←back to thread

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

(www.tinycorelinux.net)
518 points LorenDB | 1 comments | 06 Dec 25 14:18 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
Show context
trollbridge ◴[06 Dec 25 15:15 UTC] No.46173936[source]▶
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.

replies(10): >>46173975 #>>46174032 #>>46174138 #>>46174272 #>>46174291 #>>46174522 #>>46174810 #>>46174831 #>>46179105 #>>46179554 #
maccard ◴[06 Dec 25 15:26 UTC] No.46174032[source]▶
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.
replies(8): >>46174159 #>>46174187 #>>46174618 #>>46174766 #>>46176381 #>>46178650 #>>46179683 #>>46182290 #
echoangle ◴[06 Dec 25 15:40 UTC] No.46174159[source]▶
Do you really need the framebuffer in RAM? Wouldn't that be entirely in the GPU RAM?
replies(6): >>46174217 #>>46174228 #>>46174232 #>>46174790 #>>46174992 #>>46175002 #
ErroneousBosh ◴[06 Dec 25 17:29 UTC] No.46175002[source]▶
Computers didn't used to have GPUs back then when 150kB was a significant amount of graphics memory.
replies(1): >>46177337 #
trollbridge ◴[06 Dec 25 22:55 UTC] No.46177337[source]▶
The IBM PGC (1984) was a discrete GPU with 320kB of RAM and slightly over 64kB of ROM.

The EGA (1984) and VGA (1987) could conceivably be considered a GPU although not turning complete. EGA had 64, 128, 192, or 256K and VGA 256K.

The 8514/A (1987) was Turing complete although it had 512kB. The Image Adapter/A (1989) was far more powerful, pretty much the first modern GPU as we know them and came with 1MB expandable to 3MB.

replies(3): >>46180590 #>>46181872 #>>46191382 #
1. Yeask ◴[07 Dec 25 14:25 UTC] No.46181872{3}[source]▶
A video card is not a GPU.