Tiny Core Base > TCB Talk

MicroCore, Anyone?

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philip:
TC is a nice platform for users like me to learn how GNU/Linux systems work. I am not quite ready for Linux From Scratch, but I would love a chance to take a step closer, starting with TC.

Is it accurate to think about the TinyCore Base as a collection of truly minimal system ingredients (kernel, libc, busybox, wget, robertscripts, etc) plus a collection of carefully-selected extensions (tinyx, jwm, etc) that most users will want? If so, what's the smallest setup that can boot and start loading extensions, presumably driven by command-line instructions? Would it be feasible to turn that setup into an explicit packaging option?

In my dreams, I download and boot a microcore.iso that gets me online, and then start adding extensions that could take me up to a standard TCB setup or, perhaps, in some other direction. This way of doing things would always be just an option for experienced users to play with, and most definitely not the first point of contact for newcomers. The current choices in the Base are excellent for most purposes, and the nearly-instant appearance of a friendly GUI is a huge attraction of TC as it now stands.

This idea may be worth the developers' time:

* If it's close to the way they build TC now anyway, sharing a peek behind the scenes wouldn't take much extra work.
* It may recruit to the community curious and technically adept people who then contribute to the general advancement of the project.
Please discuss. Thanks.

tobiaus:

--- Quote from: philip on March 28, 2009, 12:23:59 PM ---TC is a nice platform for users like me to learn how GNU/Linux systems work. I am not quite ready for Linux From Scratch, but I would love a chance to take a step closer, starting with TC.

--- End quote ---

it's not just nice for learning, it really gives you a feeling of having choices again. don't uninstall that application or library, either don't install it, or just delete the file (or move it to optional.) i like your idea, although it's not the most important thing for tc i believe. the most important thing right now is that it become useful for a wider variety of people and have more applications (choices.) i think the idea of making it even more modular is good for 2.0 or later, you could still have the very basic "desktop" in the main iso, instead of bzImage and tinycore.gz, have bzImage, tinycore.gz, and tinycore.tgz (for the basic desktop) all in the iso (and the frugal install.) to make it micro, remove tinycore.tgz. i think including the desktop for most users (less obsessed than we) is better.

oldtimer:
My ideal MicroTinyCore would be have no desktop or client apps other than enough for an xserver and ssh client capable of handling x11 forwarding from the fully loaded MonsterTinycore that's serving up all my client apps...  Wahoo!

roberts:
This too has been much discussed. But initially I wanted to appeal to a wider audience.
I wanted to offer a somewhat familiar desktop onto which applications could easily be integrated at boot and upon demand.

If I had started from the CLI, no X, I could just hear the reviews, a 1970 version of unix, too difficult for any but the most advanced users. However, I realize there are some, perhaps many that pushing my core concepts to even a lower level would be most appealing.

We will have to see. At the moment, there is still much to accomplish with the current offering.

jpeters:

--- Quote from: philip on March 28, 2009, 12:23:59 PM ---TC is a nice platform for users like me to learn how GNU/Linux systems work. I am not quite ready for Linux From Scratch, but I would love a chance to take a step closer, starting with TC.

--- End quote ---

I'm about half way through lfs now, and it's fairly easy.  I resisted bothering with it until now, but if you really want something simple where you are in control of updating the core libs when necessary, I think it's a good idea. I think tc needs to be more sophisticated, as Robert indicated.

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