piCore 13.1.0 (Tiny Core Linux) on Raspberry Pi Zero (0) with GUI install and Window Manager

[Edit 8/3/25: For a technical overview why latency is lower (faster) on Tiny Core Linux over Debian, this article by Ink and Switch is a great primer: https://www.inkandswitch.com/slow-software/ ] In short, the kernel and X.org userspace package is small and closer to metal. The fewer dependencies and packages it needs to load into RAM, the faster it can cycle instruction cycles to and from the OS and display (entire roundtrip time between each input-from the USB/keyboard to Pi0, to display, and back) https://www.novaspirit.com/2018/01/09/tiny-core-raspberry-pi-zero-w-install/ http://tinycorelinux.net/13.x/armv6/releases/RPi/ 13.1.0 I used the above tutorial with PiCore 13 (I tried this with 14 but it wasn't able to locate the website for downloading files when using the instructions). It took me several tries- the first ones stalled on the harfbuzz because it ran out of space- but I hadn't resized the partition yet (I tried initially to just install X to see if it would work- the microSD card is just 1GB- I might have run out of space on my 256MB one using the same method, but I can try that one again. After writing the image to the microSD, but before transferring it to the Pi Zero, delete the Pi4, armv,7 Pi400, Compute Module (cm) 2, 2B+ kernels, because it apparently is what allowed it to not run out of space. there should only be bcm2708-rpi-zero.dtv and kernel-5.10.77-picore in the list of .dtb files and img files. (i am not sure about the start 4.elf files and fixup 4 so I left those in (small too). I used a USB-to-Ethernet Adapter because I didn't want to spend hours downloading a compatible wifi adapter. The USB drivers that were included with the base install apparently had everything needed to recognize the Ethernet. "This is possibly the smallest OS you can install on the raspberry pi, Tiny Core, weighing in just about 70mb this OS is not only small but it is also fast! Since the design of the OS is meant to be ran off the RAM you will no longer have the bottle neck of the SD card. In this guild I will show you how to install this on the Raspberry Pi Zero W along with setting up the WIFI and GUI. Links Tiny Core Forums http://forum.tinycorelinux.net Tiny Core Install Step 1: Install Tiny Core Download the Image from http://tinycorelinux.net/downloads.html - ports - other ports - raspberry pi stable See also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPBdUBMj8ls TinyCore Linux on the Raspberry Pi (2/2013) likely a Model A or B Raspberry Pi w/ARMv6 (512MB RAM) ..wifi instructions were removed load the files on to the piCore sdcard -remember to delete the kernel7 to make space for modules no we are ready to boot from sd card. Expanding file system To expand the file system we first need to delete the 2nd partition and recreate using the max amount of space Step 1 sudo fdisk -u /dev/mmcblk0 from here type p to list partitions and not the start size of partition 2 now we can delete the partition with d and recreate it with n. create partition 2 then enter the start sector. hit enter again to use default last sector. now type w to write to disk we now need to reboot Step 2 Now that we told the OS the largest size possible for partition 2, we need to resize the filesystem so it can be used with the command below sudo resize2fs /dev/mmcblk0p2 you are now done. to test type du -h this should list the size of mmcblk0p2 Installing the Tiny Core GUI This is probably the easiest step of them all. To install the GUI it’s 1 simple command tce-load -iw TC.tcz this should only take a few mins. Once it’s done. you can either restart your device, or type startx This is it!! check out the link to the forums if you are interested in getting more stuff working for the raspberry pi zero. thanks for the view -don" Also see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKvW59uk4PY (Edit 5-10-2025: I'd like to make more videos of piCore in action on a Raspberry Pi Zero or Zero 2W, but I have other projects I'm working on. If you'd like to make videos of this OS running, on armv6 or on Rpis in general, feel free to share! I think it would be great if there were more custom piCores distros designed for the platform.)