a few day ago another post about what is important for USB pendrive setups I recommend you read that post instead of me reapeting most things here again.

In summary, the 'waitusb=...' boot code is mandatory the 'tce=...' boot code is optional. One thing you should be doing is to remove the 'tce' directory from your DOM. As the USB based filesystem of your choice need to have a 'tce' directory anyway I'd suggest you just move it over there. Otherwise (if you want to start from scratch) remove it from the DOM and create a new one on the USB pendrive.

After all those changes to file systems and the boot loader configuration I'd suggest before you start to download and install more extensions that you make sure that TC does the correct 'tce' directory detection. I mean: boot the system and check with cat /opt/.tce_dir that the intended directory was identified.

[tinypoodle]

Most people are better off installing Tiny Core on the hard drive.

If by

Since post #1 by OP it is apparent that the PC in question does not feature a HDD.

I think we got some kind of missunderstanding. So, to be exact:
my computer is: HP COMPAQ T5500 Thin Client - i can boot from usb, thats no problem
instead of hdd i'v got DOM - something like this http://www.ravirajtech.com/diskonmodule.html but of course larger capacity.
So, my computer seeing DOM like normal HDD

Speaking for myself, no misunderstanding at all, that was my impression from the first post, and whatever I wrote was based on that.
BTW, you are not the first person I would have come across who is using TC on a HP Thin client   

[tinypoodle]

In case of deciding to run gparted, note that there is not sufficient free space available on your hda1 to do so.
It might be possible to install gparted with all its deps if you would free up all space not needed to boot TC. Otherwise you would have to run in default mode, so that extensions would be stored in tmpfs.

[tinypoodle]

If it does work, I stand corrected. I have not checked.

I tried this a long time ago, with version 1.x, and it did not work then.

Maybe things have changed with the newer versions.

Guy,

I have to admit I had not tried to access attched USB devices at boot time earlier than with version 2.3

By looking at kernel config now it appears that USB storage support is compiled into the kernel - a look at 'lsmod' while USB storage devices are in use could indicate the same.
Therefore there is no such issue as USB storage not being available early enough during boot process.

Your statements led me to compare the config files for the kernel used in 2.x vs. 1.x.

the basic obvious difference I found that in the kernel used in 1.x: CONFIG_USB_OHCI_HCD=m

The assumption could be made that if someone would use a USB OHCI port, then indeed there could be an issue of timing at boot time, depending on when exactly the module gets loaded within boot sequence and how boot scripts relate to it.

On a sidenote: whether BIOS do or do not support boot from USB is irrelevant to the whole subject of USB devices being activated at boot time by the kernel, IMHO.

[Guy]

This is not an important issue, as all new computers can boot from a usb drive (as far as I know). So as the years go by, less and less people will use computers which cannot boot from a usb drive. However, some people run Tiny Core on older computers.

I did not plan to start a debate. However, since the issue is being discussed, I just did an experiment. I started Tiny Core 3.3 on a computer which cannot boot from a usb drive, with the tce directory on a usb drive connected to the computer. I tried waitusb=10, waitusb=20, waitusb=30, and others.

The extensions were not loaded.

I can connect the usb drive after starting Tiny Core, and install them using Install Local.

I use Grub legacy.

The same thing occurred when running Tiny Core from a CD.

Have you done this in real life, or are you speaking theoretically.

If you do have this working, what might you be doing different to me?

[tinypoodle]

Your last question came somehow redundant for me, as I had already asked that myself before I ended up reading it...

To make sure, I did some testing here as well.

USB flash stick attached to a USB 1.1 port of a 2002 Toshiba Satellite.
I had usually restored backup from it which didn't require 'waitusb' as it appears that loading extensions from internal hdd provides for enough time for the USB stick to be initialized until it is needed.
1. Adding boot parameters 'tce=sda2 restore=sda2' resulted in failure to load both.
2. Further adding 'waitusb=20' resulted in success of mounting onboot apps and restoring backup.
Upper was done with TC 2.10, bootloader being linld, though I do not think that bootloader per se would matter (correct syntax would), as long as it passes boot parameters correctly to the kernel.

What you could try: Increase waitusb value to be very high at least just for once, in order to exclude. Is that a USB 1.0 or USB 1.1 port?

Boot with parameters 'debug syslog', then have a look at /var/log/messages, particularly at the timing of USB device being recognized and everything else being related.

[Guy]

This is not an important issue, and it is not worth wasting a lot of time on.

Maybe it works on some computers and not others.

I have found it did not work on more than one computer. All desktop computers.

Are you sure the bios in your computer cannot be set up to boot from the usb drive?

Do you have any other computers to test it on?

Is waitusb= the only thing different?

How are you booting Tiny Core?

[tinypoodle]

Absolutely sure about BIOS options, I mentioned 2002, there was no booting from USB back then.
The Toshiba is booted from FreeDOS with linld, kernel and initrd on internal hdd.
Same experience with a Thinkpad from 2000, booted by pxelinux over the net (would not want to ruin uptime on that one to test).
Also I had success with a USB hdd instead of a pendrive on both laptops in the past.
I have never used a desktop.

Both boxes have USB 1.1 ports, you didn't reply my question if your USB port is 1.0 or 1.1.

Again, if I were you I would check syslog about the timing.

[Guy]

It seems like it works on some computers but not others.

Because it is not an important issue, it is not worth wasting a lot of time trying to determine what makes the difference.

Maybe it is the motherboard.

I could try FreeDOS and see if that makes any difference. You could try Grub and see if that makes any difference. Because it is not an important issue, it is not worth wasting the time to find out. There are more important things. (You can if you want to)

If someone finds it works for them, great.

If someone has done everything correctly and it does not work, maybe it will not work on their computer. If it is important, there is always the Plop boot manager.

Maybe FreeDOS works like Plop.