Installing TC to Slave hard drive, Ext4, Grub2. HOW?

[Rich]

Hi KingBongo
Try installing gparted.tcz, It will let you set up and format partitions plus it has a really nice GUI.

[KingBongo]

Rich:
Hahaha. Of course! I was just playing around with other distros just to be able to use "gparted", System Rescue CD being one of them. It never struck me that it might be available in TCs repos. Duh! Sometimes I feel really stupid

[Rich]

Hi KingBongo
Yeah, well, you had a uncooperative PC distracting you.

[KingBongo]

I don't know how I did it, but I have now an ext4 partitions scheme AND I have Grub2 installed and set up And it works! Come on now, congratulate me!

I am really taking the Linux crash course here, lol.

[Lee]

  Congratulations ! 

Now, for extra credit points, you have to figure out how you did it.

[KingBongo]

Lee:
It is not hard to follow instructions For those who are as behind as I am and want to know how,

• Create ext4 partitions - Use "gparted". Install "gparted.tcz" at first.
• Install and set up Grub2 - Install "grub2.tcz", then follow the info on how to set up Grub2.

After that I actually managed the following,

• Set timeout=5 for the Grub2 boot menu - Add "set timeout=5" directly after "##begin file" in the configuration file "grub.cfg".
• Setting up ALSA, autostart ALSA, and keeping all settings for ALSA - Use "alsaconf" to set up ALSA. Then follow the info for "alsa.tcz". Don't forget to add "/usr/local/etc/init.d/alsasound start", "/opt/alsa/", and "/etc/modprobe.conf" to your "/mnt/hda1/tce/mydata.tgz" file (if you followed the instructions here when installing, http://www.tinycorelinux.com/install.html, and use the default backup option when shutting down.). I think you also have to add "alsa.tcz" to the onboot list.

That's it! Can somebody of the skilled guys check that what I wrote is not too much of a lie? My stuff-to-do list is getting shorter

One question at this point. When autostarting ALSA the boot times seem to be much longer! Is that correct or did I do something wrong?

PS. I have to say that Tiny Core Linux is VERY hard to use compared to most other distros. You have to set up almost everything yourself, even the "grub.cfg" file. Since the goal for Tiny Core is minimalism I don't see it as something bad. What IS bad though is the lack of documentation. I think the figure-it-out-for-yourself approach scares away a lot of people. It doesn't have to be that way! 

[KingBongo]

These are things left on my to-do list

1a. Set xvesa resolution to 800x600x24
1b. Set mouse to serial mouse COM1, 2Button
1c. Set mouse to left-handed mouse

2. Setting swedish keyboard, i.e. SE

3. Mount hda2

4. Start XMMS/Audacious, not just load/mount it

These things should all happen automatically during boot.

1a/1b/1c: I really need some help here! I can probably solve "1a" by setting a boot parameter. I didn't try it though since it isnt of much use if I cannot solve "1b". How do I do that? From my experiments with (older) Debian/Ubuntu versions I know you can modify the "xorg.conf" file to make it happen. But how to do it in Tiny Core? TC doesn't use X11+HAL as far as I know. 1c shouldn't be to hard if you know how to solve 1b, or?

2. Although I have installed "kmaps.tcs" and tried setting "kmap=se" as a boot parameter, I don't end up with a Swedish keyboard. In fact, I haven't been able to set the keyboard at all, not even with the system running. What am I doing wrong?

3. This is hell! I have been trying to find info on this. The info I can find is that I should change the rules for UDEV, but not how. If I open up one of the ".rules" files I almost get a heart attack, hahaha. What is that? Is there some application that can help one change the rules automatically? Help would be much appreciated.

4. This would be nice, since this machine is mainly going to be used as a music player. How do you autostart apps in Tiny Core? In Ubuntu/Gnome it is really easy.

[Juanito]

4. This would be nice, since this machine is mainly going to be used as a music player. How do you autostart apps in Tiny Core? In Ubuntu/Gnome it is really easy.

If it is an X application, you can create a file something like this:

Code: [Select]

$ cat ~/.X.d/xmms
xmms &

..then it will start each time you start X

[KingBongo]

Juanito:
Well, I didn't solve exactly that problem yet, but while looking for a solution I ran into the file "/home/tc/.xsession". I opened it, and what did I see: All my current settings for screen resolution and mouse. I specified the file in "mydata.tgz", rebooted, and VOILA correct resolution and mouse settings (but it STILL is right-handed).

What is happening here? When I open the file "mydata.tgz" again, everything I have written in there is gone, but still everything is set up correctly??? Can somebody explain that to me?

Question: Is there an option "left-handed" or similar that I can specify in ".xsession" in order to get a left-handed mouse?

EDIT: I don't have the slightest clue why most everything I do works, but it does. I put "xmms &" at the end of the ".xsession" file mentioned earlier, saved the path in "mydata.tgz", rebooted, and xmms started automatically. It seems like black magic to me. Please, pretty please, explain!

[KingBongo]

Now there are only a few things left to sort out,

1c. Setting mouse to left-handed mouse

2. Setting keyboard to Swedish, i.e. SE

3. Mount hda2

during boot. I think that out of these #3 is the worst by far! The one I really would like to solve is #2, because having to find the right keys all the time is annoying. Help please!

[Juanito]

Juanito:
What is happening here? When I open the file "mydata.tgz" again, everything I have written in there is gone, but still everything is set up correctly??? Can somebody explain that to me?

If you want to add addional files to your back-up (mydata.tgz), you need to specify them in /opt/.filetool.lst - in the case of files in /home/tc, they are specified in the default filetool.lst so if you use Panel/Back Up/Restore/Back Up and make a backup, .xsession will be added to your backup

Question: Is there an option "left-handed" or similar that I can specify in ".xsession" in order to get a left-handed mouse?

I don't think you can specify a left-handed mouse with Xvesa, you might need to use the Xorg-7.5 extension instead

EDIT: I don't have the slightest clue why most everything I do works, but it does. I put "xmms &" at the end of the ".xsession" file mentioned earlier, saved the path in "mydata.tgz", rebooted, and xmms started automatically. It seems like black magic to me. Please, pretty please, explain!

.xsession executes when you start the X windows system, hence xmms is executed - you could try reading the wiki for more details.

[KingBongo]

Another one down and out!

I managed to mount hda2 automatically during boot. I just did the same as when I set up "xmms" to start automatically,

I put "mount /dev/hda2 &" almost at the end of the file ".xsession", just before "xmms &" from earlier, saved the path in "mydata.tgz", rebooted and VOILA.

I really don't know exactly what happens when it is done like that I also know it will only work when X is started, but I couldn't care less

EDIT: Thanks for your explanation Juanito. I have been doing it all wong then, but it still works! WTF?

Regarding the left-handed mouse issue: I think that Xorg is much bulkier than Xvesa, isn't it? I am not sure that I want to increase boot times further, it already takes 2 minutes to boot. I think I will either run the mouse as right-handed with Xvesa or simply modify the mouse physically

The only thing that is left to do before I am completely happy with the setup is specifying the keyboard layout to Swedish during boot, i.e. SE. Can somebody help me with that?

  

[bmarkus]

The only thing that is left to do before I am completely happy with the setup is specifying the keyboard layout to Swedish during boot, i.e. SE. Can somebody help me with that?

  

Read FAQ http://www.tinycorelinux.com/faq.html#keyboard

[roberts]

Xvesa and left handed 2-button mouse. Add:

xmodmap -e 'pointer 3 2 1' to your .mouse_config file as specified in .xsession.
This assumes that you have initially used xsetup to set screen resolution and mouse port & type.

The GUI mousetool works for left handed 3 button. I will fix it for 2 button. It is not too often that one thinks to test a left handed 2 button serial mouse in Xvesa. You may use the GUI mousetool and then edit .mouse_config as shown above.

[KingBongo]

bmarkus:
Thank you! It works great

I think I am happy now function-wise, except for the left-handed mouse issue, The only thing I could do now is to improve the performance once up and running. I am thinking about using copy mode (copyfs) on a few selected applications. This is what OnBoot and OnDemand looks like right now,

OnBoot - xmms, alsa, kmaps
OnDemand - audacious  

Would it be a good idea to use copyfs on all of them or just on, say, xmms? Would it improve "snappiness" much? Are their dependencies loaded into RAM as well? What do you think?

Also, what is Xfbdev? Is it another server for X, even more lightweight than Xvesa, or what? If that is the case, would it improve performance much to switch to Xfbdev?

My thoughts:

• The documentation for Tiny Core could be improved a lot, trust me
• I would like to use audacious instead of xmms, but it seems to crash my computer. Please fix that.
• I am not overly impressed with the boot performance of Tiny Core 3.5. Adding "alsa" to "OnBoot" and setting it up during boot seems to increase the boot time a lot. Booting now takes almost precisely 2 minutes on this machine. There are versions of Puppy that are as fast, or faster than that. For example,
  
  - Puppy 2.14X works great on old hardware (i586), has a modern feel to it, and is actively developed. It boots almost as fast as Tiny Core 3.5 on this machine while having a lot of apps pre-installed. Not quite as snappy when running though, but that is no surprise.
  
  - PULP 0.10, a puplet for Puppy. It is extremely fast both with regards to booting and running. It mainly has a lot of older, but extremely lightweight apps. It looks like shit, but it boots in about 60s on this machine. How about that for an old Pentium 1, 200MHz?

My comments are not meant as something bad, but as something constructive. I am in love with Tiny Core already

EDIT: Thank you roberts! Thank you THANK YOU! Now I even have a left-handed serial mouse.

I am overly happy with Tiny Core. But I am also proud of myself A few days ago I did barely know about Tiny Core, and now I have set up a fairly complex installation on a really old computer, a Pentium 1. I cannot be too stupid, hahaha. But that is NOTHING compared to the guys behind Tiny Core. Keep up the good work!