New Life For Older Puppys

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sszindian
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New Life For Older Puppys

#1 Post by sszindian »

How would you like to put some 'new life' back in some of your older favorite puppy programs ... ahem... without going through a large hastle or bunch of programming?

Well, I found you can!

With the lack of NEW puppy's being built lately, I decided to try testing in a different way... adding different things to some of the puppy's I really like to use for my daily needs.

First and foremost, I picked the 'Kernel' to play with. Now we all know the old belief that states - Older Kernels For Older Puppy's - well, I for one never believed that theory! The Kernel is the heart of every linux distro no matter what the name or who developed it.

We are all aware by now that Barry Kouler has retired from the puppy world... but... it seems he couldn't keep his hands out of the pie (so to speak) and went ahead and started developing a new-breed called 'Quirky' for himself to use which now seems to be a rather extensive 'public thing' on the Internet.

Anyway, BK has compiled some new and latest Kernels for his Quirky-

Source PET (115.2MB):
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/quirky ... atched.pet

Source PET (112.9MB):
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/quirky ... atched.pet

You can check his Blog out at-

http://bkhome.org/news/

for lots more information on this.

Well what I did was download these .pet's and tried them in various puppy builds.

Here is what I have tested so far-

Saluki.0.2.3 (kernel_src-3.12.6-patched.pet)
Results= 'Fantastic' with no found issues running any of the installed programs that were in there that I normanally use for testing a build. It sure put a new life into this old favorite!

Lina Lite-0.5 (kernel_src-3.12.6-patched.pet)
Results= 'Fantastic' with no found issues running any of the installed programs that were in there that I normanally use for testing a build.

Racy-5.4.91 (kernel_src-3.12.6-patched.pet)
Results= 'Fantastic' with no found issues running any of the installed programs that were in there that I normanally use for testing a build.

Racy-5.5 (kernel_src-3.12.6-patched.pet)
Results= 'Fantastic' with no found issues running any of the installed programs that were in there that I normanally use for testing a build.

Slacko-5.6.5.5 (kernel_src-3.12.11-patched.pet)
Results= 'Fantastic' with no found issues running any of the installed programs that were in there that I normanally use for testing a build. Originally this pup already had a 3.10.19 Kernel which in my opion was far better that the later 5.6.5.6 with the lower Kernel number.

Like I said... no known issues were encountered and nothing had to be changed or re-configured in any of these builds.

I don't doubt that the 3.12.11 Kernel could be used in all the above builds, I just don't have the time to try everything!

Now... advantages of these new Kernel's? Myself, I could see a great speed and performance increase in the older puppy's (although it took 15 or more minutes for the pet to install itself).

If you try any of these new Kernels in any of your favorite puppy's, post back here and let everyone what you experienced.

Enjoy... >>>---Indian------>

EDIT: Should have mentioned, always load a fresh puppy by- pfx=ram FIRST then downlaod and install the new Kernel .pet into that ... just in case it doesn't work, it won't affect your previous build!!!!
Cloud Computing For Every Puppy (a .pet)
[url]http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=69192[/url]

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mikeb
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#2 Post by mikeb »

Thanks for the post...

Just a couple of questions...

Why are you supplying the full kernel source for a kernel update?

Do you have or could you produce some figures for the speed increases you are getting? Are features like RT being implemented in this respect and so on... just to give some idea of the benefit users can expect in relation to the hardware they have.

Are these quirky builds lacking anything significant in terms of hard ware support compared to the more usually puppy builds?

mike

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sszindian
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Kernels

#3 Post by sszindian »

mikeb wrote: Thanks for the post...
>>>---Indian------> response: Your welcome!

Just a couple of questions...

mikeb wrote: Why are you supplying the full kernel source for a kernel update?
>>>---Indian------> response: BK also supplies the same-name Kernels in a .pet that's lots smaller (under 30 MB) but... from past experience I find the lesser size version Kernels end up missing features. Most dev's build to suit a smaller size puppy. So.... I wanted everything the Kernel had to offer. Anyone who trys these new Kernels are surely welcome to download and install whichever one they want. After all, this is just 'testing.'

mikeb wrote: Do you have or could you produce some figures for the speed increases you are getting? Are features like RT being implemented in this respect and so on... just to give some idea of the benefit users can expect in relation to the hardware they have.
>>>---Indian------> response: I'm just a 'tester', not a programmer. I'm simply stating what I have found. As far as 'speed - response time, etc.,' if you test enough puppy's like I do, you can actually notice the difference, someone with more knowledge will have to answer the 'tech' part if they so desire. I came upon this stuff strictly by accident trying various things in puppy's.

mikeb wrote: Are these quirky builds lacking anything significant in terms of hard ware support compared to the more usually puppy
builds?
>>>---Indian------> response: As in the previous response, that is beyond my knowledge and individuals will have to see just what the response is from their particular system setup. The new Kernels may not be for everybody but again... Like they say, you don't know unless you try! I knew what I had in the puppy's mentioned in my first post here and I know what I now have in these same puppy's and I am very happy with the results so far.

As stated earlier, I hope we get many responses here from users of all sorts of puppy builds, hopefully also some new puppy's will emerge.

>>>---Indian------>
Cloud Computing For Every Puppy (a .pet)
[url]http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=69192[/url]

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saintless
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Re: New Life For Older Puppy's

#4 Post by saintless »

Hi, guys.

Sszindian, your idea can born new type of puppy (better in my opinion).
Puppy is a modular system and it is disadvantage it can load only one module in /puppy folder on boot (or second module with drivers only if I do not mistake). I think Jemimah included option for second module loaded on boot in Saluki but in general puppy can load only one module on boot.

If puppy keeps the main system without kernel in one module and has second module with kernel only it will become much more flexible. Then the user can choose the kernel that works best for the hardware without changing the puppy version.
Of course it can not be done without problems with very old and much newer kernel on the same system but in general separate kernel modules will work fine for puppy.

I'm testing this approach in Debian based system and it works fine. See the picture attached (it has two initrd files because the system can change not only the kernel modules but can boot standard debian or porteus-boot way).
For example the user will have option to chose pae or non-pae kernel and even kernel for Power PC on the same version.

Toni
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sszindian
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New Kernels

#5 Post by sszindian »

saintless wrote:
Sszindian, your idea can born new type of puppy (better in my opinion).

>>>---Indian------> reply: Hope you are right... we'll see!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A few more puppy's tried - Installed the 3.12.11 Kernel.

Wheezy-3.5.2.11 - Everything seems to work very well! Wheezy is a super great program to begin with, I hope the newer Kernels will take it even further.

Puppy-4.3.2 v3 - Everything A-OK and working nice! First ran a fresh pup from CD using pfix=ram. That installed the 3.12.11 Kernel pretty fast. Then loaded my regular 4.3.2 v3 that has a savefile on HDD with quiet a few programs installed. It took almost 30-minutes for the pet to install itself but it appears no problems at all and is working very well... 4.3.2 v3 was pretty fast as it was, now (at least it seems to me) it's much better and surely faster.

This will probably be the last pup's I test and report on here with the new Kernels, the rest is up to you gals and guys... I do hope you'll report your findings here in this thread.

And on a last thought, even if there is no noticeable improvement in your current puppy after installing, you will for sure have better security with the newer Kernels.

>>>---Indian------>
Cloud Computing For Every Puppy (a .pet)
[url]http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=69192[/url]

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Moat
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#6 Post by Moat »

Hi sszindian -

For a noob like myself, is it as easy as installing one of Barry's kernel source .pets above (i.e. - kernel_src-3.12.11-patched.pet) just like any other .pet, to whichever Pup I'd like to try this on?

If so, I'm going to clone a few of my favorite USB Pup installs and give this a shot. I've mentioned it here before (don't want to beat a dead horse, Mike :) ) - in distro hopping over the last few years, my (completely subjective!) impression is that distributions using the latest kernels (=>3.10.x ?) seem to run snappier and consume less CPU. I'd really like to try this, and compare side-by-side!

Bob

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sszindian
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Kernel .pet

#7 Post by sszindian »

Moat wrote:
For a noob like myself, is it as easy as installing one of Barry's kernel source .pets above (i.e. - kernel_src-3.12.11-patched.pet) just like any other .pet, to whichever Pup I'd like to try this on?

>>>---Indian------> reply:
Yep... as simple as any other .pet, just download, put it in puppy of your choice and click on it :wink:

You can see in previous posts what I tried it on so (hopefully) it will work for the puppy version you choose?

>>>---Indian------>
Cloud Computing For Every Puppy (a .pet)
[url]http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=69192[/url]

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Moat
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Re: Kernel .pet

#8 Post by Moat »

sszindian wrote: Yep... as simple as any other .pet, just download, put it in puppy of your choice and click on it :wink:
Ahh - great. Thanks! When I get some spare time, I'll give this a go with Precise 5.7.1 retro and Carolina 1.2... and report back here with what I find. :)

Bob

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Re: Kernel .pet

#9 Post by starhawk »

sszindian wrote:Moat wrote:
For a noob like myself, is it as easy as installing one of Barry's kernel source .pets above (i.e. - kernel_src-3.12.11-patched.pet) just like any other .pet, to whichever Pup I'd like to try this on?

>>>---Indian------> reply:
Yep... as simple as any other .pet, just download, put it in puppy of your choice and click on it :wink:

You can see in previous posts what I tried it on so (hopefully) it will work for the puppy version you choose?

>>>---Indian------>
@sszindian -- is there any compiling (make, configure, etc) involved at all? My understanding is that a source package contains only source code -- and therefore must be compiled. Perhaps I am mistaken...?

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#10 Post by Moat »

I gave this a try on a fresh USB flash frugal install of Precise 5.7.1 Retro - took about 8 minutes for the kernel_src-3.12.11-patched.pet install to finish, added about 400mb to the savefile - but both uname -a and the system info utility show the old kernel (3.2.48 IIRC) still in place - even through multiple reboots. Everything looks/functions fine, otherwise.

:?

Hmm... might be a corrupt download, I'm thinking (t'was a rather flaky 6 hour dialup download) - my Md5Sum ended up being c94562f30fd5e01fe194fea5ccf13173 , FWIW.

Bob

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sszindian
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New Kernels

#11 Post by sszindian »

Moat:

You may have a 'good' download and good install if everything is still working as it did before (on an puppy you have previously setup and installed programs in) - or if a new install in ram with a pristine puppy and things work as they should!

Yes... installing these .pets DOES NOT CHANGE the name of the original Kernel. So yes, uname -a and info at the 'Hardinfo hardware information' program (Operating System) will still show the original Kernel name. But... that doesn't mean the new Kernel is not installed. I believe the new Kernel .pet's UPDATE the existing Kernel? Maybe someone with more knowledge can jump in here and explain all this much better than I can.

>>>---Indian------>
Cloud Computing For Every Puppy (a .pet)
[url]http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=69192[/url]

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Re: New Kernels

#12 Post by James C »

sszindian wrote:Moat:

You may have a 'good' download and good install if everything is still working as it did before (on an puppy you have previously setup and installed programs in) - or if a new install in ram with a pristine puppy and things work as they should!

Yes... installing these .pets DOES NOT CHANGE the name of the original Kernel. So yes, uname -a and info at the 'Hardinfo hardware information' program (Operating System) will still show the original Kernel name. But... that doesn't mean the new Kernel is not installed. I believe the new Kernel .pet's UPDATE the existing Kernel? Maybe someone with more knowledge can jump in here and explain all this much better than I can.

>>>---Indian------>
In few words, no.....installing a kernel source pet from a newer kernel does not change or upgrade the original kernel in any way.The kernel source pets do not even contain a kernel....kernel source is generally used when compiling drivers for example. Installing a kernel source pet is just cluttering up your savefile not changing the kernel.

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#13 Post by James C »

Longer more detailed answer....

When I compile a Puppy kernel I end up with 3 pets or sfs (see attached screenie).

Kernel_headers-3.x.xx,kernel_source-3.x.xx and linux_kernel-3.x.xx the actual kernel is in the kernel pet.
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#14 Post by James C »

This screenie is a extracted kernel pet. Notice the kernel (vmlinuz) located in the "boot" directory and the firmware and driver modules located in "lib"

The kernel pets are intended to be used with Woof...not to change or upgrade an existing kernel.

It is possible to extract the kernel pet and manually change the kernel but user beware.
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Kernel .pet

#15 Post by sszindian »

Thanks for the reply James!

Hmm.... than how can one account for the better overall performance installing any of these source .pet's makes?

This is all new to me by the way, all I know is what I experienced.

>>>---Indian------>
Cloud Computing For Every Puppy (a .pet)
[url]http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=69192[/url]

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sszindian
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Kernel .pet

#16 Post by sszindian »

Because of the interest and possibly the reluctance to install these new Kernel's of BK in a present working puppy, I opted to do some research on the Internet to try to see just what we have here and why there appears to be a significant increase in performance by installing them.

First I found that there are in fact '4' (four) different types of Kernels and 'many variants' of these that can be classified into four broad categories: monolithic kernels, microkernels, hybrid kernels and exokernels. Each has its own advocates and detractors.

The kernel can be easily replaced or upgraded by changing or upgrading the operating system or, in the case of Linux, by adding a newer kernel or modifying an existing kernel.

It is not necessary for a computer to have a kernel in order for it to be usable, the reason being that it is not necessary for it to have an operating system. That is, it is possible to load and run programs directly on bare metal machines (i.e., computers without any operating system installed), although this is usually not very practical.

Then there is the 'patched' Kernel (which BK's 3.12.06 an 3.12.11 are). From what I found, a 'patched' source Kernel 'HAS' the ability to update/upgrade the existing Kernel (even replace the existing Kernel with itself) AND update your operating system to make better use of your existing programs.

All this is but a brief explanation you can research it yourself on the Internet.

I know BK's Kernels are doing 'something' just by the way the .pet installed differently with a pristine puppy in RAM and that same puppy with an already rather large savefile on the HDD.

>>>---Indian------>
Cloud Computing For Every Puppy (a .pet)
[url]http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=69192[/url]

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#17 Post by rerwin »

sszindian,
I think you are confusing the "source" pets with the ones you must be using, one of which is "linux_kernel-3.12.11-nopae-aufs-squashfsbuiltin-i486-tahr.pet". The "i486" pets are what can be merged into puppies, not the source packages.
Richard

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Kernel.pet

#18 Post by sszindian »

No rerwin... I'm using the-

Source PET (115.2MB):
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/quirky ... atched.pet

Source PET (112.9MB):
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/quirky ... atched.pet

Exactly as I stated in the first post of this thread!

I have just started today playing with the-

linux_kernel-3.12.11-nopae-aufs-squashfsbuiltin-i486-tahr.pet

I'd like to see what that does to various puppy's. However, from my research on the Internet, it appears that the only Kernel that will/can upgrade another Kernel or itself or even replace itself has to be a 'patched' Kernel. There are a whole bunch of things going on with various Kernels, the research sure was a new eye-opener for me although very interesting.

Have you by chance installed the- linux_kernel-3.12.11-nopae-aufs-squashfsbuiltin-i486-tahr.pet in any existing puppy builds? If so, what was the outcome?

Thanks for posting here!

>>>---Indian------>
Cloud Computing For Every Puppy (a .pet)
[url]http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=69192[/url]

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#19 Post by 01micko »

Indian,

With due respect, however I'll be blunt. Kernel source pets do nothing. They are the source used to build the kernel. The patch is just for AUFS and various Puppy tweaks. You can't even install a kernel pet (re rerwin's post) in a frugal install. You need to hack the initrd. All you are going to end up with installing kernel src (or source or whatever) is a bunch of useless source code in /usr/src/linux.

Any performance "improvements" are in your mind.

If you don't believe me, find vmlinuz in the root dir (usually where your save file is; it is the kernel image). Do an md5sum on it. Install one of those pets you have been spruiking. Now do an md5sum on vmlinuz again. It's the same. The rest of the "kernel" comprises of kernel modules (/lib/modules/$kernel_version) and firmware (/lib/firmware).

EDIT: Now, installing a normal kernel pet in a FULL install will work (or potentially work, depending on compatibility) after a reboot.

That's it.
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sszindian
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Kernels

#20 Post by sszindian »

Hey Mic... thanks for popping in here and for all your smart expertise!

I run all my puppy's from the CD drive with the .iso on a closed-disk. I create my savefile on the HDD. That's how I do it if it matters any? I don't do frugal or full installs.

>>>---Indian------>
Cloud Computing For Every Puppy (a .pet)
[url]http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=69192[/url]

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