Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

aarf · Joined: 30 Aug 2007 Posts: 3620 Location: around the bend

i woud have guessed Barrys latest Wary @ http://bkhome.org/blog/?viewDetailed=02130 with a swap file would be your best choice. but i can afford 300 dollars for a new netbook so i dont need to test this old stuff

gerry · Joined: 26 Jul 2007 Posts: 944 Location: England

Here's some comparison results. Test: boot from live cd, with save file on hard drive. Open terminal, type "free" and record free memory. Type "Top" and record cpu idle time.

Hope that comes out all right- can't use tab on here.

You can see the problem with Lupu- it's cpu, not ram.

Swap is only 256MB- I'll increase that. But general rule is that swap size=ram size, isn't it?

gerry

webmasterpdx · Joined: 04 Feb 2011 Posts: 8

Safari is the fastest browser on windows with full features (anything less that full features is kinda worthless)....you need facebook support, etc, for general browsing.

Sure, if you are only going to deal with one or two websites, then any of the low end ones like dillo will be fine.

-D

jemimah · Joined: 26 Aug 2009 Posts: 4309 Location: Tampa, FL

I think Midori is the lightest browser that supports javascript. The latest version built against the development version of webkit is not perfectly stable, but it probably works correctly on 95% of websites. Give things six months or a year and it'll be top notch. My static, upxed build of Midori is 3MB,

If you're interested in customizing something yourself, pup'n'go is more along the lines of qnx than anything else.
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=51478

RetroTechGuy · Joined: 15 Dec 2009 Posts: 2298 Location: USA

jpeps · Joined: 31 May 2008 Posts: 2419

I'm running lupu 520 on an old Dell Laptop, and consistently get high 90's CPU idle.

First thing I do is kill unneeded processes; secondly, I use a links browser.

RetroTechGuy · Joined: 15 Dec 2009 Posts: 2298 Location: USA

duck1dong · Joined: 06 Feb 2011 Posts: 40 Location: Calgary Alberta

This forum is interesting. It seems there is many many assumptions about what to do in coding.

I had never ever installed an operating system before. But when one of the DLLs was gone after an uninstall in windows 98 and the computer lacked memory to open basic windows, I decided to restore. Problem was, I only had the boot disk(duh). So what did I do? I searched and searched for a version of Linux and found Puppy Linux 5.2

After partitioning the hard drive, with the swap partition allocated for the active RAM on my HP Pavilion 4455, I also assigned puppy to another allocation and a third allocation(partition) was for Linux files and saving. There are no more windows partitions.

After some haggling I got the full install done, and Puppy works.

However.....no sound(no volume icon anywhere) and it seems ALSA detects four sound cards, dont know which. I downloaded Retrovol and some drivers via pet and tgz files, and as a noob Im not sure from which area i am supposed to type $/.configure, $ make, $ make install to get the new programs to hopefully work.

Im thinking that retrovol should act as a master volume and that should give me an icon so the sound works(headphones dont work either).

So my impression is that from a novice's standpoint the explanations offered on troubleshooting are EXTREMELY LAZY and make loads of assumptions about what to do, instead of explaining specifically and accounting for exceptions to the rule. Its no wonder there are so many viruses(not necessarily on Linux) because from what I have seen so far it that much of the explanations SUCK.

I sure would like to hear specifics about how to engage drivers when there is a bug in the system and how to isolate problems specifically rather than trial and error.

Other than the sound issues and not knowing how to get files up and running, Puppy is a great OS.

jemimah · Joined: 26 Aug 2009 Posts: 4309 Location: Tampa, FL

Retrovol is already included in 5.2. If it doesn't show up in the tray, that's because it probably crashed, which it's apt to do if the sound card is not correctly detected.

Try opening the terminal and typing alsamixer and see what happens.

ICPUG · Joined: 24 Jul 2005 Posts: 1277 Location: UK

When we old time Puppy users talk of its speed I think we perhaps confuse newcomers.

If you do a FULL install of Puppy then there is no reason I can think of why it should be any faster in operation than any other linux distro. It works the same way as the others. It has to load its apps from the hard drive so there is delay while this is done.

However, Puppy was not designed to run as a full install as its default mode. It was designed to be run as a live CD that would install itself into RAM and run totally from RAM (provided you have enough RAM). In that mode, Puppy, IN OPERATION, is fast ...

Even when using a live CD the bootup will be slow because of the time taken to transfer the files from a slow CD device into RAM. If you want to speed that time up then you can do a frugal install to a USB stick or, better, your hard disk. Now you get a faster boot up, (though not as fast as a full install), plus the benefit of lightning fast operation.

Puppy is different from other linuxes. When the differences are understood and exploited, THEN we get impressed!

`f00 · Posted: Tue 08 Feb 2011, 15:11 Post subject: Subject description: more drivel

Too bad the headers don't do italics Laughing

but at least there's some qualification in that.

Cool that you're pleased with pup @duck1dong - interesting perspective you have (welcome and you fit right in).

1) Dotpets don't need configure, click'em in rox and follow any message 'instructions' - they're kind of like self-installing msi's (wash my mouth out Razz

)

2) sound can be iffy sometimes - you may need to ask about your particular hardware or set puppy up to prefer or even blacklist a device at boot (old issue of first-found audio device)

3) Documentation can be various. Some local text or html files, some man, a lot of webrefs or here in the forum. Not "lazy" so much as in a fairly progressive state of change - it's actually quite decent but some info is really quite sparse, perhaps outdated or hard to find until you get used to the 'flavor' of puppy documentation as it is. Another thing is that 'help' is often a course in teaching a man to fish while having a beer with him rather than merely giving him a loaf of bread ...

Funny, I had the install disc but found Puppy anyway ^.^

Varmint · Joined: 26 Apr 2007 Posts: 70 Location: Ohio, USA

I agree with an earilier post that using Firefox is not a great idea on older machines, as it eats ram right quickly. I've used Dillo with some success, and there's also the NetSurf and Skipstone browsers, both of which are accessed from your puppy package manager. Same for the Links browser.

I originally used Puppy 2.15CE, and later tried some older versions just because they were easily available, and I was bored and exploring my options. I've used the above mentioned version on my P3/450mhz/128mb ram system, as well as some old Wyse thin clients with 128mb ram on them, all with good success. That particular version, as I recall, required just over 200mb ram to run the entire distro in ram. Less, and it kept parts on the disk/stick. Boot parms can still be used to control this.

I'm also with the others that advised to use one of these older versions of Puppy on the older machines, as this will yield much better performance. I wouldn't think of running some of the newer stuff on my older machines, and I also ran all of those old dogs with xVesa mode instead of Xorg. Xorg tends to be flakey on machines under 500-600mhz for some reason, and I've observed this on every system and with every distro (I've tried stacks of distros) I tested.

Also, you can, indeed, run the package manager to REMOVE unwanted stuff from your system. Then you can also re-master a new iso file for your own use using whatever you want. You could save a lot of ram and gain some speed doing this, assuming you know what you're doing. I may try this as an experiment just to see how it works. I haven't compiled a kernel or anything else since the mid-90's when I was using Slackware. Call me lazy. As I type this I'm eyeiballing a Redhat 5.2 still in the box with all manuals, etc..., which I may also try out (I have a a number of older distros here.

As a last resort, you could always put FreeDOS on your system, along with the apps for that. I never understood why linux always took so much more space just for the basic running system than DOS, but as I said....I'm no guru!

And that is my two cents worth. Probably not worth any more than that!

73