Tiny Core Linux

General TC => General TC Talk => Topic started by: neonix on October 11, 2024, 05:21:30 AM

Title: Non liveCD version of TinyCoreLinux
Post by: neonix on October 11, 2024, 05:21:30 AM
What are chances that you create hard drive instalation version of TC?

Most of my life, I used TC as LiveRAM distribution, to speed up my browser.

Nowadays 4 GB RAM is to small for me. I need to store files on HDD or in NAS.
There is only one thing that TC is better than other distro. Smal size (reduced time to inastall) and anti-bloatware philosophy.

Can I change init file by myself and have real hard drive version of TC? I,m not interested in home directory solutions.
Title: Re: Non liveCD version of TinyCoreLinux
Post by: Rich on October 11, 2024, 08:32:48 AM
Hi neonix
Technically, TC is installed to a hard drive. The bulk of
TC consists of the extensions you install, and those
reside on your hard drive in the  tce  directory. Extensions
are loop mounted which uses very little RAM. The programs
don't get loaded into RAM until you try to run them, just
like a "hard drive installation". The exception to this is if
you used  copy2fs.list  or  copy2fs.flg.
Title: Re: Non liveCD version of TinyCoreLinux
Post by: GNUser on October 11, 2024, 10:09:18 AM
have real hard drive version of TC? I,m not interested in home directory solutions.
TCL supports frugal install. In fact, Into the Core says it's the "typical installation method" for Tiny Core. It's the way I've always used TCL.

Minimum setup is a hard drive partition with boot and tce directories. My system looks like this (I also use persistent opt directory but that's optional):
Code: [Select]
bruno@x230:~$ cd /mnt/sda1
bruno@x230:/mnt/sda1$ ls
boot/       lost+found/ opt/        tce/
bruno@x230:/mnt/sda1$ ls boot
corepure64.gz  vmlinuz64
bruno@x230:/mnt/sda1$ ls tce
dep.db         onboot.lst     optional/
dep.db.gz      mydata.tgz     ondemand/      provides.db
If I remember correctly, I only needed to populate the boot directory manually. Files and directories in tce get created for you as need arises. I don't have a persistent home directory.

I love the concept of a frugal install. When I saw it mentioned in Into the Core (http://tinycorelinux.net/corebook.pdf) (section 1.2) it's what made me ditch my previous OS and go all-in with TCL on all my machines.
Title: Re: Non liveCD version of TinyCoreLinux
Post by: CNK on October 11, 2024, 06:38:23 PM
My guess is that Neonix wants to do a HDD install of Tiny Core in 'scatter mode'. This breaks things, but with manual tweaking it can work. A starting point for extracting the files in core.gz onto a HDD partition is the unpacking section of the remastering guide (https://wiki.tinycorelinux.net/doku.php?id=wiki:remastering#unpacking). But from there you have to make your own path for setting up the bootloader and installing extensions, etc.
Title: Re: Non liveCD version of TinyCoreLinux
Post by: Rich on October 11, 2024, 08:19:32 PM
Hi CNK
The impression I got is neonix thinks a lot of RAM will be freed up
by installing to a hard drive. Unless you are using copy2fs.list  or
copy2fs.flg , installing extensions should not consume a lot of RAM.
Title: Re: Non liveCD version of TinyCoreLinux
Post by: gadget42 on October 12, 2024, 02:55:55 AM
this seems relevant albeit dated

https://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php/topic,308.0.html