Tiny Core Linux - Sometimes Size Does Matter 

I feel like reviewing everything in a VM doesn't show real world problems

Sometimes Size Does Matter Hmm... OK, then.

I would love to see an updated tiny core video, maybe with dwm (it is in the repo).

From time to time I try Tiny Core, It's fun to see what can be achieved if you really want a minimal, superfast distro but that's about it. Nice review!

Where's that guy that said he will unsubscribe cause you didn't upload any tiny core video yet?

I still remember booting Damn Small Linux on my first computer, good memories!

I wish I had this video 4 years ago when I tried to revive an old IBM Thinkpad with 256K ram. Thanks for another interesting video, Derek!

Love it! - surprising that some heavy weight packages are in the repos. I have a lot of respect for lean distributions. By coincidence I installed Puppy Linux to USB3 yesterday - also impressive, blazing fast and even let me install Nvidia drivers onto the USB.

"there used to be a distrobution called damn small linux" it's still available, just hasn't been updated in years

I've always been attracted to this distro. If it gets the job done quickly for what you want to do than I would give it an A. For it's size, it's a little gem 😀

Hello DT! To launch htop from the run program you need to type aterm -e htop.When htop is open you could press F2 or click Setup then go to the uttermost left column named Setup and choose Colors and go to the second column (by using the Tab key) named colors and choose Monochromatic with the down arrow and the space bar and click done or F10. The memory usage would appear in white on black which is easier to read! Cheers

I have tried many such linux. One of my favorite is slitaz.

4.14.53 is the latest lts kernel according to kernel.org. Tiny Core looks like a neat little distro. Think I'll note down remastering Tiny Core into a usable tiny live usb as a future project for myself.

Hi DT, It's been a few years since I played with Tiny Core but, as I recall, persistence is an option. I think it requires some fiddling during the install process but I am sure the TC boffin could configure it later. I seem to recall that I set up persistence in a separate partition on the thumb-drive that I was using. Unfortunately I found the documentation to be as minimalist as the OS. I did find the wiki helpful. In the end finding out which drivers I needed (& getting them) got the better of me. I retreated to my 'bloated' 260MB remaster of TahrPup. I have it configured just the way I want & it has been running like a charm for several years now. I have not yet looked at Xenial Puppy... Still getting over the shock & sense of outrage that it is now over 300MB!!! :o

Tiny Core can run on your 16-GB ram which gives a advantage. Its also small so it's good for breathing life into your Windows 95 computer or you could run it as a virtual machine!

Thanks. This would be great on a Raspberry Pi. Maybe to use with Web2Py as a mimimalist self-contained web server/dev enviro. Love the remastering feature too. Very handy for single purpose IoT apps.

What would they do with a bigger budget?

I used to use TinyCore a year ago. Reminds me of old times. A really minimal and nice distro though.

I’m gonna try putting this on the oldest PC still in my house... a Gateway desktop from 2001. Gonna haul it up out of the basement then make a video about how that goes.

Checked the website today, 2 years after this video's release, the CorePlus edition has nearly doubled the size with version 11.1, now at 206MB (from 106MB in this video), yet they never changed the text.

I used TinyCore once. I had a voicemail server that crashed and I couldn't boot from the HD. That server only had one sata port. Took the failed drive and plugged it into a desktop. Windows couldn't read the EXT4 drive so I put Tiny on a USB. Was able to mount the drive and copy all the data needed to rebuild the server. Super handy. Spun up a new drive and restored all the auto attendant menus and user mailboxes. Then showed that customer how to run a backup so I wouldn't need to do it again lol

I got this badboy to work on an emachine with 64 MB of ram. Good times.

I have a severely underpowered laptop from 2006 that I never use anymore, but TinyCore Linux might be able to resurrect it!

I'm sure by now you've probably figured this out, but just in case...the mouse issue is solved by selecting the option of "Mouse Integration". At the bottom right corner of virtual box window is an mouse icon. Right click on that and make sure mouse integration is selected. When it is, and you click inside the window, your mouse is now only captured inside the Virtual Window. The only way out is to hit the Host hot-key. In my case, it is the right-CTRL key. I know this, because it is also printed at the far bottom right corner of the virtual box.

Dude, you can do anything in this distro, cos you can compile the packages you need yourself. Sure it takes time but it is wrong to say it's impossible! Just install the sources and there you go.

Good review. Thanks, but you should try it on a USB pen drive. That way you would not run into the mouse problem. My experience is the mouse problem is your Virtual Box. Running on real hardware, TC is great. I love it.

this reminds me of Windows XP minimalist is an understatement

I heard there was a CLI version of Tiny core. Is it true? (Maybe I'll just ask google)

I've used TC to revive an old HP T5530 Thin Client. I run it from an external hard drive with Core on one partition (using MultibootUSB) and the TCE folder (packages) on another partition. I use another computer to configure the packages and then run them in the Thin Client. Works great.

You might need to install xinput or xcursor to get mouse working

it runs on my Pentium 2 with 256MB ram :-) runs surprisingly well...

This weird mouse problem in vbox is something you would face also on a puppylinux install. Makes me think what do they have in common? Maybe the busybox init...Does TinyCore have a useraccount or are you allways root?

That is pretty cool. It makes me feel a bit nostalgic but I like it. Thanks for the video!

DT, I have a question, when you did your bling the terminal video, and I said there s no neo fetch in Tiny Core you said to build it from source, can you build from source OBS and Simple Screen Record the same way???

M8, you should use qemu with KVM to avoid that mouse problem (related to resolution changes). VirtualBox might be faster, but it SUCKS with lower resolutions (won't even stretch to your monitor and will destroy the mouse movement bad, like it did for you). And can't record a stream? I don't know what is on their repos, but if you didn't know you can use ffmpeg to record sound from the mic and mpv/mplayer to record from the webcam. I don't know any distro who wouldn't have both of those. Using them together they work as good as your recording stream tools.

Is't this the Distro of choice when size really do matter? Excellent review. This distro is what i thought Arch was when I installed that the first time.

What is a remastering tool? I noticed that you were quite happy when you saw the remastering tool on website so please explain what it is and about it's usage.....

"because sometimes size does matter"

Something like old-scool OS'es like Win 3.1 or OS\2 Warp 3.0

Might be fun to play with on Raspberry Pi. I might try it! Be good base for a recovery usb

Hey DT what's your opinion on SUSE Linux being sold?

Where is the tube of Vegemite?

Thank DT, to install on the 16mb version type install in the search box, to get an image in the backgounds, I installed the XFE file manager, and download image, and move it to OPT folder then backgrounds in XFE, then you can use any image you choose. Thanks for the review, and I will give a rare thumbs up and resubscribe.

I keep TC on a 1GB thumb drive in my coins bag with Opera and GParted on it, because you never know. Yes, 1GB. And it still has room.

You do pay attention to the live chats! ;)

Me at work: Imported Quality Super Inbred Heavy bone Long coat German Shepherd puppy me at home:

I like the Debian based version of Tiny Core, Dcore; it's become my minimalist Swiss Army Knife distro.

2:44 You say you could not get OBS on TinyCore and although I know what you're trying to say (the repo is limited), you can indeed get OBS on tinycore. First thoughts: OBS is open source, if you have access to git, make and gcc then its quite easy -- clone the repo and run the included linux build script. I cannot imagine any distro that had no fairly simple way of building software on the system.

Ya know. Size DOES matter. Only Tiny (insert guess here) use a damn virtual anything ;-) 😂

so tiny core for a 64Mb sdram machine? i just wonder if i can upgrade it to 4x 64MB and try to browse modern web

Does it have wine in the repos?

I'm having fun with it.nice vid ty

Hi, Can anybody help me how to setup tiny core linux to able SSH connection between two tiny core linux host

Can you install another destop environment on it? Example: Cinnamon

this reminds me of damnsmalllinux back in the days.

The g........libs are coming. The g.......libs are coming. 😸

If you wanna be a cool dude in tiny core Use "tce" command to install stuff you need

Errata: 1. recordmydesktop has a -gtk UI / wrapper but it doesn't require gtk. 2. at 15:18 I get the impression you might have missed the distinction between OnBoot and OnDemand, which is quite important.

I feel like you can even install this distro in a calculator.

About persistence: a neat trick when running the ISO is to create a tce folder at the root of any of the available partitions. Tiny core will detect it and persist any extensions you install during your session as well as keep a backup file with configurations and, I believe, anything that's in your home or opt folders when you shutdown or reboot. Also, have you tried packaging your own extensions. It's super easy and allowed me to install DOSBox, which is not available for the latest version of the distro by default.

Amazing little distro..is it still being maintained.?

The only linux distribution I know that's smaller than this is Minimal Linux Live, only amounting to 7MB

12 MB? Dang wasn't DSL 40...

Stop using virtual box. Use qemu with the virtual machine manager called virt-manager. You'll find much better performance, better networking, and better support for different architectures.

It what package manager does it use

that what SHE **SAID**

watching this in 2021...

18:17 ffmpeg?

you were so young

What happened to Damn Small Linux????

The mouse issue is to do with mouse integration, go to the menu, under Input, deselect mouse integration

Boy this brings back memories... When live distros were first becoming popular, there was an OS called MenuetOS that fit on a floppy disk. We had fun with that on the computers in school back in the day.

Is it like slax linux then how can we make permanent changes like slax linux has savechanges and genslaxiso commands so how can we do this in tiny core linux

This would be great to do a full install to a small portable hard drive or a USB stick, especially if you’re a writer who travels a lot.

I like this OS. It's minimal. But it's GUI still sucks.

Get a capture device. Ask Egee what he uses for his distro reviews and live sessions

Time to look for used potato pc/notebook installed with this then sell it double price.. :D

You need to disable vbox mouse integration to the mouse work fine.

Disable the mouse integration it will fix the mouse pointer issue.

Sorry but that was a very bad review ..

I want scripts how to it was build please send the link to download

SECOND! Hahaa, I'm getting closer, I'll be 1st next time!

19:45 firefox_get_latest is also available so the normal firefox is there too

Couldn't get this distro to load, but looks fun.

Hi Derek and thanks for the review on the "small distros". As I have mentioned in a previous comment on another video I am interested in such distros especially for a personal project that I have: I stumble on the local craigs list on a HP T5570 (1GHz VIA processor, up to 4GB RAM - as you can see the CPU is the main restriction here) thin client which I bought for about 10$. I am trying to find a linux distro to fit to it and to give it a purpose. My main idea was to make it a small desktop in a small selling point that I have. I need only to be able to browse the net and to use LibreOffice. From my experience so far most of the distros are ok, computer boots up acceptably with most of them, usage of libreoffice is pretty acceptable... the bottleneck is the usage of internet browser: immediatelly when firefox or chromium is started than the CPU is strangled. Htop without any load (as you are presenting it most of the time in your videos) is not relevant at all... when you try to use the computer than is becoming interesting. My findings so far for the thin client is that a full desktop will be very slow, workable but slow... so I am exploring other alternatives: NAS (limited to interface expansions, only one SATA port) and/or test web server.... directly related to the video I would love to see how is the VM reacting when internet browser is open (eventually htop also...). What I have tried so far: WattOS, Debian (minimal DE installs... VMs are a bit to unfriendly for all users or more difficult to customize), bodhi linux, xubuntu, mint. I stuck to Debian with LXDE (i3 and xfce are also installed)... on the other hand is there out there any browser that is not so CPU hungry?

why do I think that tinycore's interface looks very old? ZorinOS lite is the best replacement

There is Mint running background :D

I will wait for Itsy-Bitsy Linux

Is it necessary To install this on my performance PC?

Has anyone put this on a tablet? And then perhaps run android apps on it? Six days now. If I asked a stupid question, then say so straight out, right here. I guarantee you won't hurt my feelings.

Do you mean x46 or x64?

can it Game ^^

Just use Arch

Damn! This distro is awsome!

tiny core looks like the 1985 verson of linux mint LMAO!. I may install this on one of my test machines & check it out.

But no 32bit, only 64bit, right?

Better you use single board pc to run tinycore .

>50mb thats way too much for me, i'm looking for somthing that can run on 16

Does it work on ram only

First time I've actually seen a review, of this distro. Looks pretty good, though I probably wouldn't use it on any of my main machines. It might be good for use on a Raspberry Pi or some sort of handheld device, me thinks!