Minimalistic Linux - TinyCore 3
If you are looking for the smallest Linux possible and want to add just a few applications, then you really need to look at TinyCore.
11MB of disk, 64MB of RAM (perhaps less), 2.6.xx kernel, X11 or not, your choice. What more do you need to know?
Small Footprint in Disk AND Memory – 11MB
Do you have 11MB of Disk and 64MB of RAM? TinyCore Linux will work for you.
Most of us don’t consider the amount of storage that an OS requires until you have hundreds or thousands of OS images to manage, backup, and patch. This becomes really important when you deal with virtual machines too. The base OS is 11MB.
This distro can be placed on USB Flash disks, CDs, DVDs, whatever. With 10MB of storage, that means those small free USB flash drives that vendors give away aren’t worthless either. I have a few 32MB USB flash drives that weren’t very useful. Now they are.
FAST
When an OS is this small, it will be fast, even on 5+ yr old equipment. Fast is an understatement. After loading Firefox (the repository had the latest version released just a few days ago), I needed to load NoScript and AdBlockPlus. Each of those extensions requires a restart of Firefox to install. Normally, on a Core i5 system, that requires about 10 seconds. On this system running inside a VM, it was about 0.5 seconds.
Avoiding Bloat
It is in your power to avoid bloat. You control what applications get loaded, not some other distribution maker who believes that 2GB disks are common for the OS.
TinyCore has some different behaviors than the other distributions. Mainly, applications and user data is not stored as part of the bootable OS, even after you install to a hard drive or other similar storage device. Obviously, the more applications that you install then the more storage and RAM will will require, but with TinyLinux, YOU HAVE CONTROL over the bloat.
For any changes made during a session to be stored, you need to backup the settings. There is a backup and a restore capability built into TinyCore. If you use the icon to shutdown the system, a checkbox will be displayed that defaults to saving (i.e. backing up) your apps and settings. After loading a few apps and all the dependencies (automatic), the storage required was 120MB. There are other small Linux distributions that are half that size, but they don’t include the poplar applications that I’ve loaded. They use 1-off applications for email and web browsing.
Current Kernels
No disrespect for Puppy Linux or DSL, but the Linux 2.4 kernel has been out of date for some time guys. TinyCore is not running the very latest kernel, but is it fairly current; 2.6.27.
Popular Applications
While any list here will not cover some application that you use, their appear to be hundreds, perhaps thousands of applications listed in the repositories for download. A short list:
- Firefox
- Thunderbird
- VLC
- Mplayer
- Apache
and many, many others. A few screen shots to wet your appetite.
Mac-Like Application Launcher
TinyCore has the OSX-like Launch Bar. See the bottom center of this link . When you move your mouse over an installed application, the icon grows larger. Selecting it launches the app with a nearly immediate display of the application window. As you install other applications, they are automatically added to this launch bar.
Perfect? No.
Is TinyCore perfect? No. It uses an new/different package manager that takes advantage of loopback devices to load the applications. Also, I was able to corrupt the X/Windows startup by changing the HDD from IDE to SATA (for performance reasons). Still, There is a place for this distro when you don’t want anything more than what you want.
Why Did I Bother?
I find myself with a Via C7 system that only has 512MB of RAM and a 512MB (not GB) IDE flash drive that I’d like to turn into a media playback system. 512MB isn’t much for most distributions. Further, the form-factor of the case prevents adding a 3.5" disk. It can hold a 2.5" disk, but it already has the SSD. For a media center, being silent and low power is ideal too.
I really intended to use XBMC, but due to limitations in the on-board graphics, XBMC isn’t an option. The 1U case and only PCI (no AGP or PCI-E) prevent using a different graphics card that is compatible with XBMC. ;(
Thoughts for Hosting Providers
If you are a hosting provider, supporting lots of applications, lots of users with as much of the OS and Apps being identical can really reduce your storage requirements. When it comes time to patch, as the hosting provider, you can patch 1 file and cover perhaps thousands of virtual machines.
If you are an enterprise and do not want users keeping corporate data on their local disks or any devices outside your data center, TinyCore can be setup to use remote storage for the user settings too. Think about that for a few minutes. You control the apps, you control where things can be stored AND everything is small and fast. You may have just eliminated all desktop HDD troubleshooting from your enterprise and virtualized the desktop hardware without really virtualizing anything. Nice. I can see many, many uses inside enterprises. Perhaps best of all, it isn’t MS-Windows and is completely FOSS under the GPL v2.
Try It Out!
If you already use a virtualization technology, just create a new VM, give it some RAM and point it to the ISO file to boot. No need to add a virtual HDD at all unless you want to save some settings and downloaded applications between boots.
Check out the TinyCore forums for more use-cases, tips and techniques that I haven’t mentioned here.
Ubuntu has a low memory install, but not a low disk space install. They say you can install Ubuntu to a 600GB disk here. Nice. I’d prefer 600MB.
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I have tryed out latest edition v3.2 live and install but in both ways it does not recognize my intel 100 MBit Lan adapter thus can not connect to net (i have automatic access to internet thru router) and load apropriete module if such ! I realy like to use it due to building virtualization server vith various soft app for that purpose ! Slitaz is great but do not recognize two hdd drives atached thru Vibra16s so i look furher, but all os distros that i try do not aplay my needs ! Its always something missing, can not be done and so on … ! Simple minimal modular full hardware supported fast as can be and with package manager ! Any idea ! Pupy linux with debian support – dpup will also be good choice but can not remove provided apps (striped down do not egsist) included in os and barebones are without package management ! So what to do or what to use ! I have heard that linux is so great praised to heaven but the truth is that is poorly hardware supported especialy graphic card lack of performance and installing apropriate driver if such egsists manualy is pain in the ass thus so many problems with it ! Windows supports it all !
Hi Steve!
I can tell that you are a little frustrated, but comparing a minimal distribution put together by volunteers to a $129 operating system built by one of the 3 largest software companies in the world is hardly fair.
First, I’ll take a stab at a comparison …
I have a 3 yr old printer and 2 scanners that MS-Windows7 doesn’t support because they were too old for the manufacturer to bother. All these devices work fine and don’t need to be replaced. Fortunately, Linux supports them perfectly so I wasn’t forced into unwanted hardware updates.
Thanks
The Slitaz distro is new to me. It appears to fit in 30MB, which is pretty good these days. Thanks for the pointer.
If you are new to Linux, staying with the major, large distributions is recommended. Perhaps Mint or Ubuntu would deal with your hardware better? They are still fairly efficient when compared to MS-Windows-whatever. Efficient on install size and efficient on RAM when compared to Windows.
Graphics card drivers are written by the graphics design vendors. ATI and nVidia do provide Linux drivers, but they are not as current as their MS-Windows drivers for a large number of reasons. Why a distribution doesn’t or can’t include proprietary video drivers is a huge question – there are reasons.
Anyway, the best advice I can give you is to always check the Linux Hardware Compatibility List when you are considering any hardware purchase. If you select only well supported hardware, then you tend to get better quality products with higher maturity that will be supported for many, many years. Even if a particular device is on the supported list, that doesn’t mean you won’t need to download the software and build it for your system, but at least you won’t be stuck waiting for a vendor that may NEVER release the driver that you need.
Another option for you is to build your own distribution with exactly the kernel, drivers and applications that you want. Then you can also include the specific programs that you want – you don’t even need to include a shell for most users, unless you want them to have shell access. Not all distros have a package manager.
I hope you solve the issues. Expecting Linux to work like Windows or Windows communities isn’t a good idea. Linux and the communities work in a different way.
Thanks ! I do alredy know all the big distros in Linux ! What im missing in Linux is some kind of standards making the life easyer ! Linux is a great but hard to use tool especialy for newbie ! So far i do not have anything against how to Linux is used supported programmed in embeded and server system but for desktop purpose that is a another story ! All the linuxes can be use the ‘’same package manager’’ thus many soft app from developers programmers came from the binary or from the source and all of us including you want to install and use some app that are not in software respository available ! And installing from source as you know (hopefully) is another story and absolutely not simple and easy and then if you want to aplay install on yours faworite distros you can be stuck for good, depends what distro you use ! I have alredy made may choice in how what and which distro to build install and use ! Yes im litle bit frustrated what concerns Linux but im using testing more distros thus pointing to problems as i see during the use ! Im not so good (yet maybe i will) at linux in general but with windows i can make some wizards things with system, drivers and administration ! Mainly my self im using customized stripped down win xp 2003 vista win 7 with more than half cutting down size installed on HD with all fucionalitiy and there is’nt no such things for me as non working printer driver and so on ! I can even manage to install some old drivers for ancient but good sound card in win 7 if you like ! Under win i’m involved in maintain upgrade secure troubleshotting problems mainly system administration and small networking but im not programmer nor developer ! Im mehanical engineer thermodynamic and energetic using mainly mehanical and thermodnamical software packageges such CAD PTC Ansys involved in IT thru Windows problems. So im interested in all kind of computer and araund stuff. Im only pointing to that that can be some ease of use in widows ported to Linux, but that doesnt mean that Linux must become like Windows at all ! Lately im in huge interest in virtualization tech due to to many problems with windows such as portability security and so on … that is main reason for interest in Linux so much !