PiCore 5.2 for Raspberry Pi

05/02/2014 - Category: Raspberry PI

![picore](https://misapuntesde.com/images/2014/02/picore_monitor.jpg)

Today I wanted to write about **Picore**, a distribution created by *Robert Shingledecker* running directly in *RAM*. Yesterday *5.2alpha1* version was released. I have tested it for you.

Nobody complains that there are no operating systems for our *Raspberry Pi*. Almost all of us use *Raspbian*, but gems like this open our minds to explore alternatives that have always been there. Just need a little push and see what offer this version of *Tiny Core Linux* to us.

![picore install](https://misapuntesde.com/images/2014/02/picore_downloads.jpg)

alpha version download links, but we can choose stable releases too.

Installation is as simple as choosing the version that best suits our needs:

**piCore-5.x.zip** is the base system without graphical environment but with all the power at our disposal. It takes about **7 seconds** to boot. The changes you make will not be saved on every boot, although this behavior can be modified.
**piCore-5.x-SSH.zip** contains the same as above, but with **SSH Server** for remote connections and *midnight commander*. For connection via *SSH* the user is **tc** and password **piCore**.
**piCore-5.x-X.zip** presents a graphical environment with Dock on the bottom bar. Boots in about **25 seconds** and it have several utilities to configure the network, mount partitions or install programs among others (I found browsing *SDL2* who giving to me many headaches on *Raspbian*).

PiCore base system. Click to full size.

It starts with a default user named *tc* with no password and you can't run as root. Comes with a *SWAP* partition zlib compressed in *RAM*, although it can be disabled through the [boot codes](http://tinycorelinux.net/faq.html#bootcodes) or directly on **/mnt/mmcblk0p1/cmdline.txt**.

PiCore with graphical environment. Click to full size.

To find applications on the terminal, use the command **tce-ab app_name**. This command will allow us once you have found our program, several actions such as install or download it.