Tiny Core Linux
Tiny Core Base => TCB Q&A Forum => Topic started by: Artie on December 28, 2008, 09:07:11 AM
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I have a cd with your iso on it and a USB HDD with an EXT3 formatted partition called /dev/sda3. I want to install programs and have them come up automatically from the USB HDD partition next time I load the CD. How do I do that? I tried reading the Getting Started page but couldn't understand anything. Einstein is dead, but Stephen Hawking might possibly understand your Getting Started page... ???
Artie
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Cliff Notes version of Getting Started:
Boot your TinyCore CD with the additional boot codes of tce=sda3 restore=sda3
Then use the appbrowser to download your selected applications.
They will be written to /mnt/sda3/tce
Upon shutdown your /home/tc will be written to /mnt/sda3/mydata.tgz
The next time you boot you don't need to specify tce= or restore= boot options.
If your USB drive is slow you may also need to add waitusb=5 as an additional boot option.
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Loaded cd, wrote "tce=sda3 restore=sda3", enter, got "Could not find kernel image: tce=sda3"
Artie
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the boot code would be
tinycore tce=sda3 restore=sda3
That should work.
JW
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Thanks. Been experimenting. Only way I can reboot with programs saved is if I write "tinycore restore=sda3 waitusb=5" every single time I reboot. Installed Opera and it worked. By the way, you should update your Opera...
Artie
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The answer would be to copy the two files bzImage and tinycore.gz into another partition and point grub to it, That way you add/edit the needed boot options via grub. TC can live peacefully with other grub installed distributions.
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I don't have grub, just two partitions with two pup_save files from Puppy Linux which I boot from cd. Some weird problems have also cropped up, like Opera and Minefield don't scroll properly with a standard ps/2 mouse. It's very jerky and when I scroll the wheel down the page goes up... too late at night to try to solve that. Will get back on the forum if I decide to give it another try. Thanks for help.
Artie
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I tried reading the Getting Started page but couldn't understand anything. Einstein is dead, but Stephen Hawking might possibly understand your Getting Started page... ???
in the future, someone is going to have to write a "getting started with tc for dummies" page. it's very good in that it includes all the information needed, but i'll be looking forward to reading the "dummies" version as much as anyone. i tried to read the entire thing, but since i don't trust the restore options of most distros anyway, of habit i pretty much do it my own way if at all. not a great option for most people, unless they like "cloud." cloud is very tc, i like it, but i would never want it if it was the only option.
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I like the concept and I'll probably give it a try later, but I'll wait until it has matured a bit more and gotten understandable. I managed to save Firefox and Opera but when I tried to scroll in both it was borked. Wish the developers could copy the way Puppy does it.
Artie
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Wish the developers could copy the way Puppy does it.
if you were more specific i might agree, although i hope tc strives to be more consistent and to say the least, smaller than puppy. sometimes that means not matching another distro, (including dsl... although if they're going to match a distro per feature, i'd rather see it dsl-like.)
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There's no desire to copy any distro fully. Grabbing the best of everything is the spirit of open source though. Artie, could you describe the "Puppy way" more specifically?
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Grabbing the best of everything is the spirit of open source though.
i don't think it's ever been said better than that.
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I actually mean the way Puppy is greeting its users and tries to make the Puppy experience a friendly one. Impossible to explain. Just get a Puppy 4.1.2 iso disk and boot the disk. First read your getting started page. Then compare with the following example from when Puppy first asks you to config your mouse:
Please choose mouse type...
ps/2 (little 8mm round green plug, or laptop builtin touchpad)
etc
When you have configured the rest and have the desktop, just shutdown and Puppy will explain thoroughly and understandably in English what's going on and asks you nicely and politely if you want to save your settings and if so where. Next time you boot the disk, Puppy automagically remembers all your settings without you having to remember four different modes of operation and home=hdXY and /mnt/hdXY/tchome and PPR/TCZ etc etc. Puppy just makes a pup_save file. Pretty self-explanatory. Pup=Puppy save=save. Save Puppy.
I would have loved to help you test out TCL but not when I have to learn cryptic commands and four different modes of operation when the alternative is pushing a button that says pretty self-explanatory "SAVE TO FILE".
Sorry if I sound harsh, overly critical or condescending. I was just looking so forward to trying out a new exciting small distro even much smaller and possibly simpler than Puppy and was so disappointed when it turned out so complicated.
Artie
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i know exactly what you mean now. one of the best features about puppy was the simplification and friendliness of things like that. it should be possible (and maybe even desirable) to make tc more like that in the future, and i think suggestions for making things like that more friendly are a good contribution if thought out well.
as long as keeping things good under the hood is the first priority, it should be easy to implement friendlier messages and setups, but there are other times when it's nice to have no-bs for the experienced user also. xsetup.sh is not as "busy" as the setup in puppy last time i saw it, but it's reasonably friendly.
because puppy uses scripts, it's easy to have people that don't know any "real coding" make dialogs friendlier without having someone do it for them.. tc seems pretty intent to avoid most of those scripts in favor of c apps, but this doesn't apply to the startup. it does mean that people that prefer everything in gui form may use another distro that spends more megabytes on a core that uses gui for everything. so focusing on that as much as puppy does may be targeting an audience that would prefer to use something else for other, similar reasons.
it still might be worth making the startup a little more friendly in the future. it may depend on different things, how you make tinycore more friendly may differ from how you make puppy more friendly, since you're trying to provide friendly access to two quite different things. where a text menu is not too intimidating, i'd like to make the text as friendly as possible without annoying experienced users. at its best that's an art as much as a science. new features usually take more than one attempt before they are sufficiently friendly, even in puppy.
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Good luck with your efforts. And remember to rename your Getting Started page to Hyper-Advanced... :) I'll be back when I can start up and save and restore my settings as easily as in Puppy.
Artie
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Obviously all suggestions are welcome. Please keep in mind that Puppy's existence is measured in years while Tiny Core's existence is still measured in days until January 1st. Then we can switch to months. :)
Chris
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Obviously all suggestions are welcome.
i think it will actually take a dummies version of getting started before a friendlier startup is possible. although i can think of two other ways, they're not as likely. i'm sure if we do make startup easier (it is already very simple, but complicated enough to understand the options) artie will hear about it at the puppy forum.
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At one time, DSL was not an easy OS for people. After Robert created the MyDSL system, it took some time for enough basic extensions to be created and tools developed to manage them. That process took years. Since we have a great base here and some awesome devs that crank apps out left and right, I think the curve of learning will be greatly accelerated but will take some time to make everything seem "easy" to most. I know my work schedule has put me way behind in my team responsibilities but I am slowly working to recover.
Really it's been amazing to see how quickly people have come to this project and have jumped right in. It's been wonderful to see.
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I think the curve of learning will be greatly accelerated but will take some time to make everything seem "easy" to most.
i know what you mean, the first time i used dsl i was like, "really?" but when i came back i appreciated how wonderful it was. now i wish xubuntu was more like dsl that way. still, there should not be a learning curve on starting the distro.
we can decide based on what we know, which method is easiest to start with, and the order they're listed in makes a difference, but ultimately listing the "modes" at the forefront may not be the best idea. it's important that the modes exist, how someone new to the distro selects one is secondary, to the distro not the user.
but if they are listed, there are also advantages there, and in that case, there may be a better way to do that. i have not made suggestions about that, yet, because despite reading as much of getting started as i could, i just couldn't sort through it all the first time around. finally i tried tinycore toram nopcmcia and that was good. also, i didn't need the nopcmcia option.
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Comparing apples to oranges. I don't want excuses made for TC.
Tiny Core by its very names implies that it is not and never will be a turnkey desktop system,
Comparing Core to other turnkey desktop systems is not a valid comparison.
Tiny Core is not for anyone expecting a turnkey desktop.
The opening words of the "Getting Started" state simply enough for anyone to understand.
"Tiny Core Linux, not being a complete Desktop..."
By using Core implies that the user will have many choices.
In a turnkey system the choices are made for you and with much hand holding.
It should be obvious that 10MB does not equal 100 MB.
It is not the developers but the documentation that is lagging.
Yet the basis of TC extension is not dissimilar to the MyDSL system. Which I developed without any assistance.
Bu then I suppose that if the Getting Started document of DSL, which I wrote, talked about .dsl, uci, and .unc all of which were my ideas and implemented solely by me, there would be complaints as well.
The difference is that with TC you must know how to use the choices offered to realized just what is possible with Core. That is not true with other turnkey desktop OS.
Tiny Core, no excuses, its not for everyone.
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..no excuses.
The average Puppy user finds TC amazing, see here:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=36793 (http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=36793)
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"Tiny Core, no excuses, its not for everyone"
"TC is about a new concept, not about targeting a particular era of hardware."
Now there are a couple of lines that could serve well in the first paragraph of "Getting Started", and in bold.
And another which states that its suggested target audience is Advanced to Expert users.
But no matter how you try and explain it, you will always get those who don't want to..
Read it.
Understand it.
Accept it.
And those who, as the old adage "a little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing" goes, will always make an assessment based on their little knowledge, and post things like "I'll come back later when it is useable", or some such nonsense.
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and although saying "i'll come back when the opening screen is different" was snippy and almost certain to offend, (respectfully) neither what roberts said or what qb4 said is a good argument for an unintelligible startup menu.
i actually gave reasons for the way it is and the way it could be. both have merit. tc never was and may never be "turnkey," but we're not actually talking about it being a turnkey linux. and responding to a snippity remark about whether it's easy enough with intellectual snobbery is totally unnecessary. it's only going to offend the same noobs you and i think we should be friendly to, qb4. and your opponent will only use it to prove that we're unreasonable.
but hey, say what you want.
i just hope it serves the purpose you had in mind. i can't imagine either of your replies will at all, but it's your forum.
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I don't consider myself an 'expert user' and i find the concept and the help file totally logic and straightforward. Its very clear. The app browser is great and does not need any expertise either. Everybody who can edit a grub menu.lst will have fun with TC right from the beginning. Obviously Artie couldn't do that. But once upon a time he managed to do just that for his puppy linux distro - so thats bitchy, a bit hypocritical.
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Look what I started... :o Never ever edited a Grub menu.lst. Wouldn't know how to. :) Didn't mean to be bitchy or hypocritical. Was just a knee jerk reaction to Getting Started coming from Puppy and DSL and Slitaz. Expected more of the same just smaller. I understand now that this distro has a totally different agenda, that it's not meant to replace any of those above and that it has a different target audience. I wish you good luck with the project.
Artie
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the boot code would be
tinycore tce=sda3 restore=sda3
That should work.
JW
I have TinyCore installed frugally on a virtual drive in VirtualBox running on Windows Vista.
I have Puppy and TinyCore both installed to the same virtual drive.
TinyCore is installed in a subdirectory called appropriately tinycore.
I set up backup to point to that subdirectory and added the grub line you suggested with a change to hda1/tinycore for both tce and restore.
Although the backup was saved in the subdirectory as mydata.tgz, It will not load my installed programs that are saved in the backup and a restore using the control panel also fails.
So....
What am I missing here?
The partition is formated ext2.
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8-bit: does the waitusb part help? (don't forget your tce=sda3 too.)
Thanks. Been experimenting. Only way I can reboot with programs saved is if I write "tinycore restore=sda3 waitusb=5" every single time I reboot.
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8-bit: does the waitusb part help? (don't forget your tce=sda3 too.)
I just downloaded the new version in Puppy, created a directory for it, opened the iso file, copied the files to the tce directory, modified my menu list in GRUB, copied the mysave.tgz file from my previous installation to it, and booted Tinycore release canidate 9.
It still failed to use the saved data and retore still did not work.
But....... I then stopped trying to install from the TCE file list and instead installed from the TCZ file list.
Now upon reboot, my installed programs and files are restored.
One last question. Can you recomend a good graphical file manager for it?
Linux file descriptions still read like an unknown language to me.
And I have been playing with Puppy linux for a few years. :)
[^thehatsrule^: fixed quote]
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riiight, i read "sda3" and no "waitusb" forgettting that sda can be a non-usb device, too. someone had just used waitusb. i was just about to attempt a usb install, at the moment that's the only thing i know besides toram without settings.
as for a graphical manager, the list of apps like that is still growing, the nicest fileman seems to be emelfm2 which is great, but i'm sure you'd like something more like rox-filer. i don't blame you. i wouldn't mind using thunar, but i think installing xfce might be a bit much. if anyone compiles rox (even the older version puppy once used) that will be cool. emelfm2 is one of the traditional double pane "orthodox" filemanagers, but one button makes it single pane.
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Not to get off topic, but Rox Filer was on my to do list. It is one of my favorite file managers, but I got pretty comfortable with emelfm2. If no one else does it in the next few weeks I may find time for a Rox extension.
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Just to throw another cat in with the pigeons..
My fave is XFE, in 2-pane mode.
Would love a .tce.
I know it gets to be biggish with the required foxlibs, but hey, you only live once.
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i don't know if it would be that big. even with the libs, based on what i saw on the puppy forum, it should be less than half the size of firefox.
at least that's smaller than you think it would be, reading comparisons between foxlibs and qt. it seems xfe used to be x win commander. have you ever used the original, and is it any good? sometimes the earlier versions are less bloated (or won't even need foxlibs) and sometimes they're just annoying. the original emelfm is pretty good next to emelfm2, but i usually use the newer one since firefox already installs gtk2.
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XFE was my first non-KDE file manager as it came with Vector Linux. It was my favorite before starting with ROX a little while back and later emelfm/emelfm2. I would like to see my old favorites around and XFE is another one of them. Version 0.88 is my favorite as it was still fairly small but also featureful and easy on the eyes. Another must have.
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it should be great to see both of them, so many people are used to orthodox filemanagers in linux (and i actually enjoyed using emelfm in dsl,) they don't always understand what a difference something like rox or xfe can make for others.
stuff like this really proves how much trouble is saved by tinycore's philosophy. whatever roberts has in mind (i'm trying to understand, i'm reading the 6 chapters he wrote right now,) it's easy to see this is something we never have to argue about including or excluding from the core. if you like it, use it. if you don't like it, it will never bother you or take up space :) modularization ftw. i dreamed that dsl would be like this, someday.
edit: getting back on topic, i finally have a keychain that will boot linux, using extlinux.tce and something like juanito's setup (http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php?topic=111.msg1492#msg1492). i've never bothered because i thought it involved repartitioning a usb drive (this way, it did) and because i am not accustomed to having the option in the bios.
it's not exactly what i expected, new edit: even after adding restore=sda1, it does not seem to save any settings, but tce=sda1 seems to keep the extensions (default settings each boot.) extlinux needed me to enter /boot/bzImage every time, and complained it couldn't find image: linux. so i copied ./boot/bzImage to ./boot/linux and now it boots automatically! still no restore yet:
kernel /boot/bzImage
append initrd=/boot/tinycore.gz quiet vga=773 noswap laptop tce=sda1 restore=sda1 waitusb=5 noscan
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tobiaus, why not copy the isolinux.cfg? Or rather the structure. Here's that with your parts added:
default tinycore
label tinycore
kernel /boot/bzImage
append initrd=/boot/tinycore.gz quiet vga=773 noswap laptop tce=sda1 restore=sda1 waitusb=5
timeout 300
I believe the key to autoboot is to create a label, and then make it the default. BTW noscan is not a valid option, what did you try to skip?
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thanks! that means i don't have to copy bzImage to linux.
i'm sorry! i couldn't figure out why the settings weren't saving. it's because forever i've ignored the exit settings and used sudo commandstorebootorpoweroff and i'm supposed to use exittc. it's gui only, if exitcheck.sh works by itself i'll use that. i was beguiled by friendly "syncing" messages... :( obviously sync just syncs, it's doesn't have magical powers. thank you! i never had a usb linux key before, it's fun.
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As to settings being saved on a frugal install, I have found that when I set up backup, install a program like Opera, bookmark a page with it, and exit....
First, the Backup box is checked
Second, I am told when I pick shutdown or reboot that Backup has not been set up.
Third, although my applications that I installed reappear, configuration settings in them have dissapeared.
As an example, Opera, on a reboot, always comes up like I just installed it and my bookmarks have dissapeared.
Is this a glitch or am I just a dumb end user???
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it sounds like a glitch. you mention you set it up, are you referring to the restore option? is the frugal install still the one on virtualbox?
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OK, first I did a frugal install.
Then I set up BACKUP to point to the subdirectory on the harddrive I installed to.
Then I installed some apps from the TCZ selection.
I fired up Opera, agreed to the license agreement, searched for and bookmarked the TinyCore forum.
When I went to reboot, I was told that BACKUP was not set up.
The entry I gave to backup was 'hda1/tce'
After reboot, all settings gone.
And at reboot, same message about backup not being set up.
On booting, it looked like the TCZ files in the TCE directory were extracted and added.
I have the restore option set up in grub too.
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If you instruct TC to place your backup in a subdirectory hda1/tce then autoscan upon subsequent boots won't find it.
Therefore no restore occurs, you would have to add the boot option of restore=hda1/tce
If you want autoscan to find your backup/restore then you should simply specify the backup of hda1
That is don't use a subdirectory.
This is covered in the Getting Started document, see Backup/Restore section.
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If you instruct TC to place your backup in a subdirectory hda1/tce then autoscan upon subsequent boots won't find it.
Therefore no restore occurs, you would have to add the boot option of restore=hda1/tce
If you want autoscan to find your backup/restore then you should simply specify the backup of hda1
That is don't use a subdirectory.
This is covered in the Getting Started document, see Backup/Restore section.
I have that boot option setup in grub/menu.lst but no joy.
When I click on the BACKUP/RSTORE button and type in hda1/tce, I can restore my settings.
It just does not seem to work on bootup though.
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Post your grub menu.lst
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This is my grub menu.lst entry for booting frugal tinycore:
# Linux bootable partition config begins
title Tiny Core Linux .9
root (hd0,0)
kernel /tce/bzImage quiet
initrd /tce/tinycore.gz tce=hda1/tce restore=hda1/tce
# Linux bootable partition config ends
As you can see, I have my tinycore subdirectory and restore directory both set up.
Do I need to specify the mydata.tgz file in the restore parameter?
Also, I get a message that my AMD duel core processor does not support write combining.
I also get 2 messages about init 10, But they are on bootup and they do not stay long enough to be able to remember them in their entirety.
I also tried to put the boot parameters on a line after the initrd one as a test.
I am open to trying a known working grub menu.lst entry for a frugal install given an example.
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i think the problem is that you're pointing restore and tce to hda1/tce
i believe if you just point tce=hda1 restore=hda1 tc will find the tce folder and the restore file. also i thought those went on the kernel line? maybe not.
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You need to move those options to the kernel line for them to work.
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I moved the boot options line to the kernel line of menu.lst and all worked.
I retained the subdirectory in the path pointed to.
This is my working current menu.lst entry for a frugal install to a subdirectory.
You can use it as a template changing the drive and subdirectory as needed.
# Linux bootable partition config begins
title Tiny Core Linux .9
root (hd0,0)
kernel /tce/bzImage quiet tce=hda1/tce restore=hda1/tce
initrd /tce/tinycore.gz
# Linux bootable partition config ends
Hope that this may help others doing a frugal install.