[aklug] Re: Tinycore

On 01/06/11 16:57, Jeremy Austin wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 6, 2011 at 3:22 PM, Christopher Howard
> <christopher.howard@frigidcode.com> wrote:
>> Tried tinycore livecd. Interesting concepte. System runs entirely from ram. Non system apps r either loaded into ram at boot, loaded into ram on-demand, or run from persistant storage, depending on ur config. Want 2 play around with this more.
> A number of live CDs have been mentioned on-list. Knoppix (and
> variants) is a fairly complete live DVD that has got me out of a bind
> more than once.
>
> jermudgeon
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The "interesting concept" isn't that TinyCore is a livecd. I was
referring to the interesting concept(s) behind the OS itself.

A few of these concepts, from what I've been able to gather so far:

- The ideal goal of the OS (Regardless of how it is installed -- there
are several methods) is to have all the system and application files
always mounted in RAM, rather than accessed on disk, thus making the OS
super fast. There are several "compromises" with this ideal, such as
having all "system" files mounted into RAM, while having the
"application" files mounted on a persistent file system, or having
application files copied from compressed files on disk into RAM
"on-demand" (i.e., the first time the user wants to use them during the
session).

- The separation of "system" and "application" files, in such a way so
that an installation of any application package will never do any
permanent damage to your system. The boot process first causes the
system files to be decompressed and mounted to RAM. Then, at the end of
the boot up process (or during run-time) your preferred application
packages are decompressed and mounted to RAM, depending on what settings
you put in a configuration file (created by TinyCore's app control panel
utility).

Anyway, read through this, and then try the live CD at tinycorelinux.com:

http://www.tinycorelinux.com/concepts.html

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