Tiny Core Linux
General TC => Tiny Core Netbooks => Topic started by: julianb on December 05, 2009, 02:44:56 PM
-
I like tinycore because it's quick. On the other hand, I like the tendency for things to "just work" in Ubuntu.
If I can make tinycorelinux work on my new eee pc 701sd including making the web cam easy to use, then it's tinycorelinux that I want to use.
so my first question is, do you know if it's worth trying?
here's what would make me say "the software supports this hardware as well as I want":
1) able to record video, save it to the SSD, and retrieve it later, and upload it to facebook/youtube.
2) able to take a photo.
3) able to use Ekiga or Skype for low resolution video+audio chat
so my request is,
if you know what software will make the above capabilities work, please tell me. (if you know some of what's required, please tell me.) I have never used ndiswrapper but if that's needed, i'd appreciate any help understanding how to use it.
-
The drivers for all supported webcams are in the v4l-dvb-2.6.29.1-tinycore.tczm extension. Loading it should turn your webcam on, if it is a supported one.
Video can be recorded just with the standard unix tools, ie "cat /dev/video0 > my_vid.mpeg" and ctrl-C to stop recording. Alternatively Mplayer can be used.
I believe you need an app for taking a pic, I'm not sure if one is yet packaged for TC.
For Skype, it should be enough to grab the above extension and one of the sound extensions (alsa or oss).
-
thanks.
on my 701sd, i'm encountering a problem i didnt encounter on the 900a :
iwconfig claims that the device ath0 does not exist (it also does not find any device named ath* or wlan*
maybe i'm missing the correct drivers for realtek wireless lan card, which (i read online) is what this pc contains.
i have not checked output of the command lspci.
wicd is buggy in that if I install it the GUI contains nothing but the squares (hmm, maybe I need to install some fonts or something?)
am typing this from the 701sd booted to windows. Windows performs very poorly on this hardware.
-
I attempted to use ndiswrapper to install the Windows driver for the rtl8187se wireless NIC. The specific driver I used was the one you can find in a Google search for rtl8187se driver; it was hosted by informer.com
After installing the driver, i can do
ndiswrapper -l
and it returns
[driver name]: driver installed
and on the same line it says something about "no device".
I could download the tarball of the driver hosted by Google Code, which can be found by searching for rtl8187se driver within Google Code's subdomain....
but I'm not sure it'd work.
I ask because I don't really want to set the machine up with Puppylinux or Ubuntu, which both seem to support the rtl8187se. I like Tinycorelinux better.
-
I ask because I don't really want to set the machine up with Puppylinux or Ubuntu, which both seem to support the rtl8187se. I like Tinycorelinux better.
You could copy the windows driver used by ndiswrapper from puppy/ubuntu, no?
-
I'm pretty sure Ubuntu and Puppy are using the open source driver that can be found on google code.
I downloaded and un-tarred the driver. It comes with a script that uses make, to compile the driver.
the error messages I get are
*** No rule to make target 'modules'. Stop.
*** [modules] Error 2
cp: cannot stat Module.symvers': no such file or directory
Oh, am i supposed to also have the whole tinycore kernel source? I'm confused
-
If you search the forum, there are several threads on compiling wifi modules.
You might be able to compile the module using the linux-headers-2.6.29.1-tinycore extension and if this doesn't work, you could try with the full kernel source.
-
success!!! I compiled the driver and it is useable.
used root shell.
Made sure compiletc was installed, as well as bash and perl5. had linux-headers-2.6.29.1-tinycore installed. also had wireless_tools, and wireless-2.6.29.1-tinycore_mod and wireless-2.6.29.1-tinycore.
also had to run the wlan0up script that was included as part of the driver tarball.
after all that, success when running:
sudo iwconfig wlan0 essid MYROUTER key MYKEY
sudo udhcpc -i wlan0
yes!
-
..wireless-2.6.29.1-tinycore_mod and wireless-2.6.29.1-tinycore.
Great - you don't need both of these, just one or the other, I believe.
-
..wireless-2.6.29.1-tinycore_mod and wireless-2.6.29.1-tinycore.
Here's what I've seen with these so far:
If you install wireless_tools, wireless-2.6.29.1-tinycore is installed by default.
I tried using wireless_tools with wireless-2.6.29.1-tinycore_mod and wireless-2.6.29.1-tinycore, it worked. I tried using wireless_tools with wireless-2.6.29.1-tinycore_mod but not wireless-2.6.29.1-tinycore and it did not work.
(Machine i tried that on was eee pc 901 with atheros wireless-network-card.)
-
update: wireless works. webcam does not.
if anyone needs a tczm extension for the realtek rtl8187 driver (assuming the packages already available don't work for you, like they didn't work for me) then contact me and I'll submit mine for the repository. I need to change it slightly before it'll work out-of-the-box.
I think I'll see if I can create a tczm extension for the camera as well, but the problem i'm up against at the moment is I don't know what the camera brand or model is, which makes it hard to look for a driver.
-
I installed the standard webcam extension (forget its name now) and my 1000he webcam works, tested with Skype.
-
Hi Julianb. Please put the wifi driver for eee pc 701sd on the repository. I am currently trying to get TC on my eee pc 701 4g. When its working I will get my eee pc 701sd working with TC. Thanks.
-
merry christmas -- i submitted my extension to the repository, hopefully it will be posted soon.
-
Thanks Julianb (and great suggestion Sam0010),
I'm in a similar situation with my two year old 701 4G SSD. I've been playing with TC for a while on other equipment; but with a working wifi for the eee, it would be a perfect match.
-
alanbcohen and sam0010:
the extension i compiled is for the eee pc's which have realtek8187 wireless cards. i am not aware of any eee pc's except the model with 7 inch screen and 8G solid state disk which use this card. (known as a eee pc 701sd)
the eee pc's you have may actually have atheros wireless cards.
if the wireless card you have is not the realtek8187, then it will probably work if you install these extensions:
wireless_tools.tcz
wireless-2.6.29.1-tinycore_mod.tczm
wicd.tcz (only necessary if you want graphical interface)
there was a "bug" in wicd.tcz which required you to run the command, wicd-start , every time you start up your computer and use wicd. i think that issue has been solved but i'm not sure.
-
there was a "bug" in wicd.tcz which required you to run the command, wicd-start , every time you start up your computer and use wicd. i think that issue has been solved but i'm not sure.
To run wicd-start is not a consequence of a bug. This is a normal start-up script to start wicd daemon. You can add it to bootlocal.sh or DE intialization to start automatically. If you save your network settings as described in wicd info file, wicd can conenct to wireless network at startup without any manual work or interaction.
-
sam0010 and alanbcohen, did you get wireless to work on your eee-pc's?
bmarkus - thanks for all your work on tinycore. I found it confusing to have to run wicd-start myself, each time i wanted to use wicd, as i was also struggling with how to use "persistence" in tinycore.
i'm not sure how to add something to desktop-environment initialization script-- how do you do that? I was interested in making tinycore automatically open my web browser and putting it in bootlocal.sh doesn't work (although the browser opens if you run bootlocal.sh again after startup)
-
i'm not sure how to add something to desktop-environment initialization script-- how do you do that? I was interested in making tinycore automatically open my web browser and putting it in bootlocal.sh doesn't work (although the browser opens if you run bootlocal.sh again after startup)
If you are using LXDE, edit /home/tc/.config/lxsession/LXDE/autostar file with a text editor. By deafault it looks like:
@lxpanel --profile LXDE
@pcmanfm -d
These commands are executed when LXDE starts. My startup script with WICD:
@sudo wicd-start
@lxpanel --profile LXDE
@pcmanfm -d
@wicd-client
First will start WICD daemon, last will add WICD client to panel. To open it just double click on the panel icon at bottom right. And backup the two directories to remember network settings. If proper settings saved, it will autoconnect to network. Of course you can add other programs as well to the startup list.
With Xfce4 there is a tool to configure startup, see settings menu.
-
I have been using the tinycore default window manager but I was considering switching to LXDE. maybe there's no auto-start file in FLWM?
-
@julianb: I don't think that there is a FLWM specific startup file, but I'd imagine that you could use ~/.xsession instead.
Bear in mind that ~/.xsession is the generic startup script for the X server and some other processes (window manager, wbar, etc.). So if you would like to start Opera only if FLWM is your window manager you could add: [ $DESKTOP == "flwm_topside" ] && opera & at the end of that file.
-
I use tc with the standard flwm and have it set up to open Opera automatically on boot. At the end of the .xsession file I have "exec opera". Works like a charm on my Eee 900!