Tiny Core Linux is Basically Magic

[@PeterWargo]

I'm fascinated by these small and efficient versions of Linux. I started as a UNIX admin in the 80s working on Sun-2 machines with a blazing 10MHz 68010 and (if I was lucky!) 4MB of RAM. Now I work on machines with 2TB of RAM, and 96 cores, etc. I look back and I'm amazed at how we were able to run not only UNIX but window managers and applications like FrameMAker on those systems. This is why I love your channel; not everything has to be new and shiny to be useful, or just plain fun.

[@AmirRazan]

1:19 That's not a stick of RAM, that's a stick of RM

[@TamCennauldiz]

It's a rather obscure format called "MICRODIMM". This specifically is a 144pin pc100/133 MICRODIMM, which saw use in many 90's subnotebooks. The format itself got a 172pin update in the early 00's, that came in DDR and ddr2 flavorings. Later there was a 214pin version that was exclusively ddr2. No idea what these later ones wouldve been used though.

[@dax-lee]

Random Access Memory 🚫 Random Memory ✅

[@kFY514]

> stick of RM You mean it belongs to Kim Nam-joon? 😏

[@AmirRazan]

@@kFY514 Nah, I thought it was the Malaysian Ringgit

[@HerobrineLolz]

heh.

[@bobsurface908]

That and Puppy Linux. They're astonishing. Also, surely it would have been easier to scrounge for the ribbon to get the USB working?

[@joshuajohnson7198]

Sean, pro tip - don’t use vinegar if you ever need to neutralize acids.

[@richardbrobeck2384]

for sure !baking soda works well

[@AaronOfMpls]

Yah, I figure that's an alkaline battery -- in which case vinegar (a weak acid) might well be neutralizing the alkaline (base) leakage.

[@therealgiant]

Went straight into the comments for this.

[@rigues]

That Thinkpad with a XFCE-based desktop and the Chicago95 theme would be BEAUTIFUL 😍

[@alexandrecouture2462]

There is also very nice Windows 2000 -like theme for IceWM.

[@smileyface8124]

how dare youtube hide this from me for 3 minutes!!

[@NoName-rl3fh]

By his logic you could just scroll on over to it in dillo! LOL

[@ckarnik]

Lovin' that Hoovie's Garage t-shirt.

[@ottergauze]

It's always nice to see Linux distros succeed at the time honoured tradition of reviving old hardware. That Firefox experience on the Thinkpad was actually remarkably passable

[@igorperuchi2114]

Videos like this made me a collaborator via youtube membership! You're awesome, this is just what I've been doing to my old computers, since my AMD Duron from 2001, which now needs a motherboard recap. Keep the videos rolling!

[@myleft9397]

4:00 oh the battery gore! [edit: wow, amazing you got a useable Linux and browser going]

[@prebenjaeger]

That X60s truly is beautiful.

[@valentincupers3000]

The X60s is a great computer. I have one with Void Linux and it can still be used for everyday tasks. It can be a little bit slow when loading big webapps, or require some workaround like yt-dlp to play KZbin videos smoothly, but I really enjoy using it.

[@jasonscherer2631]

My last place used a custom tiny core for network booting. Was fantastic. I think Seagate even uses it for some of their flashes.

[@ernestoditerribile]

Im using Tiny Core for almost 2 years now to run XPenology on a Dual Xeon E5-2699R Server.

[@NoName-rl3fh]

How much power does it consume?

[@ernestoditerribile]

@@NoName-rl3fh It consumes 220W continously while Mining Monero and running several LXC's and VM's in Proxmox.

[@johnnyvash]

I remember around 2017 I ran Tiny core Linux and DSL (Damn Small Linux on my pentium3 machine for 2 years good times

[@TheHighpotinuse]

I tried TinyCore on a MSI Wind U100. It's a small netbook with an intel Atom cpu. My experience was spot on with your ThinkPad. It used 120mb with wifi enabled. The TinyCore software repo was quite extensive but I found the installation and persistence a bit cumbersome. In the end I went with AntiX. It had a more normal window manager and only used 85 with wifi and conky running. I installed Apache and PHP and served pages with only 135mb.

[@pum6454]

now I wanna see tiny core OS on minimum required specifications lol

[@cleanycloth]

I had one of these and sold it recently on eBay as I wasn't using it. For half a second I thought this one was mine, despite not selling it across the pond lol

[@deechvogt1589]

Sean always brings the really neat and highly useful to retro tech! Thanks again Sean for the shaunannigans!!

[@Kilakro]

I just put AntiX on my X201 earlier this week. That laptop is just meant for running Obsidian for my journaling and occasionally looking something up online, it isn't intended for gaming since I just wanted it as a distraction-lite writing machine.

[@atptourfan]

Let’s go! More Action Retro!

[@davidioanhedges]

CMOS battery leaking .... USB to MB cable missing ... Oh Oh! CardBus to USB to the rescue! Words I never thought to hear

[@TheComputerGuy124]

ah yes. linux

[@Linuxtechtips248]

i have been summoned

[@Pleyer7575lol]

LTT!

[@mistersmith489]

The computer gets a little Linux, as a treat

[@kristijanspionjak8850]

I bet KolibriOS would fly on these machines

[@cameronbosch1213]

Fly like a G6? 😂

[@Hallinwar]

@@cameronbosch1213 popping bottles in the ice like blizzard

[@N-CO2]

I bet it would

[@MegaManNeo]

It would. I had the predecessor MenuetOS booting off a 3.5" diskette on my old Pentium 200 when I was still in 6th grade and it ran fine.

[@cameronbosch1213]

@Hallinwar When we drink we do it right getting... (I don't drink alcohol btw.)

[@andresbravo2003]

Excellent. That's exactly how it runs on old PC's.

[@linuxcuanthony493]

Oh Sean vinegar is also asidic why you said neutralize acid with vinegar? 😅

[@felipekfcosta]

I think in most of the cases the battery is actually alkaline

[@linuxcuanthony493]

@felipekfcosta i guess you're right.

[@LymanPhillips]

Man, that IBM laptop is astoundingly beautiful. It's like the laptop that Batman would have.

[@fetusinabox]

vinegar neutralizes the base, not acid

[@Chillipeffer]

What a beautiful peace of tech!

[@sp00kyaction]

Slick as hell! The speed and relative compatibility makes this a very compelling argument for repurposing this old tech instead of melting it down...

[@TamCennauldiz]

I have one of these little buggers. Used to have two but i scrapped one for parts. They're quite nifty, if not a bit of a pain to mess with without the docks

[@Mykyta.Leonidov]

Thank you so much for your video! While watching, I noticed that you removed the CMOS battery from this computer. I have the exact same model, and I never even thought that the battery could cause such corrosion. So, I opened the cover where the mouse is, under which the hard drive is hidden. I carefully cut the cable and was able to remove it separately. Then, by unscrewing just one screw from the top case, I lifted the motherboard slightly and pulled out the battery by the remaining piece of wire, without fully disassembling the computer. I also had some corrosion near the CMOS battery connector, but not as much as you had. Thanks a lot for making me think about this! If it weren’t for you, my computer might have died over time.

[@IunahYT]

tiny core linux is good but you know what's even more optimized for old pieces of crap? compiling linux from scratch (not actually LFS, but just planning everything yourself)

[@defbayonetta]

5:40 I literally jumped back, I have this exact same mouse in my hand as we speak

[@ivarand]

I got one of these toshiba beautys that I salvaged at work - it started my love for tiny pc's. I also got a Portege 4010 that I used myself from 2002 to 2006 or something. Looks like time to try to fire'em up someday again

[@ezequitor]

What a nostaliga shock! I had a Satellite 220 CDS and I installed DSL Linux like 10 years ago. It only had 16mb of ram so booting a modern kernel was impossible. It was also a Pentium 133mhz

[@nicholsliwilson]

6:10 “doesn’t work like any other Linux out there”… what you mean apart from Puppy Linux or any of it’s many derivatives?… @Action Retro I would say Damn Small Linux which started all this but that’s been defunct for a while.

[@JohnSmith-xq1pz]

Ah good old Mistake Edition lol

[@TheCerealHobbyist]

I managed a couple hundred of these on Windows NT. They were rock solid as long as no one plugged anything into the port replicator.

[@MegaManNeo]

Funny how you pulled off the X60. I set up my old X60t again with trimmed down Vista today because I enjoy my 90's and 2000's PC games the most on a PC with a squared monitor. The X60 is perfect for that but I too think I should put Linux on it. Mine needs a new battery and something's up with the internal fan, still, it is a lovely machine.

[@joshuamichael1232]

I have one of these! I've got the CD and floppy drives too, I switched out the hard drive with an sd card thing and ran puppy for dosbox.

[@sonicunleashedfan124]

Neofetch isn’t being maintained anymore, fastfetch is a better alternative thats still being maintained

[@Vicorcivius]

Id love to see someone get Steam and proton working on this and do modern gaming on old hardware.

[@johanngambolputty5351]

I've had an idea stuck in my head of a very stripped down linux, with just the kernel, busybox, a wayland compositor and flatpak (at least initially), but it looks like a bunch of libraries would also be needed. No systemd, a very basic init script, no initramfs and when its on efi, no bootloader. The flatpak bit might not be super general (not sure about 32bit or arm/risc support) but it could otherwise have fairly few moving parts and still have easy access to up to date apps.

[@markae0]

Love the show!

[@Nightingale1887]

Vinegar (pH 2,5) is a different pH value than the lithium (pH 12) that is leaking and therefore indeed diluting the leaked lithium.

[@bytebackrepairco]

Amazon uses tiny core for their thin clients. It’s cool that a corporation is using something as simple as tiny core to run a facility

[@DoomTay]

1:37 Roll credits

[@Sb129]

Back in the day it was Damn Small Linux that I used sometimes, I have a Vaio with a PIII and 128mb of RAM, similar in that it has a usb 1.1 port, no floppy or CD drive built in but since this used to be my uncles, I do have the floppy and CD drive that this came with. I'll have to give this a try.

[@escgoogle3865]

No USB, no port extender but yes to cardbus. Ahhh poop, Tuwkilla RE-PC run incoming.

[@DonMr]

The dos storm youtuber made a video about surfing the internet on old laptops some time ago. Also using Tiny Core.

[@YellowYellow-j1f]

You definitely need to try and load Manjaro on a Mac.. with the browser that “elementary” used to have.. an old Mac too!

[@GeFeldz]

Videos like this one really have me thinking i should replace the battery on my "old" XPS 13 from 2015!

[@GeFeldz]

1:04 "Pig up?"

[@Foxtrot_Foxtrot_Lima]

That ribbon cable connector looks like the one for a camera or screen on a raspberry pi 3.

[@RealPlaystation4ThePlayers1995]

This looks like AmigaOS Linux edition in concept

[@ozzelot3349]

That X60s is running like a champ! (Not that I don't expect it to, I was dailying a Core 2 Duo laptop until 2019, which was recently, right... aw fuzznuggets.)

[@pvc988]

Vinegar does not neutralize the acid. Vinegar IS acid.

[@mausmalone]

That thinkpad is pretty - but I really want to get mine, a newer T60p, back up and running. I really need to figure out how to source/order a replacement CPU fan for the laptop since everything is in working order except for that grinding, rattling fan.

[@WIImotionmasher]

it's so thin and small, I want a modern one

[@johnbertram]

Both of these installs were pretty impressive. Just how much tech is out there that has been dumped and could have a useful life extension??

[@JoeSmith-pu9hi]

Nice. Puppy is my goto but tinycore is no 1 for minimal

[@andrewsawesome]

I'd love to see you try BunsenLabs Linux on a couple of machines. It's my modern lightweight OS of choice since Lubuntu stopped supporting 32 bit machines.

[@Jimmy-bu6zb]

Thanks for mentioning that Tiny Core Linux has 'Persistence'. [+ Please supplement that? If possible, please mention in Notes if programs/files we set up will still appear, On next reboot.]

[@amoledzeppelin]

Try 32-bit Alpine next.

[@javierdavidferreiros8834]

La laptop X60 puede bien con Linux Mint XFCE o incluso con Linux Mint Mate, incluso el Pentium L4200 es compatible con 64 bits.

[@JapanPop]

Makes me think, I want to get a PCG-505 Vaio and do likewise!

[@DelphineDofain]

Thank you for this video, I recently acquired this Portege, and I wasn't sure what to install on it. Now if only I could find the charger for it...

[@SuperDavidEF]

I'm sure it's just Sean staying on brand, but I'll ask anyway. Why not use the usb cardbus to boot from usb hard drive and leave the internal hard drive in the normal place to install to?

[@GhostLinx]

I wonder if MPV works on tiny core? Cause if those old pc's can also do video playback i mean what else could you want !!!

[@urmensch12]

Can i please have a new Version of the DeleteMe sponsor spot reading?

[@Sceneemofemboy0666]

I have the same exact adapter for a Toshiba Satellite Pro 4290, ahah

[@laurencejohnson4106]

An enjoyable video and I particularly liked the rig which you used to do the installation on the Win., 98 laptop.👍👍 That Thinkpad would probably work well with LMDE6 installed.

[@Artafp6003]

i installed it on my vaio pcg 5jbp runs GREAT

[@MrCorynick]

How does more acid neutralize acid?

[@SuperDavidEF]

The battery actually leaked alkaline, also known as "base" so the vinegar is neutralizing that.

[@geographicaloddity2]

Would it run on an older Suface Go? I guess I should have asked if it has tablet/touchscreen support?

[@darran311]

just curious does the sdcard adaptor thing not work through usb ? if so couldve saved yourself the extra disk swap

[@madvillainelle4009]

Super cool

[@Kodi-e1k]

Try it on the PC where you installed haiku

[@Dreamshadow1977]

What do you get when you install Windows NT, Windows ME, and Windows CE onto a pc? Windows CEMENT.

[@Xpurple]

I like to use FreeBSD on older hardware. It comes with nothing you don't want.

[@Henderson101]

I have a lot of conflicting feelings. Wouldn’t it have been simpler to flash grub on to the internal and then use that to boot from the USB?

[@Henderson101]

This also seems a lot like Puppy Linux.

[@qeqsiquemechanical9041]

Try Gemini on it! Way better than modern web

[@CRYPTiCEXiLE]

linux never disappoint unlike windows 11

[@jddes]

Your videos are a trip, man. "We're booting this Pentium off of mSATA" feels so odd

[@alexandrecouture2462]

Amazing! Do I recognize some control panel from Damn Small Linux that I used to run on my ThinkPad 560X ? 😊

[@edcdad1124]

Can you use microsoft edge on it ? Thinking of switching from lubuntu

[@haydenc2742]

Would it handle CorePlus?

[@Corolla2014-wy3xj]

Should KolibriOS Run on 386 system?

[@OfficialiGamer]

like that shirt!

[@YellowYellow-j1f]

Why isn’t this (Laptops) on eBay, right now?

[@Mark_Williams300]

Frogfind? Minecraft?

[@kj_sh604]

yeeeeess!! 🐧

[@ArtmineSUS]

LINUXXXXXXXX can you try arch the last version

[@dme2035]

Why does Linux Lite get no love? It's what I use on my older PCs and it's 1000% noob friendly. Typing this on my 2007 Dell with a core 2 quad and 2 giggawatts of rambo.

[@marksterling8286]

I have a dell mini9 that may benefit from this.

[@deadreaver666]

This is SOOOOOOOO Cursed..... I LOVE IT!!

[@DonMr]

Vivaldi should work much better that Firefox.

[@sotikmaster]

у нас тоже есть разные машинки для фана

[@ToumalRakesh]

Pulse Code Modulated Central Intelligence Agency

[@AtsumuJT]

Amazing video; can't believe that these old laptops can be recovered without problems!! PD: The spanish dub literally.... sucks (also the female voice are so fake)