Live data from Hacker News

Tiny Core Linux: a 23 MB Linux distro with graphical desktop

tinycorelinux.net

31–40 of 258 posts

Re: Tiny Core Linux: a 23 MB Linux distro with graphical desktop

#31
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is served from the same insecure domain. If the download is compromised you should assume the hash from here is too.

An integrity check is better than nothing, but yes it says nothing about its authenticity.

You can use this site

https://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/downloads.html

And all the files are here

https://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/16.x/x86/release/

Under a HTTPS connection. I am not at a terminal to check the cert with OpenSSL.

I don’t see any way to check the hash OOB

Also this same thing came up a few years ago

https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-newbie-8/reli...

Re: Tiny Core Linux: a 23 MB Linux distro with graphical desktop

#32
post #17

Not to disrespect this, but it used to be entirely normal to have a GUI environment on a machine with 2MB of RAM and a 40MB disk. Or 128K of ram and 400 kb disk for that matter.

A single 1920x1080 framebuffer (which is a low resolution monitor in 2025 IMO) is 2MB. Add any compositing into the mix for multi window displays and it literally doesn’t fit in memory.

[dead]

Re: Tiny Core Linux: a 23 MB Linux distro with graphical desktop

#33
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And compare it against what? EDIT: nevermind, I see that it has the md5 in a text file here: http://www.tinycorelinux.net/16.x/x86/release/

Which is served from the same insecure domain. If the download is compromised you should assume the hash from here is too.

There is a secure domain to download from as a mirror. For extra high security, the hash should be delivered OOB like on a mailing list but it isn’t

Re: Tiny Core Linux: a 23 MB Linux distro with graphical desktop

#34
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A single 1920x1080 framebuffer (which is a low resolution monitor in 2025 IMO) is 2MB. Add any compositing into the mix for multi window displays and it literally doesn’t fit in memory.

Do you really need the framebuffer in RAM? Wouldn't that be entirely in the GPU RAM?

Aren’t you cheating by having additional ram dedicated for gpu use exclusively? :)

Re: Tiny Core Linux: a 23 MB Linux distro with graphical desktop

#36
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A single 1920x1080 framebuffer (which is a low resolution monitor in 2025 IMO) is 2MB. Add any compositing into the mix for multi window displays and it literally doesn’t fit in memory.

Do you really need the framebuffer in RAM? Wouldn't that be entirely in the GPU RAM?

VGA standard supports up to 256k

Re: Tiny Core Linux: a 23 MB Linux distro with graphical desktop

#37
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A single 1920x1080 framebuffer (which is a low resolution monitor in 2025 IMO) is 2MB. Add any compositing into the mix for multi window displays and it literally doesn’t fit in memory.

Do you really need the framebuffer in RAM? Wouldn't that be entirely in the GPU RAM?

To put it in GPU RAM, you need GPU drivers.

For example, NVIDIA GPU drivers are typically around 800M-1.5G.

That math actually goes wildly in the opposite direction for an optimization argument.

Re: Tiny Core Linux: a 23 MB Linux distro with graphical desktop

#38

Not to disrespect this, but it used to be entirely normal to have a GUI environment on a machine with 2MB of RAM and a 40MB disk. Or 128K of ram and 400 kb disk for that matter.

The Acorn Archimedes had the whole OS on a 512KB ROM.

That said, OSs came with a lot less stuff then.

Re: Tiny Core Linux: a 23 MB Linux distro with graphical desktop

#39

Not to disrespect this, but it used to be entirely normal to have a GUI environment on a machine with 2MB of RAM and a 40MB disk. Or 128K of ram and 400 kb disk for that matter.

I would like to have this again

I prefer to use additional RAM and disk for data not code

Re: Tiny Core Linux: a 23 MB Linux distro with graphical desktop

#40
post #4

The site doesn't have HTTPS and there doesn't seem to be any mention of signatures on the downloads page. Any way to check it hasn't been MITM'd?

Because there's big demand to mitm users of an extremely small and limited distribution from 2008?
Post reply on HN