Tiny Core Linux
Tiny Core Base => TCB Q&A Forum => Topic started by: jshorthouse on May 08, 2020, 02:11:13 PM
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Hi all,
I am trying to move my "optional" directory to a flash drive by using a symlink.
I have currently done the following:
- set the flash drive to mount in bootsync.sh
- move optional to the flash drive and create a symlink to it
This works fine when the system is booted. Extensions can be loaded with tce-load and the ondemand function.
However, when booting all onboot extensions fail to load. From the book I can see the problem, page 89 shows the order of operations and bootsync.sh is run after the loading on onboot extensions.
Is there any way that I can mount the flash drive earlier in the boot process, so that the extension loading code can access it's contents?
Thanks
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Hi jshorthouse
Welcome to the forum.
... I am trying to move my "optional" directory to a flash drive by using a symlink. ...
Find the UUID of your flash drive and use the tce=UUID boot code. The FAQ has more info:
http://tinycorelinux.net/faq.html#pendrives
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I came across that option when searching, but doesn't the tce directory also contain the files for the kernel and base system?
I would like to have a clean separation if possible, where the flash drive only contains extensions. That way the core system can be loaded from the faster internal disk, and also if the flash drive is removed the system will still be bootable.
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Hi jshorthouse
I came across that option when searching, but doesn't the tce directory also contain the files for the kernel and base system? ...
Not necessarily. Here is the layout on one of my machines:
Root directory of the boot drive:
tc@E310:~/info$ ls -l /mnt/sda1/
total 44
drwxr-xr-x 3 tc staff 4096 Jan 31 13:42 boot/
drwxrwxr-x 3 root staff 4096 Apr 22 08:19 home/
drwx------ 2 tc staff 16384 Jul 12 2019 lost+found/
drwxrwsr-x 3 root staff 4096 Apr 2 22:06 opt/
drwxrwxr-x 5 tc staff 4096 May 3 20:55 tce/
drwxrwxr-x 4 tc staff 4096 Mar 31 15:57 tce64/
drwxrwxr-x 4 tc staff 4096 Mar 21 00:57 tce64TC11b1/
drwxrwxr-x 4 tc staff 4096 Feb 20 14:28 tce64TC11b1.bak/
tc@E310:~/info$As you can see, it has multiple TCE directories, both 32 and 64 bit.
boot sub-directory of the boot drive:
tc@E310:~/info$ ls -l /mnt/sda1/boot/
total 65980
-rw-r--r-- 1 tc staff 9131528 Jul 12 2019 core.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 tc staff 9627207 Oct 16 2019 core64.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 tc staff 10407852 Nov 28 20:01 corepure64.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 tc staff 11059939 Jan 14 12:05 corepure64TC11beta1.gz
drwxr-xr-x 2 tc staff 4096 Jul 18 2019 grub/
-rw-r--r-- 1 tc staff 6826959 Oct 16 2019 modules64.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 tc staff 2800248 Oct 16 2019 rootfs.gz
-rw------- 1 tc staff 3587966 Jun 11 2019 rootfs64.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 tc staff 4295328 Jul 12 2019 vmlinuz
-rw-r--r-- 1 tc staff 4721024 Oct 16 2019 vmlinuz64
-rw-r--r-- 1 tc staff 5084544 Dec 17 19:06 vmlinuz64TC11beta1
tc@E310:~/info$Here you find multiple kernel (vmlinuz) and initrd (corexxx) files.
Here is the config file for grub-0.97-splash:
tc@E310:~/info$ cat /mnt/sda1/boot/grub/menu.lst
default 0
timeout 10
title TC10.1_32bit
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz quiet tce=UUID="543cac60-3224-4cab-b1d5-008407dd9ce8" home=UUID="543cac60-3224-4cab-b1d5-008407dd9ce8" opt=UUID="543cac60-3224-4cab-b1d5-008407dd9ce8" printk.time=1 syslog nodhcp vmalloc=256MB noisapnp nozswap
initrd /boot/core.gz
title TC10.1_32bit_backup
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz quiet tce=UUID="22559ae7-7e12-4a3b-9efa-6f8c8a9a8a6a" home=UUID="22559ae7-7e12-4a3b-9efa-6f8c8a9a8a6a" opt=UUID="22559ae7-7e12-4a3b-9efa-6f8c8a9a8a6a" printk.time=1 syslog nodhcp nozswap vmalloc=256MB noisapnp
initrd /boot/core.gz
title TC10.1_Core64
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz64 quiet tce=UUID="543cac60-3224-4cab-b1d5-008407dd9ce8" home=UUID="543cac60-3224-4cab-b1d5-008407dd9ce8" opt=UUID="543cac60-3224-4cab-b1d5-008407dd9ce8" printk.time=1 syslog nodhcp noisapnp
initrd /boot/core64.gz
title TC10.1_CorePure64
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz64 quiet tce=UUID="543cac60-3224-4cab-b1d5-008407dd9ce8"/tce64 home=UUID="543cac60-3224-4cab-b1d5-008407dd9ce8" opt=UUID="543cac60-3224-4cab-b1d5-008407dd9ce8" printk.time=1 syslog nodhcp noisapnp norestore
initrd /boot/corepure64.gz
title TC11.0beta1_CorePure64
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz64TC11beta1 quiet tce=UUID="543cac60-3224-4cab-b1d5-008407dd9ce8"/tce64TC11b1 home=UUID="543cac60-3224-4cab-b1d5-008407dd9ce8" opt=UUID="543cac60-3224-4cab-b1d5-008407dd9ce8" printk.time=1 syslog nodhcp noisapnp norestore
initrd /boot/corepure64TC11beta1.gz
title TC9_Core64
root (hd0,0)
kernel /tce/boot/vmlinuz64 quiet waitusb=5:UUID="1ad696eb-3913-4434-bb9e-25dd4b980c09" tce=UUID="1ad696eb-3913-4434-bb9e-25dd4b980c09" home=UUID="1ad696eb-3913-4434-bb9e-25dd4b980c09" opt=UUID="1ad696eb-3913-4434-bb9e-25dd4b980c09" printk.time=1 syslog enable_mtrr_cleanup
initrd /tce/boot/core64.gz
tc@E310:~/info$If you look at title TC10.1_32bit_backup you'll see its TCE directory is on a different partition (different UUID) from the other entries.
If you look at title TC10.1_CorePure64 you can see the TCE directory is listed by UUID/path because those extensions are 64 bit.
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Hi Rich, thanks for the example, your setup looks good so I will try to do something similar.
I see one problem though, which is that my extlinux directory is inside my tce directory.
tc@box:/mnt/sda1/tce/boot$ ls
core.gz extlinux/ vmlinuz
How can I move this out of the tce directory and put it in a different directory as you have done with your grub config?
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Hi jshorthouse
... I see one problem though, which is that my extlinux directory is inside my tce directory. ...
If I understand you correctly, you are referring to the internal drive here. Since the boot loader is installed here, this is where it
will look for the config file.
Unless told otherwise, Tinycore looks for a tce directory and uses the first one it finds.
Assuming your internal drive is mounted as /mnt/sda1 and your flash drive is /mnt/sdb1:
sudo cp -a /mnt/sda1/tce /mnt/sdb1/mytce
sudo rm -rf /mnt/sdb1/mytce/boot
In the config file on your internal drive add:
waitusb=5:UUID="FlashPartitionUUID" tce=UUID="FlashPartitionUUID"
You might want to consider adding a menu entry that allows you to select the local tce directory in a pinch.
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Hi Rich
Yes, I am referring to the internal drive.
From what you are saying I believe that is what should be done, is this correct?
- Keep a "dummy" tce directory on the internal drive that just contains the boot directory
- Tiny core will find this directory and read the boot config
- The config will then tell it to use the "real" tce directory on the flash drive
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Hi jshorthouse
... From what you are saying I believe that is what should be done, is this correct? ...
Yes.
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Alright, thanks very much for you help, I will give this a try tomorrow
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Just had a change to try this out and it works great, you can mark this issue as solved :)
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Hi jshorthouse
Done. :)