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ttylinux is useful on computers which are considered obsolete, such as 486SX PC; it is for people who want to have a minimal Linux distribution to run when little space is available or needed.
On a modern computer, one interesting use for ttylinux is as a tool for putting together a more complete Linux system.
With its small size ttylinux boots quickly from CR-ROM and USB flash drives; it has been used as a system fix/repair tool, and is a good basis for a rescue or installation CD-ROM.
ttylinux provides a working Linux environment with its boot image, and custom task-specific scripts can mount other parts of the file system from its boot USB flash drive or CD-ROM to provide a larger system.
Some users may want to use the ttylinux file system and configure and build their own Linux kernel.
ttylinux can serve as a rough prototype of a larger system, since it uses the same C library, glibc, as full Linux systems, compiling programs on a different Linux computer and copying them over to the ttylinux file system can result in working programs. This is not a supported feature. Programs compiled outside the normal ttylinux build process may require libraries not present in ttylinux. Worse, they may be compiled on a computer with different Linux kernel capabilities and make system calls not present in ttylinux.
Note: ttylinux is for people who have Linux experience; it is not for beginners, unless you want to learn how a Linux system works underneath the Graphical User Interfaces. You must be able to use the interactive shell command-line, and it helps to know your way around Linux system. Most of the programs are smaller versions of the common Unix utilities.