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Tiny Core Linux has a version for Raspberry Pis called piCore [0] that I wish more people would look at, because it loads itself entirely into RAM and does not

Tiny Core Linux has a version for Raspberry Pis called piCore [0] that I wish more people would look at, because it loads itself entirely into RAM and does not touch the SD card at all after that until and unless you explicitly tell it to. Phenomenal for those low powered servers you just want to leave on and running some tiny batch of cronjobs [1] or something for months or years at a time without worrying too much about wear on the SD card itself rendering the whole installation moot. This is actually how I have powered the backend data collection and processing for [2], as I wrote about in [3]. The end result is a static site built in Hugo but I was careful to pick parts I could safely leave to wheedle on their own for a long time. [1]: https://til.andrew-quinn.me/posts/consider-the-cronslave/ https://til.andrew-quinn.me/posts/consider-the-cronslave/ [2]: https://hiandrewquinn.github.io/selkouutiset-archive/ https://hiandrewquinn.github.io/selkouutiset-archive/ [3]: https://til.andrew-quinn.me/posts/lessons-learned-from-2-years-of-operating-a-tiny-news-archive/ https://til.andrew-quinn.me/posts/lessons-learned-from-2-yea...

lukan 11mo ago
"Phenomenal for those low powered servers you just want to leave on and running some tiny batch of cronjobs [1] or something for months or years at a time without worrying too much about wear on the SD card itself rendering the whole installation moot." Yes, this is exactly what I want, except I need some simple node servers running, which is not so ultra light. Would you happen to know, if this still all works within the ram out of box, or does this require extra work?
- fsagx 11mo ago
  on a pi? You can run nodejs fine on a pi with "Raspberry Pi OS Lite". In the configs, look for "Overlay File System" and enable it on the boot partition and main partition. The pi will boot from the sd card and run entirely in ram. Be sure to run something to clear your logs occasionally or reboot once in a while or you'll run out of RAM. Still, get a quality sd card and power supply. You can get years out of a setup like this.
- hiAndrewQuinn 11mo ago
  To my understanding TCL expects the RAM-only / diskless case unless you put in a lot of extra work not to do that. In your situation the only thing you would have to really be worried about is whether 4 GB of RAM or whatever you have is enough to fit TCL and the files for your node server and the actual programs you are trying to run with all that. It doesn't get pretty once you exceed your available RAM, be forewarned - but that's true of all programs in a sense.
  - oso2k 11mo ago
    Not true. You can enable “Mount Mode of Operation: TCE/Install” where packages will be mounted off disk. See: http://www.tinycorelinux.net/concepts.html http://www.tinycorelinux.net/concepts.html
squarefoot 11mo ago
Alpine also has a lesser known RPi build on their download page; by using musl instead of glibc the difference in size and resources used compared to regular distros is huge as well. https://alpinelinux.org/downloads/ https://alpinelinux.org/downloads/
- Lyngbakr 11mo ago
  I recently put Alpine with i3 on a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B and I'm super impressed with how snappy it is. I find it much better even than Raspberry Pi OS Lite.
  - squarefoot 11mo ago
    Same here, I put it on two very old RPi 1 and was amazed at how low the footprint is. I wish there were images available for other SBCs as well, mostly Allwinner based ones (OrangePi, NanoPi, etc); probably I did something wrong but building them from scratch turned out more complicated than expected.
  - lproven 11mo ago
    Yep, Alpine works well. A GUI can be tricky, though. And none of the RasPi tools (e.g. `raspi-config`) will run because of the different libc. So, running it on a Pi 5 CM in an IO board, there's no way to tell the Pi what device to boot from.
- jwrallie 11mo ago
  I can vouch for it, I had an RPi that was translating a serial port to TCP/IP in a difficult to access location, and it stayed doing its duty for years, Alpine is very solid.
- blueflow 11mo ago
  Important to mention: Alpine can run from RAM like TinyCore
1vuio0pswjnm7 11mo ago
"Tiny Core Linux has a version for Raspberry Pis called piCore [0] that I wish more people would look at, because it loads itself entirely into RAM and does not touch the SD card at all after that until and unless you explicitly tell it to." Before RPI existed, I always made filesystem images for USB sticks in NetBSD so that writes never touched "disk" ("diskless"). This allows me to remove the USB stick after boot, freeing up the slot for something else BSD "install images" work this way I have been using the RPi with a diskless NetBSD image since around 2012; there are no SD card writes, the userland is extracted into RAM I can pull out the SD card after boot and use the slot for something else If I want data storage, I connect an external drive It's been wild to read endless online complaints from so-called "technical" RPi users for the last 13 years about SD card wear and tear To me, it's another example of how it's possible to have a solution that is as old as the hills and have it be completely ignored in favor of a "modern" approach that is fatally-flawed
- embedding-shape 11mo ago
  There is (at least) two different groups of people using Raspberry PI. One of them are completely new Linux users who need a ton of help and resources to understand enough so they can achieve what they're trying to do. Raspbian/Raspberry Pi OS, even with their faults, is probably the better option for those people, as the environment and context very much takes first time users into account. NetBSD and Tiny Core Linux, even with all their benefits, is a harder experience to get into if you haven't already dipped your toes into Linux, and doesn't have the same wide community and boundless online resources.
- jimvdv 11mo ago
  Back in the day I believe I just installed the OS on a USB stick and used the SD card only to boot of that.
- victorbuilds 11mo ago
  “It’s been wild to read endless online complaints from so-called ‘technical’ RPi users for the last 13 years about SD card wear and tear…” A lot of the SD-card wear issues come from people running “normal PC workflows” on a storage medium that was never designed for that pattern. Something I’ve seen help many newcomers is simply enabling an overlay filesystem or tmpfs-based writes. It’s basically the middle ground between a full RAM-boot distro (piCore, Alpine diskless, NetBSD) and a standard SD-based Raspberry Pi OS. You still get the normal ecosystem and docs, but almost no writes hit the card unless you explicitly commit them. For anyone stuck between “I want something simple” and “I don’t want my SD to die,” overlays are the easiest win.
deleted 11mo ago
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lukan 11mo ago

"Phenomenal for those low powered servers you just want to leave on and running some tiny batch of cronjobs [1] or something for months or years at a time without worrying too much about wear on the SD card itself rendering the whole installation moot." Yes, this is exactly what I want, except I need some simple node servers running, which is not so ultra light. Would you happen to know, if this still all works within the ram out of box, or does this require extra work?

fsagx 11mo ago
on a pi? You can run nodejs fine on a pi with "Raspberry Pi OS Lite". In the configs, look for "Overlay File System" and enable it on the boot partition and main partition. The pi will boot from the sd card and run entirely in ram. Be sure to run something to clear your logs occasionally or reboot once in a while or you'll run out of RAM. Still, get a quality sd card and power supply. You can get years out of a setup like this.
hiAndrewQuinn 11mo ago
To my understanding TCL expects the RAM-only / diskless case unless you put in a lot of extra work not to do that. In your situation the only thing you would have to really be worried about is whether 4 GB of RAM or whatever you have is enough to fit TCL and the files for your node server and the actual programs you are trying to run with all that. It doesn't get pretty once you exceed your available RAM, be forewarned - but that's true of all programs in a sense.
- oso2k 11mo ago
  Not true. You can enable “Mount Mode of Operation: TCE/Install” where packages will be mounted off disk. See: http://www.tinycorelinux.net/concepts.html http://www.tinycorelinux.net/concepts.html

squarefoot 11mo ago

Alpine also has a lesser known RPi build on their download page; by using musl instead of glibc the difference in size and resources used compared to regular distros is huge as well. https://alpinelinux.org/downloads/ https://alpinelinux.org/downloads/

Lyngbakr 11mo ago
I recently put Alpine with i3 on a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B and I'm super impressed with how snappy it is. I find it much better even than Raspberry Pi OS Lite.
- squarefoot 11mo ago
  Same here, I put it on two very old RPi 1 and was amazed at how low the footprint is. I wish there were images available for other SBCs as well, mostly Allwinner based ones (OrangePi, NanoPi, etc); probably I did something wrong but building them from scratch turned out more complicated than expected.
- lproven 11mo ago
  Yep, Alpine works well. A GUI can be tricky, though. And none of the RasPi tools (e.g. `raspi-config`) will run because of the different libc. So, running it on a Pi 5 CM in an IO board, there's no way to tell the Pi what device to boot from.
jwrallie 11mo ago
I can vouch for it, I had an RPi that was translating a serial port to TCP/IP in a difficult to access location, and it stayed doing its duty for years, Alpine is very solid.
blueflow 11mo ago
Important to mention: Alpine can run from RAM like TinyCore

1vuio0pswjnm7 11mo ago

"Tiny Core Linux has a version for Raspberry Pis called piCore [0] that I wish more people would look at, because it loads itself entirely into RAM and does not touch the SD card at all after that until and unless you explicitly tell it to." Before RPI existed, I always made filesystem images for USB sticks in NetBSD so that writes never touched "disk" ("diskless"). This allows me to remove the USB stick after boot, freeing up the slot for something else BSD "install images" work this way I have been using the RPi with a diskless NetBSD image since around 2012; there are no SD card writes, the userland is extracted into RAM I can pull out the SD card after boot and use the slot for something else If I want data storage, I connect an external drive It's been wild to read endless online complaints from so-called "technical" RPi users for the last 13 years about SD card wear and tear To me, it's another example of how it's possible to have a solution that is as old as the hills and have it be completely ignored in favor of a "modern" approach that is fatally-flawed

embedding-shape 11mo ago
There is (at least) two different groups of people using Raspberry PI. One of them are completely new Linux users who need a ton of help and resources to understand enough so they can achieve what they're trying to do. Raspbian/Raspberry Pi OS, even with their faults, is probably the better option for those people, as the environment and context very much takes first time users into account. NetBSD and Tiny Core Linux, even with all their benefits, is a harder experience to get into if you haven't already dipped your toes into Linux, and doesn't have the same wide community and boundless online resources.
jimvdv 11mo ago
Back in the day I believe I just installed the OS on a USB stick and used the SD card only to boot of that.
victorbuilds 11mo ago
“It’s been wild to read endless online complaints from so-called ‘technical’ RPi users for the last 13 years about SD card wear and tear…” A lot of the SD-card wear issues come from people running “normal PC workflows” on a storage medium that was never designed for that pattern. Something I’ve seen help many newcomers is simply enabling an overlay filesystem or tmpfs-based writes. It’s basically the middle ground between a full RAM-boot distro (piCore, Alpine diskless, NetBSD) and a standard SD-based Raspberry Pi OS. You still get the normal ecosystem and docs, but almost no writes hit the card unless you explicitly commit them. For anyone stuck between “I want something simple” and “I don’t want my SD to die,” overlays are the easiest win.

deleted 11mo ago

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