Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[liro]

Hi,

I'm a Windows user who recently decided to give Linux another go.
I did a frugal install of Puppy on an ext4 partition (+created a swap file) of my IBM Thinkpad X31's hard drive (this is an old but decent laptop) and have been playing about with it for the last couple of days.

Although I am generally pretty impressed with Puppy (basically everything works fine without any complicated tweaking, something I had a hard time with on my previous Linux try-outs), the main thing I've noticed is that, compared to when used with XP, the laptop heats up very quickly, even when I'm just browsing a few non-content heavy webpages, and the CPU fan is going most of the time.

I'd always thought that Window's user friendliness was paid for by its sluggishness and general bloatedness, so I'm kind of surprised to find out that XP actually runs better than a slimline Linux distro on my laptop.

I wanted to ask if anyone could tell me why this is, and also is there any way I can make Puppy run more coolly and quietly. I've noticed that there is a "CPU Frequency Scaling" application but I'm not sure how to work this or if it will even work on my laptop (as it says my BIOS is pre-2007).

Any advice much appreciated,
Cheers.

[rcrsn51]

How much RAM?

[liro]

1 GB RAM, 1.6ghz CPU.

If this isn't enough for the Slacko Puppy distro I'm running, would a different one be advisable?

[jakfish]

I love Puppy Linux (I have a collection of old laptops back to a ThinkPad 570 and run Puppy on them all).

But in terms of battery life and CPU heat, Windows still beats any flavor of Linux.

My current go-to machine is a Lenovo S10-3t, a netvertible, and I'm triple-booting Dpup Exprimo, Android, and Win7. While I like Win7 the least, it romps over the other two in power management.

CPU frequency and scaling helps, as does a lowered screen brightness, sound mute, and the other usual tricks. But if you're on a long plane ride, Windows is your best bet on a laptop.

If you're plugged in, and can live with more fan noise, Puppy is the one in all other ways.

Jake

[sfeeley]

It could be that the thinkpad has specific software installed (probably by the manufacturer-- not as part of windows per se), that is designed specifically to deal with that computer's power management.

In my experience-- Windows XP actually runs really well. When it is a relatively fresh install. But as all the updates, and required anti-virus software are added, it slows to a crawl. Whereas puppy is more stable, and easier to reload if it does get borked.

Which puppy are you using? I generally use Lucid 5.28.

But on my older machines, Classic pup 2.14x and Akita run much better. I've not used Wary, but I suspect it will work better too. All three are updated puppies with current support, but aimed more at older boxes. (whereas Lucid and Slacko, can often run, but not quite as well on my older machines)

[liro]

Thanks for the replies. I've been fiddling around with the CPU frequency scaling tool and have managed (not quite sure how) to get it running noticeably cooler so I'm going to stick with it for now as I'm getting to quite like Puppy. The distro is Slacko 5.3.3, I just chose the lastest version on the puppylinux.org site.
Cheers.

[muggins]

You might want to play with some other pups which would use less resources.

e.g Turbopup, although it's not developed any more.

I think Scottman's Akita would also probably be lighter on resources.

And, (going on memory here?), Jemimah's Saluki has a button where you can vary resource usage.

[Dave_G]

sfeeley wrote:

[jafadmin]

I've got the same laptop. I just spent half an hour streaming video over the web in full screen mode and the temperature got up to 59c

That's well within the Centrino processor operating temperature range. (0-100)

I don't know what to tell you. Check the sensor temps in the "hardinfo" app.

My X31 has 512 meg of ram.