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

tinycorelinux.net

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

#61

Post by pbhjpbhj »

bflesch wrote: post #2

Looks really nice, I like the idea. But can they please empower a user interface designer to simply improve the margins and paddings of their interface? With a bunch of small improvements it would look significantly better. Just fix the spacing between buttons and borders and other UI elements.

This just looks like a standard _old_ *nix project. I've used Tiny, a couple of decades ago IIRC, from a magazine cover CD.

I imagine the sign-off date of 2008, the lack of very simple to apply mobile css, and no https to secure the downloads (if it had it then it would probably be SSL).

This speaks to me of a project that's 'good enough', or abandoned, for/by those who made it. Left out to pasture as 'community dev submissions accepted'.

I've not bothered to look, but wouldn't surprise me if the UI is hardcoded in assembly and a complete ballache to try and change.

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

#62

Post by taylodl »

anyfoo wrote: post #60
gardnr wrote: post #56

I love lightweight distros. QNX had a "free as in beer" distro that fit on a floppy, with Xwindows and modem drivers. After years of wrangling with Slackware CDs, it was pretty wild to boot into a fully functional system from a floppy.

That famous QNX boot disk was the first thing I thought of when reading the title as well.

Me too! And the GUI was only a 40KB distribution and was waaaaaay better than Windows 3.0!

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

#63

Post by beng-nl »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #39
trollbridge wrote: post #9

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

To think that the entire distro would fit in a reasonable LLC (last level cache)..

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

#64

Post by snek_case »

maccard wrote: post #17
trollbridge wrote: post #9

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.

I had a 386 PC with 4MB of RAM when I was a kid, and it ran Windows 3.1 with a GUI, but that also had a VGA display at 640x480, and only 16-bit color (4 bits per pixel). So 153,600 bytes for the frame buffer.

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

#65

Post by samtheprogram »

ifh-hn wrote: post #43

I've used many of these small Linux distros. I used to have Tiny Core in a VM for different things. I also like SliTaz: http://slitaz.org/en , and Slax too: https://www.slax.org/ Oh and puppy Linux, which I could never get into but was good for live CDs: https://puppylinux-woof-ce.github.io/ And there's also Alpine too.

Wow, Slax is still around and supports Debian now too? Thanks for sharing.

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

#66

Post by Dwedit »

snek_case wrote: post #64
maccard wrote: 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.

I had a 386 PC with 4MB of RAM when I was a kid, and it ran Windows 3.1 with a GUI, but that also had a VGA display at 640x480, and only 16-bit color (4 bits per pixel). So 153,600 bytes for the frame buffer.

640 * 480 / 2 = 150KB for a classic 16-color VGA screen.

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

#68

Post by wizzwizz4 »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #44
adrianN wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Switching away from clay tablets was a step in the wrong direction.

Those clay tablets needed to be fired and had a negative carbon footprint. Handmade parchment, or leather carvings if you don’t mind.

Those both require cattle farming, which is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions (at least 10%, perhaps as high as 19.6%, per https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/food-agriculture-environm...). Stick with papyrus or wax, please.

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

#69

Post by hdb2 »

ifh-hn wrote: post #43

I've used many of these small Linux distros. I used to have Tiny Core in a VM for different things. I also like SliTaz: http://slitaz.org/en , and Slax too: https://www.slax.org/ Oh and puppy Linux, which I could never get into but was good for live CDs: https://puppylinux-woof-ce.github.io/ And there's also Alpine too.

> I also like SliTaz

thank you for this reminder! I had completely forgotten about SliTaz, looks like I need to check it out again!

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

#70

Post by ddalex »

gardnr wrote: post #56

I love lightweight distros. QNX had a "free as in beer" distro that fit on a floppy, with Xwindows and modem drivers. After years of wrangling with Slackware CDs, it was pretty wild to boot into a fully functional system from a floppy.

I never understood how that QNX desktop didn't pick up instanntly, it was amazing !
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