Tiny Core Linux: a 23 MB Linux distro with graphical desktop • Hacker News Board

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

#81

Post by jbstack » Sat, Dec 06, 2025, 5:02 PM UTC

dayeye2006 wrote: post #76

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.

wondering what's your typical usage for those small distros?

They can be nice for running low footprint VMs (e.g. in LXD / Incus) where you don't want to use a container. Alpine in particular is popular for this. The downside is there are sometimes compatibility issues where packages expect certain dependencies that Alpine doesn't provide.

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

#82

Post by bobmcnamara » Sat, Dec 06, 2025, 5:03 PM UTC

beng-nl wrote: post #63

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)..

I've been wondering if I could pull the DIMM from a running machine if everything was cached.

Probably not due to DMA buffers. Maybe a headless machine.

But would be funny to see.

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

#83

Post by croes » Sat, Dec 06, 2025, 5:04 PM UTC

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.

With 320x240 pixels and 256 colors

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

#84

Post by jsheard » Sat, Dec 06, 2025, 5:04 PM UTC

the8472 wrote: post #72

jsheard wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

well, if you poke framebuffer pixels directly you might as well do scanline racing.

Alas, I don't think UEFI exposes vblank/hblank interrupts so you'd just have to YOLO the timing.

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

#85

Post by nopakos » Sat, Dec 06, 2025, 5:05 PM UTC

dayeye2006 wrote: post #76

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.

wondering what's your typical usage for those small distros?

I use one of them to make an old EEE laptop a dedicated Pico-8 machine for my kids. [https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php]

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

#86

Post by Romario77 » Sat, Dec 06, 2025, 5:06 PM UTC

noufalibrahim wrote: post #73

In around 2002, I got my hands on an old 386 which I was planning to use for teaching myself things. I was able to breathe life into it using MicroLinux. Two superformatted 1.44" floppy disks and the thing booted. Basic kernel, 16 colour X display, C compiler and Editor. I don't know if there are any other options for older machines other than stripped down Linux distros.

I mean - DOS or it's equivalents still exist and for older computers you will probably be able to find drivers.

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

#87

Post by nilamo » Sat, Dec 06, 2025, 5:07 PM UTC

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.

"640k ought to be enough for everyone!"

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

#88

Post by dpflug » Sat, Dec 06, 2025, 5:10 PM UTC

noufalibrahim wrote: post #73

In around 2002, I got my hands on an old 386 which I was planning to use for teaching myself things. I was able to breathe life into it using MicroLinux. Two superformatted 1.44" floppy disks and the thing booted. Basic kernel, 16 colour X display, C compiler and Editor. I don't know if there are any other options for older machines other than stripped down Linux distros.

https://freedos.org/

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

#89

Post by Narishma » Sat, Dec 06, 2025, 5:13 PM UTC

bdbdbdb wrote: post #50

veganjay wrote: post #15

I have an older laptop with a 32-bit processor and found that TinyCoreLinux runs well on it. It has its own package manager that was easy to learn. This distro can be handy in these niche situations.

Similar situation here. Have some old 32bit machines that I'm turning into writer decks. Most Linux distros have left 32bit behind so you can't just use Debian or Ubuntu and a lot of distros that aim to run on lower hardware are Ubuntu derivatives

Same situation but I'm using NetBSD instead. I'm betting it'll still be supporting 32-bit x86 long after the linux kernel drops it.

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

#90

Post by jsheard » Sat, Dec 06, 2025, 5:15 PM UTC

monocasa wrote: post #48

Rohansi wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> NVIDIA GPU drivers are typically around 800M-1.5G. They also pack in a lot of game-specific optimizations for whatever reason. Could likely be a lot smaller without those.

Even the open source drivers without those hacks are massive. Each type of card has its own almost 100MB of firmware that runs on the card on Nvidia.

That's 100MB of RISC-V code, believe it or not, despite Nvidias ARM fixation.