Lobster Life

[Lobster]

I can not afford a real life, so have started using my rather underpowered hardware to run SecondLife on Puppy.

It seems it may be time to upgrade hardware

I am looking for a min spec (perhaps a motherboard or barebones bundle) of:
Asus motherboard with Expressgate (runs Firefox and Skype from Linux Bious boot up)
and with either an ATI or Nvidia graphic chip that Puppy has drivers for. Memory 1 or 2 Gig.

Processor? Anything cheap and adequate - or should I think about the processor too?

I am in the UK and welcome advice/suggestions.

Thanks guys

[T_Hobbit]

I like the idea. I'm on it also. I'm in Portugal!

[Lobster]

What hardware are you using presently T_Hobbit?

I have a Duron 1200mz
64 MB Geforce AGP card
and 512MB ram
Broadband connection

The broadband is OK
The SL server is OK
but when I go to Help/Time Lag
it is my server that is slow - I am managing 6-8FPS
too slow . . .
so need to upgrade hardware
- it is time

[J-Bob]

What hardware are you using presently T_Hobbit?

I have a Duron 1200mz
64 MB Geforce AGP card
and 512MB ram
Broadband connection

The broadband is OK
The SL server is OK
but when I go to Help/Time Lag
it is my server that is slow - I am managing 6-8FPS
too slow . . .
so need to upgrade hardware
- it is time

well, your graphics card i think is good as it is.
i would recommend increasing RAM to 1GB, and getting a faster CPU would not be a bad idea. i would say that getting a fast single core might not be a bad idea. or a dual core, and recompile the kernel with SMP support. or find a way to get such a kernel pre-compiled for your version of puppy.

- J-Bob

[headfound]

The cheapest (in fact the only) expressgate/splashtop mb on a quick browse of ebuyer delivered this -
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/152202

£274.51! Ouch!

Why not get this deal from Maplin?
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=223865

only £99.99. I was thinking of getting it myself. The built in graphics might be enough to run second life as is.

[ttuuxxx]

Lobster what country are you in ?

Australia http://www.msy.com.au
USA http://www.tigerdirect.com
or just ebay. lol
my systems work great but boot menu doesn't work well on both I'm using a asus m2v motherboad with a am2 cpu and 2 gigs of ddr2 800. 1.6 terabytes combo of sata2 drives and portable 320 gig seagate hd, only buy seagate hd, never WD <--- crap 1yrw.
The cpu and memory are excellent, Just the boot menu thing on the MB.
ttuuxxx

[Lobster]

Thanks guys - useful

I am in the UK Ttuuxxx

[T_Hobbit]

I'm on core2dual laptop, but I'm looking for a little form desktop second machine.

[Lobster]

Why not get this deal from Maplin?
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=223865

Well headfound, that is what I got and am using now
Is it any faster on SecondLife - well I have not optimised yet but does not seem to make much of a real difference. My FPS are still too few and in the red

It has been so long (thanks Puppy) since I upgraded hardware, that I was unaware that modern CPU's have their own power input cable - I tried to put the extra 4 pins from the 20 pin power cable in there until I discovered my mistake. Luckily I recently bought a new Power Supply - standard ATX would not work with the new set up . . . and what is all the SATA hard drive stuff?

I am very pleased to have new hardware . . . now back to tweaking - I did hear second life can use two cores

[rjbrewer]

Lobster,

It might be usefull to check out "miniitx.com".
The latest Intel mini-itx has atom 330 dual processor and might
work for second life. I think it's called 945gclf2.
"Slvrlady" on this forum uses them.
It.s my next planned upgrade.

Really a bargain!

[rjbrewer]

I meant "Slvrldy17".

[headfound]

Lobster,
Here are some links with info to cut lag in second life

http://www.massively.com.....reducing-your-second-life-lag-your-compute/

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Help:Lag

Does the new setup work well with puppy?

[Mic67]

http://www.wintroniccomputers.com/wintr ... efurbished

Refurbished

Computers
Desktop Computers
P4 Systems

example
IBM NetVista M42 (8303-HCU) Intel P4-2.4Ghz,512MB ,40GB,DVD-ROM, Floppy, Lan,NO OS,keyboard,mouse $99.00 canadian
so about 50 british pounds

Undoubtably a former corporate machine
Builtin intel video also agp slot
3 pci slots

The thing is that puppy is not made to use dual cores and the like and what about pci-e video cards?

The best value is above, but YMMV. But have at least 1 gig ram 2 gig is better and worth the cost.

Yes these machines are in central canada but something simular ought to be in the UK.

What is your budget.

My current machine is a P3 866mhz 512ram compaq sff using the builtin intel video with xorg.
$25 for this machine plus $20 to add 256 ram to make 512 ram

Remember that nvidia and intel have open source video drivers, Ati???Not??? but supposely that has changed with AMD having bouhgt ATI??

[Lobster]

Does the new setup work well with puppy?

To have fast hardware and a fast operating system is great.

Dual core and 64 Bit is not supported by Puppy.

Oh yes - it works well but Puppy speed was fine before, So now instead of programs opening in 1-3 seconds they open in a split second. Noticeable in real time use? - not really.

I should notice improvement with Develpup and Muppy that will benefit with 1 Gig of memory.

The reason I went for your option is I saw many barebone systems without CPU or memory - this had both - plus Nvidia built in. If I buy a hard disk it can be sata - if I get a better graphic card it can be PCI Express etc.

I will check your second life links (thanks) in a moment - basically I tried many options so far without any improvement - still under 10FPS lag on the client side. Mind you what I tend to do is find a nice temple and go and meditate . . .

Anyway it is a great deal and I love supporting Maplins as the staff are all geeks, who love hardware and are knowledgeable and friendly.

Thanks for telling me about the deal, Headfound - well pleased

[changturkey]

Does the new setup work well with puppy?

To have fast hardware and a fast operating system is great.

Dual core and 64 Bit is not supported by Puppy.

Oh yes - it works well but Puppy speed was fine before, So now instead of programs opening in 1-3 seconds they open in a split second. Noticeable in real time use? - not really.

I should notice improvement with Develpup and Muppy that will benefit with 1 Gig of memory.

The reason I went for your option is I saw many barebone systems without CPU or memory - this had both - plus Nvidia built in. If I buy a hard disk it can be sata - if I get a better graphic card it can be PCI Express etc.

I will check your second life links (thanks) in a moment - basically I tried many options so far without any improvement - still under 10FPS lag on the client side. Mind you what I tend to do is find a nice temple and go and meditate . . .

Anyway it is a great deal and I love supporting Maplins as the staff are all geeks, who love hardware and are knowledgeable and friendly.

Thanks for telling me about the deal, Headfound - well pleased

Why isn't dual-core supported?

[Lobster]

Why isn't dual-core supported?

As far as I know Puppy does not make use of the two cores, only the one, and is compiled for i486. So it will run on dual core but does not make any special use of the second processor.

The below is from the help file for 4.1.2

Running the new kernel on old hardware
The 2.6.25.16 kernel should run just fine on very old hardware. I have tested on an old PC with Cyrix 6x86 CPU and 128MB RAM and it runs fine. I configured it very conservatively, without 'tickless', nor 'SMP' support (Puppy still runs fine on a multi-processor machine, so don't worry about that!). However, the next release of Puppy (4.2?) may contain a more ambitiously-configured kernel, in which case I have made some advance notes here (but do realise that these issues do not apply to 2.6.25.16 in 4.1!):

If configured for multiple processors (SMP), the kernel will detect a uniprocessor system and run fine, however there are some exceptions -- in which case boot the kernel with the boot option "nosmp".
If the kernel is configured to be 'tickless', which is supposed to make the kernel less busy when idle, and maybe run cooler. However, tickless causes problems on some systems, even upsets some old kernel modules, so boot with "nohz=off".

[Mic67]

http://www.wintroniccomputers.com/wintr ... efurbished

example
IBM NetVista M42 (8303-HCU) Intel P4-2.4Ghz,512MB ,40GB,DVD-ROM, Floppy, Lan,NO OS,keyboard,mouse $99.00 canadian
so about 50 british pounds

-------------------------------------

Well Lobster, I do take my own advice.

I got the IBM P4-2.8 with 1gig ram and 40 gig HD for $170 canadian or $190 out the door total cost.

Standard was 512 ram but got 512 more for $20 more.

This comes with XP windows on it, legally. I have never previously owned this OS,
and probably would have bought a machine without it for less, but such a machine
was not available. 3 pci slots, 1 AGP, 4 ram slots

It has intel extreme builtin video, sound. But I added an Nvidia 7200 card 64megs (previously bought for $5), Sound blaster Live ($5).
And a DVD-rw, all existing.

What a BIG difference from the P3 866mhz 512ram machine.
Price tag $25

Walmart had an Acer M1100 for $299 (instore price) with vista, a single core AMD, with 1gig 667mhzRam, and ATI x1200
builtin video 160gigHD DVD-rw. Quite possible a better buy?? for 30+% more???

No real point in getting a multicore cpu if using puppy.....

I have never bought a new computer, yet.


mic67

[edoc]

Why isn't dual-core supported?

As far as I know Puppy does not make use of the two cores, only the one, and is compiled for i486. So it will run on dual core but does not make any special use of the second processor.

The below is from the help file for 4.1.2

Running the new kernel on old hardware
The 2.6.25.16 kernel should run just fine on very old hardware. I have tested on an old PC with Cyrix 6x86 CPU and 128MB RAM and it runs fine. I configured it very conservatively, without 'tickless', nor 'SMP' support (Puppy still runs fine on a multi-processor machine, so don't worry about that!). However, the next release of Puppy (4.2?) may contain a more ambitiously-configured kernel, in which case I have made some advance notes here (but do realise that these issues do not apply to 2.6.25.16 in 4.1!):

If configured for multiple processors (SMP), the kernel will detect a uniprocessor system and run fine, however there are some exceptions -- in which case boot the kernel with the boot option "nosmp".
If the kernel is configured to be 'tickless', which is supposed to make the kernel less busy when idle, and maybe run cooler. However, tickless causes problems on some systems, even upsets some old kernel modules, so boot with "nohz=off".

When looking at computers should Puppy users anticipate 4.2 leverage of dual-core and 64bit technology and therefore consider such machines a wise investment or stick with mono-core and 32bit for the foreseeable future?

[MU]

Multicore is great.
Wows unnamed puplet supports it, there also are puplets that are like Puppy, just with a SMP kernel.

mksquashfs can use both of my cores, so it just needs 10 minutes on my new 2x2.6 ghz Athlon.
On the old Pentium 700, it needed 2 hours to compress the same file.

But it is even great, if applications just use one CPU.
Because Linux then runs it on one core, and if you run another program, it runs on the second core.
So you can watch movies (often CPU intensive), and read your emails at the same time, without that the email-program is "blocked" by the movie-player, as it occurs on single-core CPUs.

Wows Puplet also runs fine on the single core CPU, but then you loose that advantage, of course.

Mark

[edoc]

I went to your Recommended Links page - great stuff!

I was not able to spot what it is that I'd need for a dual-core 64bit machine.

I'd like to read a thread or two or Wiki or some other discussion about the advantages and the recommended configurations.

What prompted this interest is I saw a Dell dual-core 64bit laptop for $449. and have an interest in casual media-center applications as well as split-screen apps.

WDYT?