Tiny Core Linux
Tiny Core Base => TCB Q&A Forum => Topic started by: bern on November 10, 2010, 06:20:27 AM
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Hi all. I just discovered today that I can install tiny core to my hard drive, which suits my purposes well on my old laptop. Problem is, I've followed the installation guide, but I'm totally confused on how to implement the storage of software downloads (extensions?). Quite simply, I just want to be able to start it up and my apps are there. I've downloaded Opera a number of times now, but have no idea how to make it persist on reboot. Can someone give me some simple idiot proof advice on how to go about this?
Here's my setup so far: I have Lubuntu installed on the laptop, and following the installation guide, I have copied over the /boot files from the CD to the /boot directory of the Lubuntu install. I have created the /tce directory in my Lubuntu top directory and created the mydata.tgz file in that directory. I have modified my grub.cfg (grub2) and I can boot into tiny core no problems. But I have no idea how I access, or let alone use, the /tce directory and the file I created in it. Any help greatly appreciated. Cheers!
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Hmm - it might have been better to install tc to a separate partition on your hd, rather than mix it in with another distro, but never mind.
tc should usually auto detect your /tce directory - when you open the app browser, does it display where it thinks your /tce directory is?
If app browser displays your /tce directory, then you can use "local" to load extensions and "connect" to download and install extensions to /tce directory.
If your /tce directory is not auto detected you can set a boot code of the form "tce=hda1" if the /tce directory is in the top level of hda1 (for example).
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Thanks for the reply. Appbrowser is using /tmp/tce which as far as I can tell is just the virtual file system that is created by tc and stored in ram. I might try and use the boot code. Can I just add that boot code in the grub.cfg file so it loads that way everytime? If so, where exactly would I add it?
The other question that I had was the different "modes" of operation. What is the best approach to use? I basically just want to use the laptop for fast websurfing. From what I can gather, you can either mount the app at boot, or mount it later, is that right?
On the issue of using a seperate partition, I was going to do that but the installation guide on the tc site suggested that you could just run it out of an existing linux filesystem.
cheers.
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Can I just add that boot code in the grub.cfg file so it loads that way everytime? If so, where exactly would I add it?
Yes, you can add the boot code to the grub.cfg file - I'm not familiar with grub2, if you cut and paste your current grub.cfg here I can hazard a guess at where to add the boot code
The other question that I had was the different "modes" of operation. What is the best approach to use? I basically just want to use the laptop for fast websurfing. From what I can gather, you can either mount the app at boot, or mount it later, is that right?
I would use the default tc installation (which it sounds like you've already done) and then set the web browser to load at boot (onboot). The other choice is to set the web browser to load when required (ondemand), but this is more appropriate if you use your tc installation for many things and don't want to load everything at boot.
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I'm actually running in windows at the moment, so I can't access my grub.cfg, and i'm about to go to bed. But from memory there are two key lines in there which I think might even be the same as in grub1? They are:
kernel /boot/bzImage quiet
&
initrd /boot/tinycore.gz
I suppose the boot codes would go after the latter? Would i need to use parentheses at all?
On the question of loading the apps at boot, I favour having Opera load on boot as this laptop will be used almost exclusively for surfing. Can you explain the steps in setting the "onboot" thing? I don't find the "onboot" gui very intuitive, so i'm not really sure how to go about it.
cheers!
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Appbrowser is using /tmp/tce which as far as I can tell is just the virtual file system that is created by tc and stored in ram. I might try and use the boot code. Can I just add that boot code in the grub.cfg file so it loads that way everytime?
/tmp/tce will be lost every time you turn your computer off, so all extensions will need to be downloaded again. You need to use a different directory.
Can you explain the steps in setting the "onboot" thing?
To use On Boot, open Apps Audit, click On Boot, then maintenance. Click on any extensions (on the left) you want to be loaded when you start the computer.
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Thanks for the reply Guy. To use OnBoot properly, do I have to set a permanent directory first (i.e. /tce on hda1) or will the OnBoot function set one up for me? If I have to do it myself, can you show me the entry I would have to make in my grub2 for it to work? I'd just do it and see what happens, but i'm at work and won't get a chance till later today.
cheers!
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On Boot will not do it.
Include tce=hda1 in Grub.
I have not used Grub 2. Look for info in the wiki, and search this forum.
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Use "Set TCE Drive" in the cpanel.
Run AppBrowser and install desired applications.
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Hi Gerald. I've tried using Set TCE Drive in the cpanel, but it says that my drive is already set to /tmp/tce and doesn't seem to give me the option to change it.
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Just guessing. Maybe it has created a tce directory in /tmp of the other operating system. It it has you can delete it. Be careful not to delete something which is part of the other operating system.
Even if it has, if you use tce=hda1, it should create a new one.
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Just guessing. Maybe it has created a tce directory in /tmp of the other operating system.
That would never show under /tmp then, but rather under /mnt/.../tmp (except for the most improbable case of a scatter install on a non empty partition)
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That would never show under /tmp then, but rather under /mnt/.../tmp (except for the most improbable case of a scatter install on a non empty partition)
I agree, except this should never happen.
I've tried using Set TCE Drive in the cpanel, but it says that my drive is already set to /tmp/tce and doesn't seem to give me the option to change it.
Something has happened which should not happen.
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On the issue of using a seperate partition, I was going to do that but the installation guide on the tc site suggested that you could just run it out of an existing linux filesystem.
I am not able to offer any suggestions on how to do this as I have never attempted to run TC from within an existing file system. However, one of my primary aims was to create machines which multi-boot various OSs, each in their own partition, and using a single instance of GRUB2 to manage their loading. The machines commonly contain Lubuntu 10.10 and TC3.1 but have also used other OSs.
Finding sources of useful information was not as easy as I had hoped but these provided sufficient pointers to get going:
- https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2
- The grub2 info file in the TC repository
If you are using GRUB2 installed by Lubuntu to boot TC, do heed the warning given at the head of the grub.cfg file. Installing apps or updates in Lubuntu often regenerates grub.cfg, which will remove any entries you create in it. In such circumstances, add your Tinycore entries to /etc/grub.d/40_custom and they will be preserved when grub.cfg is recreated.
This may be the "kiss of death" but up to now the machines are operating reliably in daily use. This post is being made from one of them.
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Ok, I'm home now and have had a chance to try a few things. I added tce=hda1 to the grub.cfg. It boots up and when I click on the Set TCE Drive it says that /mnt/hda1/tce is set as my drive and again doesn't give me any options after that. I downloaded Opera and all the .tcz files are stored in /home/tce. But if I cd to /mnt/hda1, it shows no files or directories in there. When I rebooted into my other linux system, there are no files in the /tce directory I created. And when I reboot into TC, Opera is gone.
So I'm stumped. Any ideas?
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It boots up and when I click on the Set TCE Drive it says that /mnt/hda1/tce is set as my drive and again doesn't give me any options after that.
This is good - so if you used the app browser to download opera (for example), it should have been saved to /mnt/hda1/tce. How did you download opera?
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I downloaded Opera and all the .tcz files are stored in /home/tce.
Are you very sure about that path?
Could you double-check that?
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It sounds to me like TC cannot mount /dev/hda1.
Does /dev/hda1 contain an ext2/ext3/vfat file system?
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Hi all. I checked the path where it is storing the .tcz files, and it is /home/tc (not /home/tce as I said earlier) within tc's virtual file system in ram. I've also realised that i've confused myself a bit. While my question has pertained to my laptop, I can't actually test on that as it only has a wireless connection, which TC isn't picking up yet (that's a problem for further down the track ;) ). So I have been testing on my pc which has Linux mint on it (i've been running tc from the mint file system), but I forgot that that's not all it has on it. I've also got two partitions of xp on there as well. So hda1 actually refers to an xp partition, so it's no wonder it isn't working. When I get home I'll try and correct where it sets the /tce folder. My Mint partition is sda6, so does that mean I should use tce=hda6 at boot?
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... so does that mean I should use tce=hda6 at boot?
Simple answer: YEP
You could even play this game a bit further, as the boot code would also support a "personalized" tce-directory like 'tce=sda6/path/to/tce' (meaning: the 'tce' directory is in the '/path/to' directory of your 'sda6' file system). That might be of interest if you want to have different options in your boot loader with different 'tce' directories. If only the file system is specified (e.g. 'tce=sda6') the 'tce' directory is assumed to be in the root of this file system.
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For embedding Tiny Core in Ubuntu style grub2 installs on ext2, ext3, I use this very simple and effective method. Uses a single directory for everything Tiny Core needs. See: http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php?topic=7707.msg41920#msg41920
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Hi all. Sorry for the delayed reply. I played around for a while trying to get it to work, and eventually gave up. Just recently I have installed it to it's own partition on both my laptop and my pc. It's working ;D, and in general I'm happy, but there are a few strange things I can't seem to work out.
1. On both my pc and laptop, I have installed Opera and require it to play .swf flash games. I followed the instructions on the wiki and another tinycore site (sorry, don't have the urls at the moment), and downloaded and installed the getFlash10.tcz extension, and supposedly moved the libflashsupport and libflashplayer to the right directories. So, now I can get the flash games to load up, and it will accept the first mouse click, but won't accept anymore after that. So I guess the question is, has anyone heard of a problem like this before? (by the way, I've got it to work with Minefield browser, but I greatly prefer Opera and would like to get it working on it).
2. The second problem is to do with my laptop. For some reason it jumbles up the rgb channels with blue displaying as green, and red as blue. Any idea what might be going on? I should point out that I have run other linuxes and windows on this machine and the colour was fine.
Ah, just thought of a third question: I can't seem to change the screen resolution (on my PC version). I've tried using the vga boot code and the xvesa=1280x1024x24 boot code, but no luck. The vga one changes the screen resolution of the loading stage, but the actual windows environment still displays in the same resolution (roughly 1024x780ish) which strangely won't all fit inside the width of a browser window (whereas it will fit fine with windows and the same resolution). The xvesa boot code did nothing. Any ideas?
cheers.
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First of all, you open 2-3 different issues which seem unrelated to topic of this thread...
1. Which opera version?
2. You might wanna try alternative X servers.
Which graphics cards?
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There's a solution for the Opera & flash mouse click issue in the hints and tips section somewhere.
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There's a solution for the Opera & flash mouse click issue in the hints and tips section somewhere.
Thanks for that. I found the article and changed the operapluginwrapper script and that seems to have fixed the problem. cheers!
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@bern: You need to distinguish the purpose of the 'vga=...' and the 'xvesa=...' boot codes. AFAIK the former is used by the kernel to set up a specific video mode. The default X server (i.e. 'Xvesa') will completely ignore it, but if you use the 'Xfbdev.tcz' extension (i.e. the X server using the framebuffer device) this video mode will determine it's resolution.
To find out what video modes are available use (at least once) 'vga=ask'. That should list the available modes (after you pressed "Enter"). You could then even go further and request a 'scan'.
For 'Xvesa' you could get a list of the supported resolutions by using Xvesa -listmodes. Any of those (e.g. '1280x1024x16') could then be used as parameter for the 'xvesa=...' boot code (which is specific to TC).