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

#91

Post by maccard » Sat, Dec 06, 2025, 5:26 PM UTC

uecker wrote: post #54

embedding-shape wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sorry but this is nonsense. It’s better than nothing if you proactively log the hashes before you need them, but it’s actively harmful for anyone wi downloads it after it’s compromised.

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

#92

Post by maccard » Sat, Dec 06, 2025, 5:28 PM UTC

echoangle wrote: post #30

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.

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

You’re assuming a discrete GPU with separate VRAM, and only supporting hardware accelerated rendering. If you have that you almost certainly have more than 2MB of ram

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

#93

Post by ErroneousBosh » Sat, Dec 06, 2025, 5:29 PM UTC

echoangle wrote: post #30

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.

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

Computers didn't used to have GPUs back then when 150kB was a significant amount of graphics memory.

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

#94

Post by xyzzy3000 » Sat, Dec 06, 2025, 5:35 PM UTC

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.

That's only RISC OS 2 though. RISC OS 3 was 2MB, and even 3.7 didn't have everything in ROM as Acorn had introduced the !Boot directory for softloading a large amount of 'stuff' at boot time.

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

#95

Post by masfuerte » Sat, Dec 06, 2025, 5:39 PM UTC

pastage wrote: post #57

psychoslave wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The OS did ship with bezier vector font support. AFAIK it was the first GUI to do so.

P.S. I should probably mention that there wasn't room in the ROM for the vector fonts; these needed to be loaded from some other medium.

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

#96

Post by oso2k » Sat, Dec 06, 2025, 5:40 PM UTC

I love Tiny Core Linux for use cases where I need fast boot times or have few resources. Testing old PCs, Pi Zero and Pi Zero 2W are great use cases.

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

#97

Post by Joel_Mckay » Sat, Dec 06, 2025, 5:40 PM UTC

ddalex wrote: post #70

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 !

Licensing, and QNX missed a consumer launch window by around 17 years.

Some businesses stick with markets they know, as non-retail customer revenue is less volatile. If you enter the consumer markets, there are always 30k irrational competitors (likely with 1000X the capital) that will go bankrupt trying to undercut the market.

It is a decision all CEO must make eventually. Best of luck =3

"The Rules for Rulers: How All Leaders Stay in Power"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs

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

#98

Post by anthk » Sat, Dec 06, 2025, 5:53 PM UTC

https://luxferre.top http://t3x.org

All of the minilaguages exposed there will run on TC even with 32MB of RAM.

On TC, set IceWM the default WM with no opaque moving/resizing as default and get rid of that horrible dock.

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

#99

Post by adrianN » Sat, Dec 06, 2025, 5:57 PM UTC

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.

Why fire them when you can just reuse them?

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

#100

Post by devsda » Sat, Dec 06, 2025, 6:03 PM UTC

I've used it around early 2010s as a live cd to fix partitions etc. Definitely recommend as a lightweight distro.

Was a little tricky to install on disk and even on disk it behaved mostly like a live cd and file changes had to be committed to disk IIRC.

Hope they improved the experience now.