Recent Posts

61

Raspberry Pi / Re: Rust on piCore: Computing π to 10,000 digits

« Last post by Rich on January 23, 2026, 04:17:36 PM »

Hi patrikg
The first 337 characters from your command match the result
posted in reply #5 perfectly.

62

General TC Talk / Re: Building Another Logger

« Last post by MTCAT on January 23, 2026, 04:11:55 PM »

Hello again everyone,

As per the original install, I copied the compressed Lubuntu 16.04 image file onto the 128 GB CF-card with HDDRawCopy, with Lubuntu booted up, I did a bit of poking around to find the address of the 100 MBit ethernet port and my router, I also found the UUID of the CF-card, and then updated the BIOS for "direct-drive" LVDS operation of the PixelQi screen, and lastly changed serial port one to 9600 bps (for U-Blox module) and made the USB the first try for booting.

I connected my U-Blox GPS module RS232 output to serial port one, and +5V power of course, and plugged in a digitemp USB temperature sensor, plugged in my cloned TinyCore 3.8.4 with real-time patch, and powered on the Vortex DX3, unfortunately it didn't boot and hangs up after the 10 second "pause" count-down  is completed.

Trying again and hitting Tab in that screen shows me some (all?) of the content of extlinux.conf (I think) where a lot of UUID's are seen, I think for the boot pen drive and the CF-card, I need to change these UUID's. I do know the UUID of the CF-card, but would booting up Lubuntu, plugging in the TinyCore boot drive, and typing "lsblk -f" work to get the UUID of the pen drive as well?

Then could I edit the extlinux.conf file on my Slackware Linux desktop entering in the new UUID's for the new CF-card and pen drive? Does that sound correct?

Thanks,

David

63

Raspberry Pi / Re: Running Alpine Linux Inside piCore on Raspberry Pi 400 (Chroot Method)

« Last post by patrikg on January 23, 2026, 03:46:17 PM »

I'm glad you're very committed to Tiny Core and PiCore, but it would be much better if you instead of posting messages here, you can submit your suggestions and examples of using TinyCore and PiCore by posting them on our wiki instead.

64

Raspberry Pi / Running Alpine Linux Inside piCore on Raspberry Pi 400 (Chroot Method)

« Last post by geev03 on January 23, 2026, 03:35:45 PM »

Here is clean way to run Alpine Linux inside piCore64 on a Raspberry Pi 400. This gives you Alpine’s full apk package ecosystem while keeping piCore’s minimal, RAM‑based design untouched. The setup works reliably and is useful for development, compiling, and sandboxing.

Below is a summary of the process and the important notes.
Why use Alpine inside piCore
piCore stays tiny, fast, and read‑only

Alpine provides a full userland with thousands of packages

No risk to the base system

Great for building software or running tools not available as .tcz

-----------------------------------------
1. Download and unpack Alpine (aarch64)

Code: [Select]

wget https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.20/releases/aarch64/alpine-minirootfs-3.20.0-aarch64.tar.gz
mkdir /mnt/alpine
tar -xzf alpine-minirootfs-*.tar.gz -C /mnt/alpine

2. Mount required filesystems (from piCore host)

Code: [Select]

mount -t proc /proc /mnt/alpine/proc
mount -t sysfs /sys /mnt/alpine/sys
mount --bind /dev /mnt/alpine/dev
mount --bind /dev/pts /mnt/alpine/dev/pts

Fix DNS inside Alpine
Alpine may not ship with /etc/resolv.conf, so create it:

Code: [Select]

touch /mnt/alpine/etc/resolv.conf
mount --bind /etc/resolv.conf /mnt/alpine/etc/resolv.conf
3. Enter the Alpine environment

Code: [Select]

chroot /mnt/alpine /bin/sh

4. Update and install packages

Code: [Select]

apk update
apk add  fastfetch nano build-base python3 rust

5. What works well
Full Alpine package ecosystem

Compilers and build tools (gcc, clang, rust, cmake, etc.)

Networking and DNS

Fastfetch, shells, editors

Running Alpine apps directly on piCore’s kernel

6. What does not work
Podman / Docker
Podman fails during unpacking due to missing kernel features:

overlayfs with advanced options

cgroups v2

fuse-overlayfs

user namespace support

piCore’s kernel is intentionally minimal, so container runtimes are not viable.

proot
Alpine does not provide proot for aarch64 in any repo.
It must be installed manually from upstream binaries or built from source if needed.

7. System snapshot
Inside the chroot, tools like fastfetch correctly report:

OS: Alpine Linux

Kernel: piCore’s 6.x kernel

Packages: apk

Hardware: Raspberry Pi 400

This confirms Alpine is running entirely on the piCore kernel.

Conclusion
Running Alpine inside piCore on the Raspberry Pi 400 is a clean and effective way to get a full Linux userland without sacrificing piCore’s minimalism. It’s ideal for development and experimentation. Just note that container runtimes like Podman/Docker won’t work due to kernel limitations.

Code: [Select]

root@box:/# date
Fri Jan 23 20:34:53 UTC 2026
root@box:/# fastfetch
       .hddddddddddddddddddddddh.           root@box
      :dddddddddddddddddddddddddd:          --------
     /dddddddddddddddddddddddddddd/         OS: Alpine Linux 3.20.0 aarch64
    +dddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd+        Host: Raspberry Pi 400 Rev 1.0
  `sdddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddds`      Kernel: Linux 6.12.25-piCore-v8
 `ydddddddddddd++hdddddddddddddddddddy`     Uptime: 9 hours, 32 mins
.hddddddddddd+`  `+ddddh:-sdddddddddddh.    Packages: 74 (apk)
hdddddddddd+`      `+y:    .sddddddddddh    Shell: sh
ddddddddh+`   `//`   `.`     -sddddddddd    Display (    EZCAP28X): 1920x1080 @z
ddddddh+`   `/hddh/`   `:s-    -sddddddd    Terminal: sudo
ddddh+`   `/+/dddddh/`   `+s-    -sddddd    CPU: ARM CPU (4) @ 1.80 GHz
ddd+`   `/o` :dddddddh/`   `oy-    .yddd    Memory: 1.24 GiB / 3.71 GiB (33%)
hdddyo+ohddyosdddddddddho+oydddy++ohdddh    Swap: 0 B / 918.54 MiB (0%)
.hddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddh.    Local IP (eth0): 192.168.1.194/24 *
 `yddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddy`     Locale: C
  `sdddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddds`
    +dddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd+        ████████████████████████
     /dddddddddddddddddddddddddddd/         ████████████████████████
      :dddddddddddddddddddddddddd:
       .hddddddddddddddddddddddh.
root@box:/#


65

TCE Talk / Re: New package manager

« Last post by wysiwyg on January 23, 2026, 03:02:46 PM »

One final note.  Currently there is no GUI for this package, so any usage will have to be done from the command line only.  It is discouraged to use the default tce-* scripts and this package manager interchangeably as certain cache files will not get placed when using the tce-* scripts.  This can be resolved by calling 'pax -z' beforehand, but it is an extra step that most will forget.  If you want to make pax your default manager, run 'pax --install' and it will walk you through the process.

I'm working on the man page for this project now and will include it in the next release.  Running 'pax --help' should provide you enough information to successfully use the software though.  DM me with any questions you may have.

66

Raspberry Pi / Re: Rust on piCore: Computing π to 10,000 digits

« Last post by patrikg on January 23, 2026, 02:42:43 PM »

Code: [Select]

echo 'scale=1000;4*a(1)' | BC_LINE_LENGTH=0 bc -l

67

Raspberry Pi / Re: Rust on piCore: Computing π to 10,000 digits

« Last post by geev03 on January 23, 2026, 12:56:26 PM »

PARI/GP : Value of Pi to a million digits

Code: [Select]

root@box:/tmp# ls
appserr      mc-root/     pari-gp.tcz  pi1m.gp      tags.db      tcloop/
k5_skip      mc-tc/       pari_tcz/    piout.txt    tce/         wm_errors
root@box:/tmp# gp <pi1m.gp
                  GP/PARI CALCULATOR Version 2.17.3 (released)
              arm64 running linux (aarch64 kernel) 64-bit version
              compiled: Jan 23 2026, gcc version 14.2.0 (piCore64)
                            threading engine: single
             (readline not compiled in, extended help not enabled)

                     Copyright (C) 2000-2024 The PARI Group

PARI/GP is free software, covered by the GNU General Public License, and comes
WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY WHATSOEVER.

Type ? for help, \q to quit.
Type ?18 for how to get moral (and possibly technical) support.

parisize = 8000000, primelimit = 1048576, factorlimit = 1048576
  ***   Warning: new stack size = 500000000 (476.837 Mbytes).
   realprecision = 1000016 significant digits (1000000 digits displayed)
Goodbye!
root@box:/tmp#

Formatter output

Code: [Select]

root@box:/tmp# fold -w 100 piout.txt > piout_wrapped.txt


Code: [Select]

default(parisize,500000000)
\p 1000000
myPi = Pi;
write("piout.txt", myPi);
\q




Code: [Select]

root@box:/tmp# ls
appserr            pari-gp.tcz        piout_wrapped.txt  wm_errors
k5_skip            pari_tcz/          tags.db
mc-root/           pi1m.gp            tce/
mc-tc/             piout.txt          tcloop/
root@box:/tmp#


  pari-gp.tcz Will this be of use ?( Debian etc on rPi can get it as a package)

68

TCE Talk / Re: New package manager

« Last post by wysiwyg on January 23, 2026, 11:59:22 AM »

I've been notified that the package is now live for the x86 and x86_64 variants of TC.  Still waiting on inclusion for the Pi's.

Please provide any feedback for the project - especially any bugs.  None are currently known, but if any are found, I can fix them.

69

Raspberry Pi / Re: Rust on piCore: Computing π to 10,000 digits

« Last post by geev03 on January 23, 2026, 11:10:00 AM »

Code: [Select]

use rug::{Float, Integer};
use rug::ops::Pow;

const A: i64 = 13591409;
const B: i64 = 545140134;
const C: i64 = 640320;

fn main() {
    let digits: u32 = 100_000;
    let prec: u32 = (digits as f64 * 3.5) as u32;

With the above code as 'main.rs', it is giving th expected output is finally there ...

root@box:/home/tc/pi_calc2/target/release# ls

Code: [Select]

build/       deps/        examples/    incremental/ pi_calc2     pi_calc2.d
root@box:/home/tc/pi_calc2/target/release# ./pi_calc2
3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510582097494459230781640628620899862803482534211706798214808651328230664709384460955058223172535940812848111745028410270193852110555964462294895493038196442881097566593344612847564823378678316527120190914564856692346034861045432664821339360726024914127372458700660631558817488152092096282

70

TCE Talk / Re: New package manager

« Last post by wysiwyg on January 23, 2026, 10:53:09 AM »

Hey s1ckn3s5!

The distro is called XiniX.  It was originally forked back in 2017:

https://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php/topic,19366.0.html

It is very dated at this point and would be considered a security nightmare due to the outdated software.  I'm in the process of slowly reviving it to the current version of TC, but being a one man show with various projects makes it a slow process.  I'm going to be porting several of the projects used with it over to TC as they are being updated over the coming months.

If you or anyone else has any questions about it, it would be best to DM me.  This is a forum for TinyCore after all