Tiny Core Linux

Tiny Core Base => TCB Talk => Topic started by: keithterrill on May 21, 2014, 06:09:04 PM

Title: I am impressed with TinyCore
Post by: keithterrill on May 21, 2014, 06:09:04 PM

Tiny being the operative word here, I am very impressed with TinyCore. Some of the old boxes I have been playing with have developed hardware problems. No doubt because of age and neglect. So, I have been shuffling from one box to the next. Just the same, my Dimension 4300 Dell that I favor for sentimental reasons appears to be in the best shape. It, however, only has 253132 kB ram.

I  just booted TinyCore up with ICEwm, added NTFS drivers and Chromium. Launched the browser Chromium, navigated here and tested the system. It is running fine and just off of the CD. I have not yet installed it to the hard drive. That is next.

The reason for this note is that it is all running and I still have 8548 kB free in my ram.

Since, this box is in good shape, I am going to order memory to bring it up to a full gig (the max for this machine).

My hat is off to all of you who have made this project work.

Thank-you.  :)

Title: Re: I am impressed with TinyCore
Post by: gerald_clark on May 21, 2014, 06:15:48 PM

Here are some hints to stretch your RAM.
Install to hard dirve and use a real swap partition.  Then add a nozswap boot option.
Have home on your hard drive. Then remove home from /opt/.filetool.lst.

Title: Re: I am impressed with TinyCore
Post by: keithterrill on May 21, 2014, 07:33:32 PM

Quote

Here are some hints to stretch your RAM.
Install to hard dirve and use a real swap partition.  Then add a nozswap boot option.
Have home on your hard drive. Then remove home from /opt/.filetool.lst.

Thank you for the hint. My next step was to install to the hard drive. But, I was not sure about the swap and home hints.

Thank you, again.

Title: Re: I am impressed with TinyCore
Post by: gerald_clark on May 21, 2014, 07:40:02 PM

If you don't have a swap partition, you will need zswap space in RAM.

Title: Re: I am impressed with TinyCore
Post by: tinypoodle on May 21, 2014, 09:37:20 PM

Or a swapfile would work as well.

Title: Re: I am impressed with TinyCore
Post by: gerald_clark on May 21, 2014, 10:16:54 PM

TRue.  I had forgotten about the swapfile= boot option.

Title: Re: I am impressed with TinyCore
Post by: lemming on July 22, 2014, 04:43:06 AM

Quote

Install to hard dirve and use a real swap partition

Why does TC use a RAM swap when it uses up RAM thereby  'stealing'  RAM from the OS, making it more likely that the swap will be needed? Wouldn't it be more efficient to skip the swap and use it all for the OS?

Title: Re: I am impressed with TinyCore
Post by: gerald_clark on July 22, 2014, 08:15:14 AM

The zswap is compressed and dynamic.
Since not recently used RAM is compressed when it is swapped it actually makes more room than it uses.

Title: Re: I am impressed with TinyCore
Post by: lemming on July 22, 2014, 08:39:37 AM

I see. Thanks Gerald.