Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

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[rg66]

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Thanks,
I'll swap the Carolite sfs in as my core for now for testing.

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[Sage]

[starhawk]

Small bug -- the boot splash for Carolite 1.1 advertises "Carolina 1.0 non pae" -- yet the SFS is "puppy_lina_1.1.sfs" -- might want to fix that.

Booting on the creaky old VAIO as I type this, tho

[starhawk]

I'm gonna rate this as an 8/10 on this old VAIO. Detailed (ish) review thingy...

I found more bugs --

Icon-setter doesn't seem to work, the bottom tray blinks and that's all that happens. (Not that it matters with the icon-setter nonfunctional, but I hope somewhere I can get more icon themes... )

The harp sound gets old fast. (Easily changed tho!) Perhaps 2barks.au would've been more... traditional?

Speaking of sound, this thing is LOUD! (but that might be the VAIO) Also an easy fix to that issue

I've never had much luck with Frisbee as my network manager (I tend to go with SNS) -- perhaps it would be good to put the old Connect Wizard back in? Also, since I'm *used to* looking for the Connect Wizard, it was really unintuitive no to have Frisbee at least in the Menu. Doubly so because the idea of clicking the icon to set up networking will be foreign to Windblows users as well...

HardInfo isn't here, so I can't report detailed info on the hardware on this old heap...

Some good things --

My cardbus four-port USB2 hub works this is very good since the VAIO's original two ports are long since shot. (They were used to death!)

Performance is pretty decent overall. The system is remarkably responsive, although Firefox does seem to tax it, and Flash has a problem -- Firefox asks to install it, and YouTube wants to upgrade it. But it works anyways... confusing.

Overall... not bad at all for a 2006ish "ultraportable" laptop!

Specs of the test system --

Sony VAIO VGN-S360
1.7GHz Pentium M CPU
1gb RAM (2x512 "MicroDIMMs")
120gb almost-dead HDD
CD-R/RW - DVD-ROM "Combo" Drive
ATI Mobility RADEON 9700 graphics chip ('radeon' driver)
13.3" 1280x800 screen
WiFi b/g Card (don't remember what kind, Frisbee autodetected it and won't tell me the driver)
4-port Cardbus USB2 Hub
~65w AC Adapter (16v 4a)

[starhawk]

To avoid confusion, putting this in another post --

I have a system with the following specs; about how well could I expect it to run CaroLite 1.1?

VIA Eden 400MHz CPU
Integrated VIA Video (uses the openchrome driver IIRC)
1gb RAM
4gb CompactFlash card (in adapter) as hard drive
External CD drive when needed

[rg66]

@ starhawk

You're right, one of the splash screens is lina-1.0. Not sure how that got in there, I don't see it with frugal install so completely missed it.

There are two icon switchers, Control Panel > Desktop > Appearance > Icons tab is system icons, Control Panel > Desktop Icon Switcher is menu icons.

Hardinfo and flashplayer are not there, they can be dl'ed from the repo. It's not easy to get lina under 150mb and have everything everybody wants, it is a lite version after all.

1 GB RAM sounds ok but a 400Mhz CPU might be a bit weak, there's only one way to find out how well lite will run. I can't see it using much less resources than the full lina. LxTask: CPU-3% RAM-85mb at idle, with firefox running: CPU-10% RAM-160mb.

Thanks for the feedback.

[Geoffrey]

Added a few Qt apps to the repo, there is a nice radio player greatlittleradioplayer-1.4.5-2.i386.pet with lots of stations to choose from and the look can be changed by changing coats.

[starhawk]

[Sage]

Just had an opportunity to run Carolite. Impressively fast and lightweight in all respects. BK was correct right from the start. There really isn't any point in burdening your masterpiece with loadsa bloatware when you've already done the hard work to provide an excellent PPM. Don't let this distro get confused with the wannabees we shall doubtless see again tomorrow on DWW with their Gb s of someone else's selections! In one of my applications I can confirm I was able to install your v10 FlashPlayer and watch BBC/iPlayer almost instantly. Well done, chaps.

[greengeek]

I'm a little confused about the difference between Carolina and LinaLite - are they two separate versions? I just looked on page one and only see links for Carolina.

By the way - the Carolina homepage link at the very bottom of the first post is easily missed but the website it links to is delightful! Love the way the webpage links animate when you mouse over them. Very clever!
http://smokey01.com/carolina/pages/lina-index.html
.

[Geoffrey]

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