Tiny Core Linux

Tiny Core Base => TCB Talk => Topic started by: peterc on August 12, 2010, 01:20:28 PM

Title: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: peterc on August 12, 2010, 01:20:28 PM
Just out of curiosity, is there a TODO or roadmap for TinyCore? What can we expect for TC 4.0 and beyond?
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: roberts on August 13, 2010, 10:12:05 AM
Well, we just finished three dot oh! So four dot oh is a ways off! We still have many 3 dot x ahead.
Our direction comes from ideas and suggestions both from the team, and the community. 

Since we don't have a formal "Ideas and Suggestions" section of the forum, lets use this post.

So please discuss. What is needed in the base? What is desired? And there is always much that can be done outside the base via extensions.
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: peterc on August 13, 2010, 03:23:41 PM
One thing I was wondering about was porting TC to other architectures; x64 would be the low-hanging fruit, ARM would make a tremendous amount of Good Sense considering its recent surge in popularity and availability in low-end hardware.

Of course, that leads to the next issue: more architectures means that the current way of having extensions created by the community would inevitably mean that there would be inequalities between architectures; it's not too hard to imagine that extensions for ARM would be considerably outnumbered by those for x86. Which leads to the conclusion that if multiple architectures are adopted, a move to a script-based compilation procedure would be the way to go. That way, users don't contribute binaries, but compilation scripts. As an added bonus, this would go a long way toward prevent hostile submissions. (What's preventing users from adding a root kit or keystroke logger to their submission? I am certain that the vast majority of submissions are absolutely clean, but it only takes one rogue to spoil everything for everyone.) I would recommend against the NIH syndrome and take an existing system from one of the source-based distros. GoboLinux (while not exclusively source-based) has a very nice system with Compile, and many of the scripts (recipes) are only two lines. Other options would be SourceMage, CRUX, and of course Gentoo.

I hasten to add that I don't think that TC should become entirely source-based; rather, a hybrid, where the user can either build an extension from source or download it as a binary, but in both cases the extension would be created from the same script; the binary would have just been pre-compiled.
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: roberts on August 13, 2010, 05:27:52 PM
Actually at the very earliest stages we were promoting the posting of build scripts.
For GPL based extensions, we offer the sources with build scripts.
It take much effort to host and maintain the current repositories and to stay GPL compliant.

Perhaps for community contributed extensions more needs to be added to the .info file for build instructions for those that wish such?

I am certainly open to GoboLinux style of self contained extensions. But this again is in the community domain to build and contribute. Even though their is some overhead with self contained extensions there is equally many benefits. This could be seeded in the programming and scripting area. If/when successful then supporting infrastructure would surely follow.

For alternate architectures, we have microcore64, but for arm, I would want to wait for more stability and standardization. The early arm stuff does not do video well, current crop is a mixed bag. Many needed hardware drivers are not open source. Seems Adobe flash much be compiled to very specific cpu, etc. Also, would need to expand the team to include those that have such hardware. Certainly open to supporting more.

When you think about Android on tablets, it is a smallish OS to which you pick and choose adding applications, not much different in concept to Tiny Core. Android/Linux arm builds are very narrowly focused on a particular CPU. Whereas Tiny Core is more much generalized. Some have even suggested that Tiny Core be more focused on netbooks/tablets perhaps via meta-extensions? Again this could be community driven.
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: roberts on August 13, 2010, 05:48:33 PM
Here is an interesting read on current  Android/Linux on Arm.
http://projectgus.com/2010/07/open-source-in-android-tablets/
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: tinypoodle on August 13, 2010, 06:15:57 PM
IMHO the (successful) history of slackware dealing with ports without ever compromising the Intel(32) distribution or taking focus of it's developers away from it could teach a lot on the subject.
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: ixbrian on August 14, 2010, 12:16:29 AM
Since we don't have a formal "Ideas and Suggestions" section of the forum, lets use this post.

So please discuss. What is needed in the base? What is desired? And there is always much that can be done outside the base via extensions.

Here are a couple of ideas:

-Most other Linux distributions verify packages are digitally signed before installing them to improve the security of the system.  This helps prevent malicious packages from being installed (which could easily happen today with a Tiny Core system and a man in the middle attack).  Has something like this been considered for Tiny Core?   Perhaps this could be an optional feature that would only be enabled if the user had certain extensions (i.e. GPG) installed that could handle the signiture verification.  That way, it wouldn't increase the size of the Base, but if the user valued this type of security they could easily install the required extensions to enable this functionality. 

-As peterc pointed out, it seems like there isn't currently much in place to prevent malicious extensions from being submitted.  I'm not sure the best way to fix this is, but I agree that it is a problem.  Even source based systems aren't perfect (read "Reflections on Trusting Trust" by Ken Thompson, http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/ken/trust.html  (http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/ken/trust.html)) 

-Please GPL the backend CGI scripts that Tiny Core uses.  This would allow the community to make suggestions/improvements and better understand how everything works.  This would also allow people who setup their own tcz repository to run the CGI's on their own server so that their Tiny Core systems wouldn't need to have direct internet access for the appbrowser to work.   Plus, in my opinion anyway, opening up the backend code of a GPL project is the right thing to do (that's just me though, and is coming from a card carrying member of the Free Software Foundation..  :) )
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: bmarkus on August 15, 2010, 03:40:31 PM
An important and highly appreciated next step would be localization. I know, it is much up to the extensions, but lets start with the base and establish guidelines how to create extensions on a proper way and most important how to set it up. Actually TC is not UTF-8 friendly. I do not know how much size is saved not using UTF-8 however.

Personally when I try to set up a Hungarian environment I get only partial result, someting always fails and finally gave it up. BTW, TC tools like cpanel, appbrowser, ...also Englsih only.
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: peterc on August 15, 2010, 05:21:22 PM
An important and highly appreciated next step would be localization. I know, it is much up to the extensions, but lets start with the base and establish guidelines how to create extensions on a proper way and most important how to set it up. Actually TC is not UTF-8 friendly. I do not know how much size is saved not using UTF-8 however.

+1 for UTF-8 friendliness.
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: curaga on August 16, 2010, 04:07:33 AM
FLTK 1.1 does not support UTF-8, and we have no plans to move to an unstable/dev fltk. Beyond fltk and ncurses (and busybox), we are equipped to handle UTF-8.

The core fltk tools could get translation support (gettext), but any translations would remain extensions. Likewise, any fonts with more coverage shouldn't be in the base.
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: bmarkus on August 16, 2010, 04:27:04 AM
The core fltk tools could get translation support (gettext), but any translations would remain extensions. Likewise, any fonts with more coverage shouldn't be in the base.

Sounds good. Can we try it in one of the forthcoming betas?
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: curaga on August 16, 2010, 04:36:19 AM
Sounds good. Can we try it in one of the forthcoming betas?

It takes some work, and is not really a priority for us; any volunteers? :)
Title: Re: UTF-8
Post by: eluring on August 20, 2010, 04:19:17 PM
I have experience in using some of the gettext tools (xgettext, msgfmt, msgunfmt) in a bash environment and I am sure to get this done in tc, C++ (maybe with a little help), too.

My tc is running in LANG=de_DE.UTF-8, (having used the "vodoo" of TaoTePuh ((danke sehr)) posted on: August 15, 2010, 10:09:59 AM ) and after having installed a package of fonts my browser displays almost everything but east-asian, amharic and of course not: indic (no unicode, inicode).

So my short answer to the question
Quote
any volunteers?
is: I´d like to do it.

The score is now:
Quote
+4 for UTF-8 friendliness.
bmarkus, peterc, me and Tao (of course!)  ;D
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: tinypoodle on August 20, 2010, 04:41:48 PM
I'd take the risk to bet browser doesn't support gothic :P
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: curaga on August 21, 2010, 03:43:36 AM
An update on the translations; after some research I found it doesn't really take much work on the apps itself, only ticking one box in fluid and adding a couple lines of code.

We're still discussing this, so wait a bit with the patches :). Also note that this wouldn't enable utf-8 in the fltk apps for reasons noted above, iso-8859-1 only.


On avoiding the voodoo, we could of course post an extension with everything in locale-archive, but since that isn't modularizable in binary form, I doubt many users would like a 10mb+ pack with support for many languages they don't care for.
Title: Re: gothic support
Post by: eluring on August 21, 2010, 07:40:07 AM
@tinypoodle
Is there any website in gothic language?

Currently  I am posting from my hacked Australian "tinypoodle" distro.
The "Runes" are not displayed in my voodoo tc.
Therefore I'd not take the risk on gothic in tc at the moment.


UTF-8 encoded sample plain-text file
‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾

Markus Kuhn [ˈmaʳkʊs kuːn] <http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/> — 2002-07-25


The ASCII compatible UTF-8 encoding used in this plain-text file
is defined in Unicode, ISO 10646-1, and RFC 2279.


Using Unicode/UTF-8, you can write in emails and source code things such as
.
.
.
  እግርህን በፍራሽህ ልክ ዘርጋ።

Runes:

  ᚻᛖ ᚳᚹᚫᚦ ᚦᚫᛏ ᚻᛖ ᛒᚢᛞᛖ ᚩᚾ ᚦᚫᛗ ᛚᚪᚾᛞᛖ ᚾᚩᚱᚦᚹᛖᚪᚱᛞᚢᛗ ᚹᛁᚦ ᚦᚪ ᚹᛖᛥᚫ

  (Old English, which transcribed into Latin reads 'He cwaeth that he
  bude thaem lande northweardum with tha Westsae.' and means 'He said
  that he lived in the northern land near the Western Sea.')

Braille:

  ⡌⠁⠧⠑ ⠼⠁⠒  ⡍⠜⠇⠑⠹⠰⠎ ⡣⠕⠌
.
.
.

Title: Re: gothic support
Post by: tinypoodle on August 21, 2010, 07:51:14 AM
http://got.wikipedia.org  ;D
link to runic alphabet version at bottom of same page  ;)

had make it work in the past, not tried on TC though, but thinking more a question of fonts to be used by browser than anything else (I had runes made work as well)

getting really OT, given original title of thread  ::)
Title: Re: Posted by: curaga Posted on: Today at 01:43:36 AM
Post by: eluring on August 21, 2010, 03:34:16 PM
Quote
We're still discussing this, so wait a bit with the patches. Also note that this wouldn't enable utf-8 in the fltk apps for reasons noted above, iso-8859-1 only.
consider taking iso-8859-15 please, it is just 1k larger and the actual replacement for 8859-1 and then you could use the Euro in the US, too.
But I doubt if it makes much sense making translations not using UTF-8. IMHO the goal should be an UTF-8 tc.

Quote
I doubt many users would like a 10mb+ pack with support for many languages they don't care for.
Of course that won´t be tc style. My usr/lib/locale/locale-archive in mydata.tgz is just about 2mb (dont remember how many locales installed, now posting from another system).

Enough said about UTF-8 for the moment. :-X Something to read:
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/unicode.html (http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/unicode.html)

Quote
getting really OT, given original title of thread
tinypoodle, I agree (PMed)
Anything else about the future direction of TC?

Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: gutmensch on August 21, 2010, 03:44:08 PM
count me in!

+5 for UTF-8
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: hiro on September 11, 2010, 10:15:50 PM
You should go and release a stable fltk 1.3, so that I don't have to feel silly about voting for UTF-8!
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: curaga on September 12, 2010, 04:04:32 AM
FLTK is not our project.
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: hiro on September 12, 2010, 08:26:07 AM
Just saying...

I assume you will ship with fltk 1.3 once it's stable?
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: ^thehatsrule^ on September 30, 2010, 10:42:38 PM
"Split post":

Suggestion: placing extensions by catagory like debian, atleast on the website. It would make life easier if one could just lookup say, text editors or ide, in development catagory and then researching it instead of the other way around.

[split OT discussion: http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php?topic=7386.msg39128#msg39128 ]
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: Wayne on October 19, 2010, 03:32:54 AM
Thanks for the Great post! Keep it up!
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: TheNewbie on October 24, 2010, 04:42:18 PM
So far, we're basically discussing new fonts/translations and the possibility of porting to other architectures. (notably ARM) (just want to recap so I don't miss something or re-suggest)

There are a few usability features that I think would be easy/beneficial to add:
-Appbrowser recursively searches all deps from the tce restore directory, as defined by the boot code (installs any already downloaded deps of a repo-retrieved tcz from the tce dir) (not sure if this is implemented yet, so if it is, please speak up)

-Addition of the tcz-unload custom script (by helander) as a built-in command. Admittedly, this could be done easily enough with remastering, or even just with filetool.lst, but I suggest it be added as soon as possible officially & permanently. This shouldn't be added to Appbrowser/Appaudit due to some inherent issues if, for instance, one removes a dep of a program that they open later.
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: tclfan on October 27, 2010, 11:11:32 AM
Just out of curiosity, is there a TODO or roadmap for TinyCore? What can we expect for TC 4.0 and beyond?
Although this is a digression: TinyCore is apparently quite solid and stable at this level. The last post in the 'Bugs' section was well over two weeks ago!

Just as RobertS decides next steps in terms of long term roadmap, in the meantime I would like to bring back our discussed already concept of composing and making available to users a ready-to-go LiveCD, selecting the best configuration of useful apps. This is a low hanging fruit that could significantly increase user base, although I am concious of the fact that TC leadership wants to keep TC as it is now, requiring all users to compose their desired system themselves.
Another quite useful project would be an easy, gui based re-mastering (Yes, I am aware - there is a script)...
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: roberts on October 27, 2010, 11:15:58 AM
Have you seen Brian's ezremaster? http://wiki.tinycorelinux.com/Remastering+with+ezremaster
It is in the repository.
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: tclfan on October 27, 2010, 11:35:16 AM
I apologize. I missed this one, I do not know how it happened.. This app could be an answer, therefore invalidating my second idea...
Thank you.
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: bassbum on October 31, 2010, 01:03:48 AM
Just out of curiosity, is there a TODO or roadmap for TinyCore? What can we expect for TC 4.0 and beyond?

I'd like to see more GUI stuff for newer users, a GUI installer for one thing.
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: curaga on October 31, 2010, 04:02:26 AM
Current usbinstall may be used for a HD install as well, as long as the device is ok to be wiped.
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: bassbum on October 31, 2010, 10:52:18 AM
Tiny core is a nice distro, I wish there was a root password.
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: tinypoodle on October 31, 2010, 01:31:22 PM
Tiny core is a nice distro, I wish there was a root password.

Search the forum how to set one, this has been addressed.
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: bassbum on November 05, 2010, 03:19:44 PM
Thanks, I would like to see a GUI install option at some point for newer users. Otherwise, keep getting the word out, keep making improvements and I'm sure this distro will be around a while.

I'd like to see it replace DSL on the top ten.
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: tinypoodle on November 05, 2010, 04:33:31 PM
Umm, which top ten?
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: gerald_clark on November 05, 2010, 04:43:07 PM
Yeh, The website and download area have not been updated for 2 years.
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: Guy on November 05, 2010, 05:02:11 PM
On Distrowatch, DSL was classified as Dormant, quite some time ago. At that time it was removed from the ranking.
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: dentonlt on November 10, 2010, 11:38:11 PM
Since documentation is always a challenge ...

Perhaps TC needs 'documentation checkpoints'. Agreeing upon 'officially documented versions' might tie down the documentation challenge, keeping it from being an infinitely large and moving target.

If 3.3 is the next major release, perhaps plan on making a really thorough 3.3 manual/wiki, then plan to -not- thoroughly document 3.4/3.5 (instead, highlight 3.4/3.5 changes in the 3.3 docs). Start a new 'official' set of docs when 3.6rc1 comes out.

Or pick/plan what versions will be documentation checkpoints. Every major release? Or something.

This may help fill some of the documentation gap, clean up the wiki, archive/highlight some of the high-traffic forum content, etc. Having a "Tiny Manual" may also help better describe features, give good press, and attract more TC newbies.
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: dentonlt on November 10, 2010, 11:58:17 PM
EDIT: I have now been pointed to SvOlli's tcbuild frontend. See http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php?topic=2056.0 (http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php?topic=2056.0)

Extension building is changing with each version. More options, etc. Documentation can help, but ...

Why not make a "Tiny Extension Builder" extension? Basically, a tool to either make or use a configuration file + support files to create extensions. The script/wrapper can help automate the creation/use of:

* a list of required dependencies/extensions for building the target
* a target extension type (pkg, pkg-dev, pkg-doc, etc)
* icons & desktop files are placed
* the listed source files

Then future extension builds can start with exactly where the last builder left off.

Start with bmarkus's old build script, and wrap it. An extension config file would just need to mention all that stuff above plus where to get binaries.
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: Guy on November 11, 2010, 01:22:38 AM
Quote
documentation is always a challenge

The Tiny Core team are doing a great job, and are busy doing it. You can't expect them to do more.

Anyone can contribute to wiki / documentation.

Instead of saying "It is not good enough," say: "What can I do do improve it."

I encourage everyone who has a good understanding of Tiny Core to contribute to the documentation. It will be appreciated.

As the number of people using Tiny Core increases, the number of people contributing to the documentation should also increase.


People who would like to contribute, but don't have a really good understanding of Tiny Core, could write about the applications they use, and include them in this section: http://wiki.tinycorelinux.com/Applications
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: dentonlt on November 11, 2010, 01:48:21 AM
Quote
Instead of saying "It is not good enough," say: "What can I do do improve it."

I'm not pointing at inadequacy, mind. Thread was to identify goals, so I came up with a target. Sorry if I stepped on fingers. I'm certainly willing to chip in on docs where (http://www.tinycorelinux.com/intro.html) I (http://wiki.tinycorelinux.com/tiki-browse_image.php?imageId=20&highlight=dentonlt) can (http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php?action=profile;u=105;sa=showPosts).
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: Guy on November 11, 2010, 03:36:20 AM
Quote
Sorry if I stepped on fingers

Everyone is happy.

If you say, this is a goal that should be achieved. I say, who will do it?

Then encourage more people to get involved.
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: bmarkus on November 11, 2010, 05:55:14 AM
People who would like to contribute, but don't have a really good understanding of Tiny Core, could write about the applications they use, and include them in this section: http://wiki.tinycorelinux.com/Applications

I do not see reason to open WIKI articles for generic applications, like ImageMagick at TC WIKI where nothing is TC specific and the Internet is full with great manuals, introductions, etc, including upstream vendors site :(
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: Guy on November 11, 2010, 09:20:59 AM
I believe there are benefits to having pages for individual applications.

1. These can provide any information specific to running particular applications.
For example, look at this: http://wiki.tinycorelinux.com/mplayer-nodeps
Without that information, people would have a difficult time running the application.

2. Most of us know about the common, widely used applications. But have not heard about some of the rarer applications. If there was a description about each application, we could decide if that was an application we wanted to install. Without that information, it is sometimes a matter of installing an application to see what it does. If it is not what we want, we then need to remove it.

You can search the internet, and sometimes find the information you want. However, I think it would be a good idea to have information about Tiny Core applications, on the Tiny Core web site.

When there is information about more applications, we can introduce more features, such as the ability to search by category.
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: tinypoodle on November 11, 2010, 02:13:05 PM
For example, look at this: http://wiki.tinycorelinux.com/mplayer-nodeps
Without that information, people would have a difficult time running the application.

I can frankly say I was not aware of that page until I saw it mentioned now and I did not have any difficult time at all running mplayer-nodeps basic tasks.

Code: [Select]
mplayer --help
provided me with all info needed, and it also contains this reference:
Quote
* * * SEE THE MAN PAGE FOR DETAILS, FURTHER (ADVANCED) OPTIONS AND KEYS * * *

And if one could spare some resources, smplayer is a very handy GUI frontend   ;)
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: Guy on November 11, 2010, 02:56:40 PM
I believe everything should be made as easy as possible for new users.

It amazes me that some people with a good understanding, don't seem to care about new users learning this for the first time. Some new users struggle. There are some people who try Tiny Core you don't hear from. They give up, and use another operating system.

I have been using Linux for many years now. But I remember when I first started, it took some time to learn the basic concepts. These things are easy for me now. But I think of others who are where I was.

Even now I try new things, and keep learning.

I also do many things with my time other than Tiny Core. If I had unlimited time, I could figure out anything I wanted to know. But I would like the information to be easily available, so I can find it quickly and easily. I am sure there are many other people who are busy, who want to find out things quickly and easily.


Tiny Core should also finish up with a professional wiki, where the information is correct, up to date, easy to understand, and covers a broad range of subjects. It can't be done immediately, but it should be the long term aim. Why should we be happy with the Tiny Core web site being less professional than the web sites of other distros?

and we can all contribute.
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: SvOlli on November 11, 2010, 03:51:17 PM
I believe everything should be made as easy as possible for new users.
I beg to differ. The intension of Tiny Core never was to attract new (Linux) users, but as I understand it, to provide the most Linux per byte. That's why I'm using it.

Quote
I have been using Linux for many years now. But I remember when I first started, it took some time to learn the basic concepts. These things are easy for me now. But I think of others who are where I was.
Which distro did you start with? I guess it was something like SuSE, RedHat, or Ubuntu, a distro targeted also to new users. Nobody I know started using Linux with a distro like Gentoo, Linux From Scratch oder SourceMage, where you need to assemble parts of the distribution yourself. And TCL is also a distro for users who know, what they're doing. If you want a live distro for new users, take a look at Knoppix. It's the live distro with the best "new user"-appeal I can think of.

Quote
Tiny Core should also finish up with a professional wiki, where the information is correct, up to date, easy to understand, and covers a broad range of subjects. It can't be done immediately, but it should be the long term aim. Why should we be happy with the Tiny Core web site being less professional than the web sites of other distros?
The problem is that compared to most of the "other distros" you'll probably have in mind there are only very few people pushing TCL forward. And they do an awesome job accomplishing this. Speaking for myself, I have more fun adding code to this project than adding documentation. And all I do on TCL, I do for fun only. The most interesting part of an open source community is that you can point out that something needs to be done better by doing it better and contribute your work.
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: curaga on November 11, 2010, 05:17:59 PM
My first linux was LFS :P
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: tinypoodle on November 11, 2010, 05:51:53 PM
I have been using Linux for many years now. But I remember when I first started, it took some time to learn the basic concepts. These things are easy for me now. But I think of others who are where I was.

That's exactly what was in my mind. Using a command with the option '--help' has in many cases been sufficient to successfully complete a task for me since the very beginning of starting using Linux, and it is nearly as essential to me now as it was back then.

Now a disadvantage of TC for new Linux users may be the incomplete presence of built-in documentation, e.g. 'whatis', 'info', 'man' et al.
However, those following this forum may have noticed that there is work in progress going on recently to improvement in that department, even if in the form of extensions rather than in base.
And a reduction of built-in documentation is something common for all size optimized distros I have ever seen and nothing but expectable.
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: tinypoodle on November 11, 2010, 06:05:55 PM
I believe everything should be made as easy as possible for new users.
I beg to differ. The intension of Tiny Core never was to attract new (Linux) users, but as I understand it, to provide the most Linux per byte. That's why I'm using it.

Quote
I have been using Linux for many years now. But I remember when I first started, it took some time to learn the basic concepts. These things are easy for me now. But I think of others who are where I was.
Which distro did you start with? I guess it was something like SuSE, RedHat, or Ubuntu, a distro targeted also to new users. Nobody I know started using Linux with a distro like Gentoo, Linux From Scratch oder SourceMage, where you need to assemble parts of the distribution yourself. And TCL is also a distro for users who know, what they're doing. If you want a live distro for new users, take a look at Knoppix. It's the live distro with the best "new user"-appeal I can think of.


Fully agreeing on the above... wait, that was only valid until I just now read of an extremist starting with LFS  :P
I have often recommended Knoppix to people just wanting to use Linux with the least hassle.
Now when it comes to users being serious about sincerely wanting to start to learn Linux, my recommendation has often been Slackware.
And for those trying to understand the basics, tinkering with tomsrtbt sure can't harm (even TC would seem like a luxury software suite in comparison  :P )
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: dentonlt on November 12, 2010, 04:53:54 PM
EDIT: if TC is going in the direction of 'configuration reproducibility/portability'

Script/tool to export/import "migration file".

For reproducing a TC installation from one computer to another, assistance changing from one TC version to another? An export file might include onboot.lst, ondemand.lst, a current mydata.tar.gz (if not using persistent home/opt), and a stamp which says what TC version it was built on. On import, use all that info to replace everything, update all the extensions, reassign those as onboot/ondemand, etc.
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: Guy on November 13, 2010, 03:35:54 AM
These things are easy to do manually.

There are many other things which are much higher priority.


1. Copy to another computer.

If someone does make a script to copy Tiny Core from one computer to another, I think it needs to take into consideration all common options, and needs to give the user choices. For example:

Some people use backup, some use persistent home and opt, and others use both. It should allow for all possibilities.

In some situations the user would want to copy over personal files, but if you set up a computer for a friend, you may want to exclude personal files.

In some situations, you may want to keep the same applications in On Boot and On Demand. In other situations you may want to set it up differently.

I think the best way to do this would be to install it on a usb drive, and use the usb drive to install it on the other computer. Including the appropriate files.


2. Updating to new versions.

With some updates, you can just copy over the new versions of bzImage and tinycore.gz.

With other updates, other files also need to be changed.

When you update from 2.x to 3.x, you basically need a new installation, as you also need all new extensions.

If you did have a script for updating, what would it allow for? If it just copied over the new versions of bzImage and tinycore.gz, and this was used in other situations, some things would not work properly, and malfunctions may occur.
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: Ariya on February 16, 2011, 01:52:29 AM
If I may add my 2 cents...

Someone here was "wishing" that TC would come up to the top ten...and another asked what top ten? So, the answer was Distrowatch.

Actually, Distrowatch's "list" is just a farce, and it doesn't give a real picture of the Linux World at all! There is a comment on this "list" in their comments section as below...

"When the distro gets in the DWW list and the developers keep on sending new releases with slight changes, they keep the readers of DWW reminded of their distro, just like an ad in the TV. Some developers take quite a time to send in new releases lose TV-advert like remembrance, and the position of the DWW list falls.

Strangely, there is a distro named Moblin still hanging on the 98th position, while that distro is not there even in Moblin’s own website! It had been merged into MeeGo and now Meego is looking to release 1.2 version. MeeGo is in the 37th position. How come a non-active distro is still hanging in at any position of the DWW list?

Are we getting a real look of the Linux distro world by looking at the DWW list is the question?

1st in the list has 2104 hits, while the 5th has only 1154 hits, meaning practically 50% less!

The 10th in the list has only 661 hits, which means only ~31% from the 1st one.

The 50th in the list has only 173 hits, which is just 8,2%!

The 75th on the list has only 118 hits, which gives 5.6%!

The 100th has only 100 hits, which is 4.7% from the 1st!

Now, there is a question; is this DWW distro list is correct and show how the Linux world look like, or quite wrong?

What say you, readers?"
--------------------------------------------

I thought about it for a while too, and it is correct, the Distrowatch "list" is a farce.
If you look at the its Home Page, it is only full of other developers release notes (or parts of them)

I have a feeling that people, who use Tiny Core, Puppy Linux, Austrumi, Slitaz, etc don't even look at the Disytrowatch "list" at all, for they are quite busy with these extraordinary Operating Systems!

Sorry, if this is off point...
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: sky on February 26, 2011, 05:52:05 PM
Quote
I have been using Linux for many years now. But I remember when I first started, it took some time to learn the basic concepts. These things are easy for me now. But I think of others who are where I was.
Which distro did you start with? I guess it was something like SuSE, RedHat, or Ubuntu, a distro targeted also to new users. Nobody I know started using Linux with a distro like Gentoo, Linux From Scratch oder SourceMage, where you need to assemble parts of the distribution yourself. And TCL is also a distro for users who know, what they're doing. If you want a live distro for new users, take a look at Knoppix. It's the live distro with the best "new user"-appeal I can think of.
I disagree. I used Windows XP until 2007. Then I switched to Ubuntu, because Windows Vista was to oversized and complicated. Ubuntu was much more easier. If something needs special permissions you will asked to enter your password - once! In Windows Vista many times during one installation process of unlicensed peace of  software or hardware driver. Making MS Office PlugIns working became in some cases impossible. Configuring WLAN Ad-hoc under Windows Vista successfully was by hazard. If there is no workaround available then you have to edit the registry full of cryptic key-names. And so on... I believe some people were frightened by the unintuitve Linux versions in the late 90s. But today young people not influenced by the negative experiences of the older generation, don't have any problems with Linux. My girlfriend bought a 64Bit Notebook without any OS and asked me to recomend her an OS. I recomended Linux. She doesn't know what she does. She doesn't know the difference between USB and ethernet slots or WLAN. She knows what a FireFox is and google and that she has access to the internet. During her last visit she saw the letters "Ubuntu" on my Notebook. She found the Ubuntu download site via google, downloaded the ISO-image and asked her neighbour to burn the image on CD, because she doesn't know what an ISO-image is. She inserted the CD in to the CD-ROM drive and shortly after then wrote me an email, that she has got Linux installed.

Quote
Tiny Core should also finish up with a professional wiki, where the information is correct, up to date, easy to understand, and covers a broad range of subjects. It can't be done immediately, but it should be the long term aim. Why should we be happy with the Tiny Core web site being less professional than the web sites of other distros?
The problem is that compared to most of the "other distros" you'll probably have in mind there are only very few people pushing TCL forward. And they do an awesome job accomplishing this. Speaking for myself, I have more fun adding code to this project than adding documentation. And all I do on TCL, I do for fun only. The most interesting part of an open source community is that you can point out that something needs to be done better by doing it better and contribute your work.

The reason for your awesome job is, that you are a few people and do have fun. That is the reaseon why I noticed Tiny Core Linux this week. I needed a user friendly lean distribution. Other distributions seemed to complicated to me, because of so many discussions and forks, and forks and forks. Maybe that I'm not in your target audience but I'm not the last one. Ther will be more people interested in Tiny Core Linux without any Linux knowledge.

Quote

So my biggest wish is: Keep Tiny Core Linux so lean and clear. Don't get so bloated like other "small" Linuxes.

My seond wish:
Imagine that you are a new user which only has experience with an iPhone or Android Tablet PC. The worst failure of common Linux distributions is that new users are confrontated with a to huge list of programs doing the same thing. A new user wants a basic working system: one browser, one editor (not vi and vi must keep hidden from GUI), on CD burning program, one Word application, one media player, one PDF reader, one image processor. After the installation of Tiny Core Linux, should start an assistent be started which asks the user if he now wants to skip the installation of the "office- and internet-suite" and do it self. If the user chose not to skip, then Tiny Core Linux may asume that the user is unexperienced and after the installation of the "office- and internet-suite" this forum and the wiki should be opened in the installed browser. That's it. No more information. If the user wants to customize his Tiny Core he knows the two websites to start his research.

My third wish:
On the Tiny Core Linux download site should be a Link to websites where the user can download software to make a bootable USB-Stick from the Tiny Core Linux ISO-image. Because Netbooks and touch-pads don't have a CD-ROM drive and TCL is a good candidate to install on everything which has a CPU.

The last suggestion:
Imagine TCL as the primary OS and not the VM-guest inside Windows. Today the default installation on clean PCs and Notebooks is Freedos and in Asia it is Linpus. In my opinion Tiny Core has a good chance to replace these. This is my favoured szenario: A customer buys a notebook with Tiny Core Linux pre-installed. The BIOS has CD-ROM boot disabled by default. The user opens the default browser and downloads some other OS which he adds to the Tiny Core Linux - boot menu. Another day he goes to the store and buys an installation DVD. He insterts it in the DVD drive, Tiny Core Linux has a boot menu entry to boot from DVD. After the user chose DVD he has 10 seconds to press a key (like F2) to boot directly from DVD. Otherwise the DVD is booted inside a VM under Tiny Core Linux and automatically an exensible VM-image file for the OS installation created.


Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: hiro on February 26, 2011, 08:33:58 PM
and TCL is a good candidate to install on everything which has a CPU.
Well, on every x86 at least...
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: TheNewbie on March 24, 2011, 12:52:18 AM
Imagine TCL as the primary OS and not the VM-guest inside Windows. Today the default installation on clean PCs and Notebooks is Freedos and in Asia it is Linpus. In my opinion Tiny Core has a good chance to replace these. This is my favoured szenario: A customer buys a notebook with Tiny Core Linux pre-installed. The BIOS has CD-ROM boot disabled by default. The user opens the default browser and downloads some other OS which he adds to the Tiny Core Linux - boot menu. Another day he goes to the store and buys an installation DVD. He insterts it in the DVD drive, Tiny Core Linux has a boot menu entry to boot from DVD. After the user chose DVD he has 10 seconds to press a key (like F2) to boot directly from DVD. Otherwise the DVD is booted inside a VM under Tiny Core Linux and automatically an exensible VM-image file for the OS installation created.

TCL is not, and most likely never will be, an OEM OS. It will also probably never be sold on DVDs. Both suggest commercial involvement and/or a large community. Furthermore, TCL can easily be installed as the primary OS, as well as via a bootable USB/DVD(see wiki). Lastly, I've never heard of Linpus (though a quick Google'ing confirms its existence), and not once have I seen FreeDOS bundled with a PC of any kind.

That section of your post seemed sadly misguided.
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: hiro on March 24, 2011, 07:31:42 AM
Two of my laptops had freedos preinstalled.
And yeah, I think optical disks should die. I don't use them.
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: TheNewbie on March 27, 2011, 09:03:10 PM
Two of my laptops had freedos preinstalled.
And yeah, I think optical disks should die. I don't use them.

Seriously? What's your country of residence?

If it weren't for the fact that it's pretty impossible to buy data in the store (i.e. movies, OSs, software, games) on a different medium than optical disks, then I would stop using them. (In fact, I haven't bought any in a while now...)
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: tinypoodle on March 27, 2011, 11:21:01 PM
Not uncommon at all that major manufacturers would ship budget line PC's with FreeDOS preinstalled, though yes, that may only have been the case in geographically limited markets, IIRC Asia and USA.
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: hiro on March 28, 2011, 07:13:53 AM
Germany. It was a small store though with a lot of refurbished stuff. Naturally they wouldn't care about messing around with licenses.

For a friend I also bought a tower from some medium sized online shop and it also had freedos installed.

Regarding optical discs:
I downloaded my windows (not even using it) legally. I don't know any other OS one might want to buy and for music and movies I have enough crazy friends collecting all they can grab ahold of. What they send me is often better than what any store would want to sell me on their top40 cds.

Vinyl is the only disc I still want to touch. Not because of "analog quality", but beatmatching is fun.
Title: Re: What's the future direction of TC?
Post by: vinnie on March 28, 2011, 07:55:57 AM
I also stumbled by mistake into a notebook with freedos and had the hardware characteristics of all respect!
I also hope that the CD will soon disappear