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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

#51

Post by maccard »

firesteelrain wrote: post #31
hypeatei wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Is that actually tiny core? It’s _likely_ it is, but that’s not good enough.

> this same thing came up a few years ago

Honestly, that makes this inexcusable. There are numerous SSL providers available for free, and if that’s antithetical to them, they can use a self signed certificate and provide an alternative method of verification (e.g. via mailing list). The fact they don’t take this seriously means there is 0 chance I would install it!

Honestly, this is a great use for a blockchain…

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

#52

Post by psychoslave »

forinti wrote: post #38
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.

The Acorn Archimedes had the whole OS on a 512KB ROM. That said, OSs came with a lot less stuff then.

If that is a lot less of things not needed for the specific use case, that is still a big plus.

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

#53

Post by jsheard »

jerrythegerbil wrote: post #37
echoangle wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Doesn't the UEFI firmware map a GPU framebuffer into the main address space "for free" so you can easily poke raw pixels over the bus? Then again the UEFI FB is only single-buffered, so if you rely on that in lieu of full-fat GPU drivers then you'd probably want to layer some CPU framebuffers on top anyway.

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

#54

Post by uecker »

embedding-shape wrote: post #28
hypeatei wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

An integrity check where both what you're checking and the hash you're checking against is literally not better than nothing if you're trying to prevent downloading compromised software. It'd flag corrupted downloads at least, so that's cool, but for security purposes the hash for a artifact has to be served OOB.

It is better than nothing if you note it down. You can compare it later if somebody / or you was compromised to see whether you had the same download as everyone else.

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

#55

Post by linguae »

wild_egg wrote: post #6
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.

Modern UX trends are a scourge of excessive whitespace and low information density that get in the way of actually accomplishing tasks. Any project that rejects those trends gets bonus points in my book.

I sympathize, but I feel compelled to point out that the parent didn’t say that the interface had to look like a contemporary desktop.

In my opinion, I believe the Tiny Core Linux GUI could use some more refinement. It seems inspired by 90s interfaces, but when compared to the interfaces of the classic Mac OS, Windows 95, OS/2 Warp, and BeOS, there’s more work to be done regarding the fit-and-finish of the UI, judging by the screenshots.

To be fair, I assume this is a hobbyist open source project where the contributors spend time as they see fit. I don’t want to be too harsh. Fit-and-finish is challenging; not even Steve Jobs-era Apple with all of its resources got Aqua right the first time when it unveiled the Mac OS X Public Beta in 2000. Massive changes were made between the beta and Mac OS X 10.0, and Aqua kept getting refined with each successive version, with the most refined version, in my opinion, being Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, nearly five years after the public beta.

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

#57

Post by pastage »

psychoslave wrote: post #52
forinti wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Acorn Archimedes had the whole OS on a 512KB ROM. That said, OSs came with a lot less stuff then.

If that is a lot less of things not needed for the specific use case, that is still a big plus.

It was GUI defined manually by pixel coordinates, having more flexible guis that could autoscale and other snazy things made things really "slow" back then..

Sure we could go back... Maybe we should. But there are lots of stuff we take for granted to day that were not available back then.

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

#58

Post by taylodl »

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.

When I first started using QNX back in 1987/88 it was distributed on a couple of 1.4MB floppy diskettes! And you could install a graphical desktop that was a 40KB distribution!

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

#59

Post by firesteelrain »

maccard wrote: post #51
firesteelrain wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Is that actually tiny core? It’s _likely_ it is, but that’s not good enough. > this same thing came up a few years ago Honestly, that makes this inexcusable. There are numerous SSL providers available for free, and if that’s antithetical to them, they can use a self signed certificate and provide an alternative method of verification (e.g. via mailing list). The fact they don’t take this seriously means there is 0 ch…

I usually only install on like a Raspberry Pi or VM for these toy distros

Are any distros using block chain for this ?

I am used to using code signing with HSMs

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

#60

Post by anyfoo »

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.
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