how to install tinycore into a RAM 32mb PC?

[yhy122755490]

hi,everyone ,i have a ram 32mb pc , and i want install tinycore into it, obviously,
http://www.tinycorelinux.com/overview.html

Minimum System Requirements
ram 48mb 

does anyone have some ways to solve the problem or i have to install dsl linux?

thank u!

[tinypoodle]

You could still try microcore with 32MB.
Not sure how dsl would do on 32MB, would not be my first choice to try, but then you got not much to lose to do so.

Whatever you do, give it plenty of swap.

[hiro]

Forget tinycore on this machine!

[yhy122755490]

You could still try microcore with 32MB.
Not sure how dsl would do on 32MB, would not be my first choice to try, but then you got not much to lose to do so.

Whatever you do, give it plenty of swap.

thank u reply!
i have installed dsl linux into the mechine ,it runs well ,but acturally  i like tinycorelinux ,and i plan to buy a 32mb ram to install  tinycorelinux.
 

[Michael Wells]

I see that http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/index.php/Minimum_Hardware_Requirements with X indicates a 16Mb RAM minimum though 24Mb is recommended while as we know TC with X requires a minimum of 48Mb regardless of the amount of swap.

I guess this higher minimum for TC must be because everything is loaded into RAM instead of running off of a drive of some sort, even microcore needs at least 36Mb.

I wonder if a Knoppix trick of creating a virtual memory file on an available hard drive would enable TC to run on smaller hardware setups albeit more slowly?

[vinnie]

I do not know if this boot code serves this purpose

tinycore nozswap                    Skip compressed swap in ram

[hiro]

no.

better get these other 32mb

[gerald_clark]

The embed boot option will stop copying initrd to tmpfs.
This may help lower the minimum RAM needed.

But what are you going to use to run programs?

[Michael Wells]

Another thought ... I have never used TC fully installed on a hard disk ... but can anybody who has, tell me if this reduces the RAM requirements by not having everything loaded into RAM ... or is there another reason to explain the 48Mb minimum such as an X configuration setting?  Or maybe - is it because the Initram filesystem loaded at boot takes a minimum of 48Mb regardless of the install method? 

Another way of asking this question is to ask - What is the reason DSL gets it down to 16Mb RAM for X?

[tinypoodle]

I wonder if a Knoppix trick of creating a virtual memory file on an available hard drive would enable TC to run on smaller hardware setups albeit more slowly?

What you call a "Knoppix trick" is standard procedure in many OS's (and some would force swap on you by default upon install). And it is referred to under "minimal requirements".
In tc there is a tool for it:

Code: [Select]

swapfile

[danielibarnes]

My experimentation indicates that Micro Core requires 28MB and Tiny Core requires 48 MB. The embed and nozswap parameters do not have any effect on this limit. However, free memory is available (about 12MB and 22MB respectively) when booting with these minimums, so there is enough memory for simple tasks. This limit might be lowered by removing unneeded files from the initramfs, but I did not test that.

[gerald_clark]

Where do you find a machine with 28M of RAM?

[tinypoodle]

see also this thread:
http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php?topic=6984.0

[Frank]

Where do you find a machine with 28M of RAM?

Emulation.

[danielibarnes]

I created a VMware ESXi VM. Results may vary with Qemu, other virtualization methods, or real hardware. I installed Tiny Core 3.5 to a virtual HDD, and I am running it in only 24MB (including X). Without X, I can boot with 20MB. There may be techniques to get it to run with less. It used to boot in only 16MB.

Summary: You can run Tiny Core in 32MB if you do a scatter mode installation with grub.