Install TinyCore Linux without CD

Even some of light weight Linux distribution, such as Lubuntu is too much for old computers, which I think still have usable life left.   Recently I tried tinycore and was impressed by it.  Here is how to install it on a computer with a version of Linux already installed.  And we install it without using a CD drive.

TinyCore Linux is very flexible.  We can take the iso image and simply unpack it to /tce directory. We add a Grub entry to load the TinyCore image,

linux /tce/boot/vmlinuz
initrd /tce/boot/core.gz

This setup is by far the easiest and the most responsive Linux I've used.   The file /tce/onboot.lst specifies the list of packages that are loaded on boot.  We can edit it for customization.  Most applications should probably be installed as ondemand for fast boot.  I install chromium browser as ondemand.  It takes a few extra seconds to load, but the browser is usable.  The home directory is saved on exit and restored on boot.  However, if it gets too large, it can have a persistent storage location on disk.