!Dumb terminal OS image tips
 --- 
15 June 2026
 --- 
These notes were emailed to me by The Free Thinker
from Australia. I'll add my notes as I modify the OS.
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!Making a bootable disk image on Tiny Core.
UEFI/BIOS boot
Hybrid MBR/GPT partition table
x86 and x86_64 bootable
FAT32 filesystem (Linux installed to EFI partition) 
Commands run in Tiny Core Linux x86_64 (Core Pure64).

Note: I  might have left some things out.

(use "tce-load -wil" instead of "tce-load -i" if extensions not already downloaded)

## Create RAM disk

256MB = 520192 sectors

#Create image file in RAM
dd if=/dev/zero of=tc.img bs=1024 count=520192

#Partition image file
fdisk tc.img
 n [press Enter at prompts for defaults]
 t "ef"
 w

Use tc.img instead of /dev/sdb1 in commands below.
  - The syslinux command will probably need to be changed

## Or Create partiton on /dev/sdb (which will overwrite its contents)

sudo fdisk /dev/sdb
 n [set partition size at prompts]
 t "ef"
 w

#format EFI partition FAT32
tce-load -i dosfstools
sudo mkfs.vfat -i DC16916B -F 32 /dev/sdb1

tce-load -i syslinux mtools glibc_gconv

syslinux -i /dev/sdb1

sudo rebuildfstab
mount /mnt/sdb1
mkdir -p /mnt/sdb1/EFI/BOOT

* download x86 syslinux.tcz
unsquashfs syslinux.tcz
cd squashfs-root
# from 32bit extension
cp usr/local/share/syslinux/efi32/syslinux.efi /mnt/sdb1/EFI/BOOT/BOOTIA32.EFI
# from 64bit extension
cp /usr/local/share/syslinux/efi64/syslinux.efi /mnt/sdb1/EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI
#GPT:
sudo dd if=usr/local/share/syslinux/gptmbr.bin of=/dev/sdb bs=440 count=1 conv=notrunc
sudo dd if=usr/local/share/syslinux/mbr.bin of=/dev/sdb bs=440 count=1 conv=notrunc
sudo fdisk /dev/sdb
 - "a" to toggle bootable flag
#64-bit:
cp usr/local/share/syslinux/efi*/ldlinux.e64 /mnt/sdb1/EFI/BOOT
cp usr/local/share/syslinux/efi*/libutil.c32 /mnt/sdb1/EFI/BOOT
cp usr/local/share/syslinux/efi*/libcom32.c32 /mnt/sdb1/EFI/BOOT
cp usr/local/share/syslinux/efi*/vesamenu.c32 /mnt/sdb1/EFI/BOOT
cp usr/local/share/syslinux/libutil.c32 /mnt/sdb1
cp usr/local/share/syslinux/libcom32.c32 /mnt/sdb1
cp usr/local/share/syslinux/vesamenu.c32 /mnt/sdb1

cd /mnt/sdb1
wget http://repo.tinycorelinux.net/17.x/x86/release/distribution_files/core.gz
+http://repo.tinycorelinux.net/17.x/x86/release/distribution_files/vmlinuz

create /mnt/sdb1/syslinux.cfg:
        DEFAULT core
        LABEL core
        KERNEL /vmlinuz
        INITRD /core.gz
        APPEND quiet vga=normal waitusb=10:UUID="DC16-916B" tce=UUID="DC16-916B"

cp /mnt/sdb1/syslinux.cfg /mnt/sdb1/EFI/BOOT

mkdir -p /mnt/sdb1/tce/optional
* copy extensions over to /mnt/sdb1/tce/optional
   To ensure dependencies are included, use the script here:
    https://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php/topic,23034.0.html
    (need a forum account to download it :( )
* List automatically-loaded extensions in onboot.lst:
 inetutils.tcz
 openssh.tcz
 filesystems-KERNEL.tcz

## Create image file from 256MB partition on /dev/sdb1:

sudo dd if=/dev/sdb bs=1024 count=520192 | gzip -c > tc.img.gz