TinyCore v6.3 32-bit Install Review

More current review and notes about Tiny Core 6.4.1

  • I'm still using VirtualBox for the test.
  • previous review (v6.1) (most of which still applies)
  • running the App installer to install the "tc-install" package (used to install TinyCore to the HD) causes the launch bar to disappear ... this is new
  • this appears to be specific to that app (or perhaps others that try to display in the launch bar)
  • I restarted and tried another app that didn't put itself on the launch bar - no problems
  • so start a terminal before you install tc-install, and run it from the terminal
  • the installation says "Installation has completed" in the text box, but doesn't offer any button press to exit even though you had arrow keys to move through the options and a big "Proceed" button when you're ready to install - not a consistent UX
  • still no tmux, very sad

Further Notes

  • read their Core Concepts - it'll tell you a lot about why TinyCore behaves so oddly/the way it does
  • also very interesting reading on that page are Modes of Operation, and the links to graphics showing how those work
  • by default, TC has no passwords at all: here's how to add them
  • finally figured out how to create some basic persistence in /etc/ : edit /opt/bootlocal.sh . There may be a better and/or more official method than this, I need to explore further. This is by no means foolproof: you have to use it to write to /etc/, and then you have to make sure to use the graphical reboot with save (if you just type "reboot" or "poweroff" as root, there's no persistence)
  • looking at aliases in /home/tc/.ashrc provided an education: the ce alias is cd /etc/sysconfig/tcedir, which lands me in /mnt/sda1/tce/, where there are a number of interesting files and folders: in fact, I think this answers one of my previous questions about how to move a package from "OnDemand" to "OnBoot", as this folder contains files and folders with those names, with package lists
  • both Xorg and XF86* appear to be available, leading to the interesting possibility that you could install one or the other (Xorg = better) and actually compile the VirtualBox Guest Additions (as mentioned previously, TinyCore uses a tiny alternative X that VB can't work with)