Tiny Core Linux

General TC => General TC Talk => Topic started by: zettez on October 26, 2012, 04:56:54 AM

Title: Some questions about TC regarding booting TC from USB, TC in RAM with apps on HD
Post by: zettez on October 26, 2012, 04:56:54 AM

Greetings,

I started a topic some days ago about switching to TC and as I understood, when using TC you may:

• Boot from USB
• Keep TC in RAM
• Run apps from/save files to HDD

I have some questions regarding that:

• Is booting from USB much slower than booting from HDD? If so, how big is the difference?
• If I keep TC in RAM then performance wise it will not be a difference if I boot from USB or HDD?
• With TC in RAM and apps on HDD, will the apps still run fast compared to having TC installed on the HDD? Apps might be for instance games through WINE or media player.
• I currently use Ubuntu, and when people say that TC can be run in RAM, does it mean that Ubuntu is not? Is it being partly loaded all the time from the HDD?

I do not plan to store anything on the USB except the OS itself; I will have my work apps on my work computer's HDD and my home apps on my home computer's HDD. To clarify what I mean with keep TC in RAM, I am under impression that you may boot TC from the USB, then remove the USB from the computer and then load apps from the HDD, but if you want to change a config file on the OS then you will need to plug in the USB again. Thank you for taking your time reading!

Title: Re: Some questions about TC regarding booting TC from USB, TC in RAM with apps on HD
Post by: bmarkus on October 26, 2012, 05:04:53 AM

1) Can't give exact answer without knowing your HDD (IDE, SATA, ...) and USB (interface 1.1, 22.0, 3 and stick transfre rate) but usually a bit slower. However you are planning to load only base system which is small, so result is not important too much

2) No difference after TC copied to RAM and other data are on HDD

3) Not really, if HDD is used on TC-way; a persistent HDD system may differ

Title: Re: Some questions about TC regarding booting TC from USB, TC in RAM with apps on HD
Post by: Rich on October 26, 2012, 10:09:23 AM

Hi zettez
Check out this thread:
http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php/topic,13041.msg71702.html#msg71702
It contains links to diagrams that illustrate how Tinycore works. I recommend you look at  TCZ Mount mode architecture:
and  TCZ Copy mode architecture  to get a better understanding of the architecture.

Title: Re: Some questions about TC regarding booting TC from USB, TC in RAM with apps on HD
Post by: zettez on October 26, 2012, 11:02:42 AM

bmarkus, thanks for the quick response!

Rich, thanks for the link. I will probably go copy mode.