Local mirror of all extensions

[Ulysses_]

Tinypoodle, this is a sensitive subject, manuals versus forums.  When one has put so much effort in their part of documentation, it must be unpleasant to be expected to retype it in forums when some people do not bother to read their work.  It also takes some discipline to maintain manuals up to date, and someone who first comes across a new distro cannot possibly know whether this discipline exists.  Now when the discipline exists, is it really so difficult to say something like:

"Check out the xxx chapter in the documentation, it's explained there"

That's all we're entitled to really.  

Now you say I misintepreted your post, that you only provided a single link and some bold.  Sorry but you did not just provide a single link, you provided a gentle reminder of official policy on RTFM, and you did that in response to a question about proxies and DVD's.  

Does it not logically follow that you considered that question preventable, if only the manual had been read?  Preventable because either:

a. it is explicitly answered in the manual, or
b. the suggested idea (proxy, DVD, whatever) would violate the philosophy of TC explained in the manual.

[Ulysses_]

Actually, the tcz repo minus the source directory is about 4.3GB, but nevertheless still very large.  And still much more efficient and recommended to only download what you need onto persistent storage, updating what you have occasionally as previously mentioned.

What's to stop us from taking a snapshot of the tcz repo every few months, calling it a version of TC, and distributing it with bittorrent?  We'd be downloading the o/s from each other, and then getting updates from the repos. 

The repos server would hardly notice a new version of TC is out, no noticeable increase in bandwidth use.

[Guy]

Because of the backup, it seems possible to any beginner that adding 20 extensions and removing the 3 after some use and configuration may not the same as adding the 17 from scratch.

Adding 20 extensions and removing the 3 after some use and configuration is the same as adding the 17 from scratch. Extensions are not modified when you use Tiny Core. This is one of the big advantages of Tiny Core. The only thing which may be changed is your settings and personal files.

Removing extensions has been troubling people it seems, that must be why is has been debated to death.

Some people have not known that extensions and dependencies can be removed with Apps Audit.

Removing extensions has not been debated. I will try to explain what has been debated. The way Tiny Core is designed, after updating or removing extensions, you need to shut the computer down and reboot, for the changes to come into effect. Some people have suggested that it should be designed so changes come into effect without rebooting. This is what has been debated.

Nobody has suggested that the existing system does not work well.

I highly recommend, you install extensions, and remove what you don't want. It is much easier to update the extensions you your computer, than to update the entire repository.

[tinypoodle]

Tinypoodle, this is a sensitive subject, manuals versus forums.

IMHO, there is no such dilemma.

How To Ask Questions The Smart Way: www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

[Ulysses_]

Because of the backup, it seems possible to any beginner that adding 20 extensions and removing the 3 after some use and configuration may not the same as adding the 17 from scratch.

Adding 20 extensions and removing the 3 after some use and configuration is the same as adding the 17 from scratch. Extensions are not modified when you use Tiny Core. This is one of the big advantages of Tiny Core. The only thing which may be changed is your settings and personal files.

Alright, here's an example then.  You install Xorg-7.5-3d, create a good xorg.conf for it, put its path in /opt/.filetool.lst plus whatever else you have configured for X, observe a bug that seems to be the fault of Xorg, remove Xorg-7.5-3d, install Xorg-7.5-vmware, reboot.  

Then Xorg-7.5-vmware boots up with a xorg.conf, and may fail if the error is in there.  This is not the same as installing Xorg-7.5-vmware from scratch without ever messing with Xorg-7.5-3d.  

There may be more configuration files you have listed in /opt/.filetool.lst that are brought back to life and may be what causes the malfunction.

Nobody has suggested that the existing system does not work well.

I have observed firefox crash while playing an HD flash video (not TC's fault) and come back to life after a reboot with the home page and addons reset.  But in other distros if firefox crashes, the configuration survives.  Isn't the firefox configuration in the home directory, and doesn't /opt/.filetool.lst include the home directory by default?  If yes, there's a bug somewhere causing the the profile to be reset.  

If not, how can the user know what other directories the latest version of firefox or whatever uses for its configuration?  Or the extension creator is supposed to reliably reverse-engineer each version of firefox or whatever to find out where ALL its configuration is stored, and list his reverse-engineering results in the extension's .txt?  

This is inviting troubles, like reverse-engineered ntfs-3g it will take ages to get 100% reliable.

Firefox has changed the location and format of the bookmarks and other config several times from version to version, I know because I was struggling to keep track with it under sandboxie, which has some analogies with TC.  So its a never-ending chase.

Don't get me wrong, I like TC too much, I'd rather put up with occasional bugs if this is what it takes for outstanding performance.  The winning feature for me in TC is speed and low memory, not download size or hard disk space.

[Guy]

With an extension like Xorg, you could delete the files which are being backed up, or remove its path from /opt/.filetool.lst, then reboot. There is no need to download the other extensions again.

In my early days of using Tiny Core, when doing an update, I would delete the /home and /opt directories.

Nobody has suggested that the existing system does not work well.

That is referring to the existing method of removing extensions.

I have found that Tiny Core as an operating system works well. However, people do come across bugs from time to time. When these are brought to the attention of the team, they are addressed.

I have never lost settings with Firefox like you have.

[Ulysses_]

Nobody has suggested that the existing system does not work well.

That is referring to the existing method of removing extensions.

Surely when you remove an extension with the existing method, keeping track of configuration files (whose location has been reverse-engineered) is not trivial.  It may be asking for trouble.

[tinypoodle]

If not, how can the user know what other directories the latest version of firefox or whatever uses for its configuration?  Or the extension creator is supposed to reliably reverse-engineer each version of firefox or whatever to find out where ALL its configuration is stored, and list his reverse-engineering results in the extension's .txt? 

firefox is open source, it would make absolutely no sense to reverse-engineer it.
You can get the sources freely.

[Ulysses_]

Firefox or whatever it says.  Eg opera.  And while it can be done in theory, it doesn't seem likely that extrension creators will ever read the sources of everything they create extensions for, in order to find out where all config files are placed.

[Jason W]

Firefoxes place thier config files in ~/.mozilla, pretty much been that way since the beginning of the Mozilla browser.  Icecat uses ~/.icecat to be different, it is a GNU version of Firefox that does things it's own way..

Opera will place it's config files in, guess where?     ~/.opera

No reading of source or reverse engineering needed.   Just simply place these directories in you backup, or use persistent home, and settings will be kept across sessions.  Or for the more adventurous, you can find which particular files in those directories relate the the specific settings you wont to keep, and just back up those files to be space efficient. 

But this is drifting away from the original topic of mirroring the repo.

[Ulysses_]

Sure it is. But if I may, do you really know for sure that all linux software follows the convention and never stores anything important elsewhere? 

Seen one that doesn't (xorg).  Probably vmware workstation and vmware tools too, if an extension could legally be created for them.

[Jason W]

The browsers keep it pretty simple. 

But most other apps follow a similar form with keeping their system-wide config files in /etc, or in our case /usr/local/etc.  The files may be in a subdirectory usually named after the app.  Then, user config files that override the system wide ones are in the home directory.  That is the general gist of it,.  Usually the documentation of the app describes where configs are, and normally extension makers don't vary that location except for the /usr/llocal prefix.  Which would place the /etc files in /usr/local/etc, and so forth.

[Ulysses_]

Recognizing patterns seen before sounds like Sherlock Holmes investigating a crime scene, knowing how to question suspects, what to expect, etc.  A distant relative of reverse engineering really.

There must be tools similar to sandboxie in linux, where it's obvious what files a chosen executable has written to.  Encouraging the user to use such a tool might make configuration backups a little more explicit and perhaps reliable.

[Jason W]

One way to do what you are wanting is to open a program, use it, and close it.  Then soon after enter this in a terminal:

sudo find /etc /usr/local/etc /home -mmin 1 -type f


This will tell you of all the files changed within the last minute in /etc, /usr/local/etc and /home.  Of course, just add directories to that command to expand the directories searched for changes.

That should help with the backup.

[Guy]

Ulysses

When I first started using Tiny Core, I wasn't so familiar with what is saved where.

When I did an update, I would save a copy of my personal files, then delete the /home and /opt directories. This will delete anything you may be concerned about. It is like having a new installation.

As you spend more time using Tiny Core, you become more familiar with where things are saved. So you may just delete particular files or directories.