Can Puppy 5.7.1 be made to operate a Pentium 1 computer?

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danielozma
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Can Puppy 5.7.1 be made to operate a Pentium 1 computer?

#1 Post by danielozma »

I'm building an ethical project, or a Puppy Linux 5.7.1 Precise "retro" modified in favor of old computers. Do you think you can use it on Pentium 1 and equivalent, or I have to surrender to propose it for classes Pentium 2/3 and equivalent? I'm trying not to overload the system, if you have any feedback or advice thank you in advance.
Have a nice evening.

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mikeslr
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RAM as determinativ factor?

#2 Post by mikeslr »

Hi danielozma,

See jasper's post regarding the 256 RAM requirement of Precise-retro. http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 760#791760

As a non-expert, I would expect that using a swap partition would help --as in reducing system crashes-- but not necessarily eliminate that requirement.

Where possible, the use of "Program Folders", see http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 093#686093 --as opposed to the installation of pet or the loading of SFSes-- would also reduce the amount of RAM and power of CPU required.

While you're still in the planning stage, perhaps you should consider:
jrb's precise-5.4.3-barebones-0.2, http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 925#678925
01micko's ThinSlacko, http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=78228,
my personal favorite: elroy's 'lina lite, http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 981#663981.
Or, of course, wary: https://archive.org/details/Puppy_Linux_Wary

If I were you, I'd download a copy of each of the above and see which runs best on your least capable computer.

mikesLr

starhawk
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#3 Post by starhawk »

Pentium 1 era systems lack an essential instruction, 'cmov'. IIRC the newest you can run on that is something in the early 5xx series of Lucid Pups -- I want to say Lucid 525 but I could be wrong... might be 511.

danielozma
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#4 Post by danielozma »

So the Puppy Linux 5.7.1 Precise "retro" on a Pentium 1 does not work, or works only with difficulty if imposed a swap partition at least 256 MB on the hard drive? Work slowly and with difficulty is different from not work at all. I look courteous indications, thanking in advance. Have a nice evening.

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mikeslr
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Not at all

#5 Post by mikeslr »

I read starhawk's post to mean "not at all" --lacking something vital. He knows far more than I: regarding technical matters read that as very, very, very much more. I'm just someone who has test-run many Pups, and given a couple dozen a really good work out.
Puppy is free. It only takes your time to test. Lupu 525 is a good OS. It's the default on an old Dell Desktop I have. When in use it's hard to tell it's different from recent Pups. The main advantage of newer pups are their ability to handle newer hardware and some newer software.

I would also think an early Wary is worth testing. The Wary series was specifically created for old computers. Maybe also Akita, which I've never tried, but is sort-of based on Wary 5.1. http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 382#522382

mikeslr

starhawk
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#6 Post by starhawk »

Mike is correct... it's a hardware CPU limitation I was talking about, I'm afraid -- the 'cmov' instruction was introduced with the Pentium Pro, one generation later (686). Implementing that instruction was considered optional by Intel; however, so many second-source CPU manufacturers did it that it became a de facto standard.

No, you can't upgrade your way out of it with Pentium I hardware. You would be replacing motherboard and CPU both in order to do that, unless you went with Cyrix 6x86 CPUs which fit Super Socket 7 boards (not the original Socket 7!) but totally aren't worth the performance penalty they incur. (Cyrix stuff was always total crap.)

Really low-end P3 stuff is about the bottom of tolerable performance anyways... I have a P2 laptop, although using Puppy on that system brings to mind the words "crawl" or "walk" (strictly in the leisurely sense, mind you!) rather than "run" ;) I simply can't find a low spec enough Pup to make that thing dance...

disciple
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#7 Post by disciple »

I'd like to back that up. Acceptable performance is subjective, but if you are wanting to use Puppy that probably means your use case is something that will require at least a PIII with ram upgraded to the maximum possible. I'd say you probably want a prettty quick PIII.

Where would you get all these PIs, anyway?l
Do you know a good gtkdialog program? Please post a link here

Classic Puppy quotes

ROOT FOREVER
GTK2 FOREVER

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rcrsn51
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#8 Post by rcrsn51 »

There is a big difference between getting Puppy to run on a machine and getting it to do anything useful. Do you envision installing a modern web browser on these machines that will work with today's Internet?

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mikeslr
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Practical pointers, maybe?

#9 Post by mikeslr »

Hi again danielozma,

rcrsn51 has noted an important differenced and asked the important question, But assuming you have not given up in despair or rethought the practicality of trying to run Puppy on a Pentium I, perhaps this can help.

My first exposure to Puppy was about 7 years ago on an already old Thinkpad 640e. Regretfully, it has by now "gone the way of all metal". I was sufficiently impressed with its performance to continue following the development of Puppies to this day. If I ever knew that it was a Pentium II, or the significance of that, I had since forgotten and had to look it up.

But that got me thinking about the utility of the Puppy versions I originally employed, what their minimum requirements were, and whether they might serve some utilitarian purpose given today's internet. Which lead me to search for discussions about trying to run Puppies on a Pentium I.

As many of the links provided by the following are broken, one link you'll need is to Ally's archive, Thank you Ally. https://archive.org/details/puppylinux. It will also help if you were aware of the dedicated google search available for Puppy. https://cse.google.com/cse?cx=015995643 ... #gsc.tab=0

The following discussion about employing Puppy on a Pentium I took place about 6 years ago: http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=49618. About the same time, Zenfunk developed Pulp "for older hardware". http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=40226. You can still download Pulp. Note the instructions: The file has "doc" as an ending. Rename that to "iso". See attached screenshot.

A little later, Dewbie recommended trying Puppy 2.14 without assurances that it might work. In fact, his advice was "Your best bet is to download and burn several different Puppies to CD, then boot and run from live CD to see which ones will work."
I suggest that you read those entire threads for clues and suggestions.

All of which lead me to ttuuxxx's "Classic 2.14X", a revamp of the 2.14 Pup beginning in 2009 and still being discussed and explored as late as November 2014. The 14th post on http://gotoanswer.com/?q=Installing+Lin ... +P1+laptop indicates that someone ran it on a Pentium I. [That page also provides suggestions of other Linux Distros which might work].

Classic (some later versions?) is able to run a fairly recent opera web-browser, as well as a fairly recent Seamonkey webbrowser. You'll find some other useful software in smokey's repo: http://www.smokey01.com/ttuuxxx/2.14X/Software/
The "Classic" thread runs 333 pages. For finding discussions relating to software, I recommend plugging keywords into the "Wellminded" search, for example "Classic 2.14X Gimp". Ally's repo has an ISO, but it's a "collection" 2 Gbs in size. So it may make sense to try Classic using the ISO (only 128 mbs) available here: http://www.wisdom-seekers.com/puppy214x.html. If it works at all, you'll also find some software for it on that link. Archive-org provides another download link,http://archive-org.com/org/p/puppylinux ... 9/Guy_Dog/ on the same pages as Guy_Dog. Regarding Guy_Dog*, I had it running well on a circa 2000 Dell Latitude.

Interestingly, Guy_Dog was developed by Iguleder. Clicking on its download link on this forum takes you to his current/recent website where he compares his newest? creation, RLSD, to Puppy Linux and DSL. http://rlsd.dimakrasner.com/ It may provide you some food for thought.

Good luck with your project.

mikesLr
Attachments
Pulp 003.png
Pulp 003 after changing Pulp003.doc to Pulp003.iso and right-clicking
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Last edited by mikeslr on Tue 15 May 2018, 23:21, edited 1 time in total.

danielozma
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#10 Post by danielozma »

Thank you all for the great advice and information, you are really great. Have a nice evening.

infromthepound
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#11 Post by infromthepound »

Another Puppy I can't see anyone mentioning is Legacy, there are 2 versions, try 2
JB

danielozma
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#12 Post by danielozma »

Ok, thank you. Best regards.

raffy
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minipup

#13 Post by raffy »

Minipup 202R will do it.
http://eminima.org/pup/
Puppy user since Oct 2004. Want FreeOffice? [url=http://puppylinux.info/topic/freeoffice-2012-sfs]Get the sfs (English only)[/url].

oui

#14 Post by oui »

rcrsn51 wrote:There is a big difference between getting Puppy to run on a machine and getting it to do anything useful. Do you envision installing a modern web browser on these machines that will work with today's Internet?
what is usefull?

colors, pictures, icones etc.?

I can do 90 .. 99 % what I do on the PC with BASIC Linux (2 floppies each 1,5 MB!). better now as a lot of very potent software for console mode exists (wordgringer, sc, alpine, alsamixer, alsa-player, cups, gutenprint, sane, samba, etc.; all that are console mode app's being able to run in a modern Linux without graphic extension as for example SliTaz offers in the actual stable vers. 4 with the Russian Dolls conception: ab. only 6 MB for the console mode able to run in RAM like Puppy with a relatively modern kernel and other modern packages).

I thing, "links2" is a modern browser, and, yet "links" no. 1 is also a modern browser. You can draw in BASIC Linux in real graphic environment (in mgp! an excellent extension of MagicPoint! As far I know exclusiv in Baslin). What is not available in Baslin (the cosy name of BASIC Linux)? Show videos... But show videos is not any more but was until component of SliTaz in Version 3. with mplayer2 in the unchanged standard ISO (37 MB)... The actual new SliTaz core is about only 40 MB including 2 MODERN browsers (TazWEB, 160 kB over Webkit, and Midori; you can add full figured Xombrero unter 1 MB, how much, I can not remember now, depends of eventually other dependences, but Xombrero is only 360 kB "big" over Webkit, and Webkit is available for TazWEB giving TazPANEL and TazINSTALLER on localhost base. I use actually Xombrero, not difference for me to Seamonkey browser or Firefox, only, it is secure!), mTpaint, gparted, nano as development system, etc...

yes, the most important problem would be to check, if Webkit can be compiled for old processors. Or if old versions of Mozilla can be developed more to obtain the same service as with Midori...

what is the consequence of that software giantism? more advertissement at surfing time :x ? more video messages in the advertissement? "secure" can be small, see xombrero!

.
Last edited by oui on Sun 05 Apr 2015, 14:27, edited 1 time in total.

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ally
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#15 Post by ally »

hey mike

the new page format is a little confusing at the archive, not my doing.....

click 'all files' to see the individual links, the 2gb file is a zip of all the iso files

eg

http://archive.org/download/Puppy_Linux_214X

:)

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