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Geek Culture / My Tiny Core Linux Project: Help me find the missing piece!

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nonZero
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Posted: 10th Dec 2012 19:45
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Preamble:
Recently I've been putting some time into rehabilitation an old laptop a friend gave me. This was prolly the worst timing as my ISP has been killing my connection periodically over the last few days.
Specs:


So naturally, I decided to go utilizing TinyCore Linux as an OS and I installed it to the HDD (I had to use CorePlus at 64MB as I only have Wifi).
So after downloading some packages (with much frustration whenever my ISP decided to kill my connection), forcing the native video resolution (the intel display driver package crashed the monitor) and playing with config files, I've got what I'm proud to say is a very capable OS with just the features I need. It boots in a total time of 19 seconds (which I intend to still trim down when I get around to it). Anyway so I'm happy! ... ...

...Well, almost. There is ONE thing I could do with: My Wacom tablet. I have a Wacom Bamboo and cannot find a single package for it aside from the pen-touch-tablet-input one which isn't working for me. Anybody here got any suggestions? Links or package names would be great. Anybody even use Tiny Core for this kinda full-blown stuff?

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Phaelax
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Posted: 10th Dec 2012 22:12
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Wacom has linux drivers on their website for the bamboo. Have you tried those?

There's also this:
http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/linuxwacom/index.php?title=Main_Page

"You're not going crazy. You're going sane in a crazy world!" ~Tick
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WLGfx
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Posted: 12th Dec 2012 03:50 Edited at: 12th Dec 2012 03:51
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On your main menu in Linux (like windows start menu), under preferences you can add additional linux drivers downloaded using "Additional Drivers" straight from the menu.

I've only had to install an additional windows wireless driver so far and not had to use the other driver preferences option.

EDIT: I like the idea of that linux distro though. First time I've come across it.

Mental arithmetic? Me? (That's for computers) I can't subtract a fart from a plate of beans!
Warning! May contain Nuts!
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nonZero
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Posted: 12th Dec 2012 12:28
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Quote: "Wacom has linux drivers on their website for the bamboo. Have you tried those?

There's also this:
http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/linuxwacom/index.php?title=Main_Page"


Thanks, will check them out and see if any are TCLinux friendly.

Quote: "On your main menu in Linux (like windows start menu), under preferences you can add additional linux drivers downloaded using "Additional Drivers" straight from the menu."


Such a menu does not exist in TC, only a context menu and the teminal.

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Phaelax
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Posted: 13th Dec 2012 20:44
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I've run redhat on lower specs than that. Why tclinux?

"You're not going crazy. You're going sane in a crazy world!" ~Tick
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WLGfx
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Posted: 13th Dec 2012 21:47
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openSUSE linux already has in its default setup drivers for the Wacom tablets. It was only today I had to install a few other linux distros to get my tower pc working again. So far none were working because it has and AMD i686 processor. The openSUSE is just the distro for it and works 100%.

And I spotted the Wacom Tablet stuff and came back here...

Mental arithmetic? Me? (That's for computers) I can't subtract a fart from a plate of beans!
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nonZero
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Posted: 14th Dec 2012 12:29
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Quote: "I've run redhat on lower specs than that. Why tclinux?"

Because it's a beautiful distro. The problem is there's a TinyCommunity for TinyCore. I wanted to build a fully functional OS that could compete with the likes of a regular OS. I'm also passionate about learning more about it (through actual experience).

Things that make tc great:



Quote: "openSUSE linux already has in its default setup drivers for the Wacom tablets"

Never tried openSUSE before. Just out of curiosity, am prolly gonna give it a spin, but I still ultimately want to get the perfect tinycore machine. Maybe I'll see if I can build those linuxwacom drivers for tc.

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Phaelax
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Posted: 16th Dec 2012 22:02
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Does it run its own GUI or can you use kde/gnome?

"You're not going crazy. You're going sane in a crazy world!" ~Tick
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nonZero
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Posted: 17th Dec 2012 11:42
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By default it runs flwm. One can setup it up to run Gnome, etc. Though I've never tried. I fell in love the minimalistic desktop environment. It's very appealing seeing no menu bars, task bars, etc. Windows are completely hidden when minimised too so you see nothing but desktop wallpaper. There's an icon dock for installed apps but it's not too offensive and can be hidden. Everything is can be done by terminal and/or context menu which appears if you click the desktop.

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Aertic
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Posted: 18th Dec 2012 19:36
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OOH! Ooh! A linux thread, why didn't nobody tell me? I currently run a very minimal Linux installation on my laptop of which has an Intel Atom N270 and what I think is a Intel GMA 945 (Not sure on the specifics of that). It originally came installed with Windows 7 Starter of which is like rubbing salt into a wound. I've never played around with TinyCore, I'm an Arch man myself whereas my netbook runs Debian just out of pure laziness on my behalf.

On the laptop I'm running a tiling windows manager under the lovely name Awesome WM. Its very extensive and customizable using Lua. To go from tty1 to Awesome with the xinit command takes the thing under 2 seconds. I love it. I've also swapped out GRUB 2 for Lilo.

Quote: "The problem is there's a TinyCommunity for TinyCore. I wanted to build a fully functional OS that could compete with the likes of a regular OS. I'm also passionate about learning more about it (through actual experience)."


If you want a Linux distro thats bare-bones and has a large community, I highly reccomened Arch Linux for that.
A) Its community is massive (The #archlinux and #archlinux-offtopic channels on irc.freenode.net are always active and fun).
B) Its got the most packages out there if you include the AUR. The AUR is probably one of the coolest things I've seen.
C) Its so bleeding edge that it hurts (Thats actually quite good).

However if you want to actually learn Linux -- Don't use it, build it. Linux From Scratch!
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nonZero
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Posted: 19th Dec 2012 08:57
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Had a look at Arch Linux page and I'm intrigued. It looks very, very flexible too - sort of thing I could play with for ages - so I'm busy downloading it as we speak
Thanks for the info.


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The Wilderbeast
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Posted: 21st Dec 2012 14:41 Edited at: 21st Dec 2012 15:01
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Arch Linux is also my favorite distro by far. The package manager is great (pacman), the AUR is brilliant, the documentation on the wiki is invaluable and the community is very helpful. It is also very BSD-like (at least it used to be, not so much now) which is nice because Linux can be a confusing mess at times. After install you get a shell and not a lot else – everything from there on is completely up to you! I have it installed on my IBM ThinkPad – with a windows manager (another Awesome WM user here ), a VM instance, and a couple of extra daemons running it still only uses 96MB RAM!

If you are having problems then feel free to send me a mail - although you'll find the community is very willing to help (so long as you search thoroughly for an answer first - never forget this!)

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TheComet
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Posted: 21st Dec 2012 15:34
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Quote: "why didn't nobody tell me?"


They did. Double negatives ftw

TheComet

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WLGfx
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Posted: 21st Dec 2012 19:14
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I've still not got round to testing out TinyCore linux yet but it is so tempting to try out as soon as I can.

My first experience of linux was using Linux Mint which is so easy to install and picks up every driver (unlike a windows install) and looks like windows. Now that I've gotten used to using it after many months I've been playing around a lot more. I've settled now using the cinamon desktop.

So much better than windows, and installed in about 15-20 minutes...

Mental arithmetic? Me? (That's for computers) I can't subtract a fart from a plate of beans!
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nonZero
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Posted: 21st Dec 2012 20:51
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Quote: "...a windows manager (another Awesome WM user here ), a VM instance, and a couple of extra daemons running it still only uses 96MB RAM!"


That's pretty awesome. Haven't even installed Arch yet (been very busy) but that sounds impressive. I love minimalism and low foot-print. This is partly one of the reasons I want to gain this understanding of Linux (To me, being able to use an OS and understanding it are different).

Quote: "Linux can be a confusing mess at times"

Only because of bad habits taught by M$. When I started using Linux a few years back it was intimidating and for a long time I felt as if I was parrot-learning it. Time went by and I started getting a better understanding and, tbh, looking back I can honestly say that I wish I'd gone from DOS to Linux and not Windows.

Quote: "I've still not got round to testing out TinyCore Linux yet but it is so tempting to try out as soon as I can"

It's one of those distros you'll either love or hate.

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The Wilderbeast
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Posted: 21st Dec 2012 21:09
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Quote: "Only because of bad habits taught by M$. When I started using Linux a few years back it was intimidating and for a long time I felt as if I was parrot-learning it. Time went by and I started getting a better understanding and, tbh, looking back I can honestly say that I wish I'd gone from DOS to Linux and not Windows."

Well, that too! Trying to get my head round Linux coming from Windows was a mindf***.

But no, what I meant was compared to true Unix operating systems (BSD etc.), it's a bit of a mess in places. As I mentioned earlier, Arch is actually very similar to FreeBSD in many aspects (boot process, config files, ports-like build system) - and thus it is very easy to find things as usually they're where you'd expect them to be. Make sure you post some screenies and stats when you're done!

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Aertic
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Posted: 22nd Dec 2012 17:30 Edited at: 22nd Dec 2012 17:31
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When I first swapped to a UNIX/UNIX-like based OS, it was definitely a tad bit confusing, but within a week or two with diapers on, you really get to learn some stuff about computers you didn't even know. I love it. I don't think I'll be using Windows as my home OS any time soon.

That being said, once you have Arch Linux set up, I suggest using cli-based programs in order to reduce stress on your box. So if you want a music player than I'd suggest either cmus or use mpd with ncmpcpp. If you're after a file manager, try out vifm or Ranger. If you want a terminal/text only web browser (For those moments where you need to google something quickly), try out elinks. That being said, you probably want a "modern" web browser - Don't look at Firefox, don't bother with chrome, don't even start with Midori or anything else the like. Try out my personal favorite Luakit or check out Uzbl. Luakit is probably one of the coolest web browsers I've tried out, its fast, it uses Lua modules (So you can easily create plug-ins for it), its very customizable and its really lightweight. That being said you probably want a terminal too, for that I suggest the very popular urxvt (You'll also want to create a .Xresources or .Xdefaults file in your home directory with your settings and colours for this terminal emulator, if you want I could give you my .Xresources dotfile when you're up and running). For a movie player, I'd suggest mplayer with the smplayer graphical frontend. Oh, yes! Text editors! To begin with when you install Arch you may have Nano installed, I guess its ~okay~ for a start, but you'll want to install Vim sooner on. Vim is lovely.

Now I'm just listing software. So many choices. ~_~ Also I suggest abstaining from a display manager, just use a .xinitrc file in your home directory and use the command xinit or startx to begin a X server.

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nonZero
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Posted: 22nd Dec 2012 19:59
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Wow, so many things, so little time. I ran the boot disk in a VM and found and "install.txt" in the default dir. According to the doc, I need to install the base system (150MB odd download) which is a problem at the moment because my ISP (well my relatives' ISP technically) has been playing up for a while (they said it was the router so I took our old router and the exact same problems occurred). Anyway we lose access for a few moments now and then so I was wondering:

a) Is there a way to install this base system using an external media (like optical disk, flashdrive, etc)? Is it not somewhere on the Arch ISO?

b) If not, will the downloader timeout during the base install and cause me to have to try again. I'm on a 384k line so 150MB takes a long time.

"Nyuuuuu" ~ Nyu
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The Wilderbeast
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Posted: 24th Dec 2012 16:25
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Don't forget that when you boot from a USB, it puts you in an Arch environment from the get-go - so anything you read on the wiki can be applied to the installed environment. Take a read of this: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Offline_Installation_of_Packages. And this https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners'_Guide.

It will try several times for each package, so it's quite possible you can just ride out the downtime and it'll download it once it re-establishes a connection. Otherwise you can just drop into the shell and install the necessary packages manually.

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nonZero
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Posted: 24th Dec 2012 18:14
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Quote: "It will try several times for each package..."

That's a relief. Tks for the links too. They'll definitely come in handy since I could prolly download a lot of stuff at my cousin's place (she has a much better ISP but the tradeoff is she has a monthly bandwidth limit).

Here's a little something I threw together for Christmas
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