{"slug": "picore", "name": "PiCore", "category": "os", "category_name": "Operating systems and desktop", "description": "", "recommenders": 3, "commenters": 3, "warners": 0, "score": 2.576, "rising": -0.98, "first": "2025-12-06", "latest": "2026-04-15", "why": "Tiny Core Linux has a version for Raspberry Pis called piCore [0] that I wish more people would look at, because it loads itself entirely into RAM", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 0, "compare": 0, "warn": 0}, "spark": [0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 2, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "Tiny Core Linux has a version for Raspberry Pis called piCore [0] that I wish more people would look at, because it loads itself entirely into RAM", "kind": "", "icon": false, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "http://www.tinycorelinux.net", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["PiCore", "piCore"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 764606240, "item_id": 47787890, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47787890", "by": "eccgecko", "date": "2026-04-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Seems like booting into PiCore could be perfect for this scenario", "excerpt": "Would it be possible to boot into this from an existing system and use PiCore to take a full system backup by piping dd to nc? After reading https://askubuntu.com/questions/1416758/remote-full-system-backup-of-a-running-system I\u2019ve been debating whether to try this out on some of my live headless pi\u2019s that I manage remotely, but have been worried to try it without a test system first. Seems like booting into PiCore c", "context": "", "use_case": "Remote system backup", "switched_from": "", "story": "PiCore - Raspberry Pi Port of Tiny Core Linux"}, {"id": 764561216, "item_id": 47785076, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47785076", "by": "cas", "date": "2026-04-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "A very clever immutable Linux distro", "excerpt": "A very clever immutable Linux distro, and is the basis for the excellent PiCorePlayer, a favourite of mine to run Squeezebox clients (and/or Lyrion music server) on any Pi https://picoreplayer.org/", "context": "", "use_case": "Immutable Raspberry Pi OS", "switched_from": "", "story": "PiCore - Raspberry Pi Port of Tiny Core Linux"}, {"id": 738834449, "item_id": 46177153, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46177153", "by": "hiAndrewQuinn", "date": "2025-12-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Tiny Core Linux has a version for Raspberry Pis called piCore [0] that I wish more people would look at, because it loads itself entirely into RAM", "excerpt": "Tiny Core Linux has a version for Raspberry Pis called piCore [0] that I wish more people would look at, because it loads itself entirely into RAM and does not touch the SD card at all after that until and unless you explicitly tell it to. Phenomenal for those low powered servers you just want to leave on and running some tiny batch of cronjobs [1] or something for months or years at a time without worrying too much ", "context": "", "use_case": "Low-power server OS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Tiny Core Linux: a 23 MB Linux distro with graphical desktop"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["remote system backup", "immutable raspberry pi os", "low-power server os"], "compared": [], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47784244", "title": "PiCore - Raspberry Pi Port of Tiny Core Linux", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46173547", "title": "Tiny Core Linux: a 23 MB Linux distro with graphical desktop", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {"recommend": 2}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {}}, "quotes": [{"id": 764606240, "item_id": 47787890, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47787890", "by": "eccgecko", "date": "2026-04-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Seems like booting into PiCore could be perfect for this scenario", "excerpt": "Would it be possible to boot into this from an existing system and use PiCore to take a full system backup by piping dd to nc? After reading https://askubuntu.com/questions/1416758/remote-full-system-backup-of-a-running-system I\u2019ve been debating whether to try this out on some of my live headless pi\u2019s that I manage remotely, but have been worried to try it without a test system first. Seems like booting into PiCore c", "context": "", "use_case": "Remote system backup", "switched_from": "", "story": "PiCore - Raspberry Pi Port of Tiny Core Linux"}, {"id": 764561216, "item_id": 47785076, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47785076", "by": "cas", "date": "2026-04-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "A very clever immutable Linux distro", "excerpt": "A very clever immutable Linux distro, and is the basis for the excellent PiCorePlayer, a favourite of mine to run Squeezebox clients (and/or Lyrion music server) on any Pi https://picoreplayer.org/", "context": "", "use_case": "Immutable Raspberry Pi OS", "switched_from": "", "story": "PiCore - Raspberry Pi Port of Tiny Core Linux"}, {"id": 738834449, "item_id": 46177153, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46177153", "by": "hiAndrewQuinn", "date": "2025-12-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Tiny Core Linux has a version for Raspberry Pis called piCore [0] that I wish more people would look at, because it loads itself entirely into RAM", "excerpt": "Tiny Core Linux has a version for Raspberry Pis called piCore [0] that I wish more people would look at, because it loads itself entirely into RAM and does not touch the SD card at all after that until and unless you explicitly tell it to. Phenomenal for those low powered servers you just want to leave on and running some tiny batch of cronjobs [1] or something for months or years at a time without worrying too much ", "context": "", "use_case": "Low-power server OS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Tiny Core Linux: a 23 MB Linux distro with graphical desktop"}]}