Hi, I have an old Toshiba laptop with a Pentium III @ 650 and 256 Mb of RAM.
I've loaded Windows 98SE and I was thinking that Puppy Linux would be a good second OS, but I think that later versions (5.x, 6.x) can be heavy, so I'd like to use a lighter version.
What version would you recommend? The graphic card is a S3 Savage/IX and the soundcard is a Yamaha 744, so maybe video support can be an issue.
Thanks in advance.
Best Puppy for a P3 laptop?
you may find some good info here:
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/PuppyOnLaptops
puppy 4.31 was a gem, try that first, it runs great on my p3 thinkpad
http://archive.org/download/Puppy_Linux ... up_431.iso
darry does an updated version
http://archive.org/download/Puppy_Linux ... te2016.iso
slacko 5.3.3 ran lovely on my machine also
http://archive.org/download/Puppy_Linux ... g-SCSI.iso
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/PuppyOnLaptops
puppy 4.31 was a gem, try that first, it runs great on my p3 thinkpad
http://archive.org/download/Puppy_Linux ... up_431.iso
darry does an updated version
http://archive.org/download/Puppy_Linux ... te2016.iso
slacko 5.3.3 ran lovely on my machine also
http://archive.org/download/Puppy_Linux ... g-SCSI.iso
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Sailor Enceladus
- Posts: 1543
- Joined: Mon 22 Feb 2016, 19:43
For what it's worth, I have gotten almost all windows programs that worked in Windows 98 to work in Wine with Puppy. At a point I kept Win98 around because a few crashed in Wine, but I found out that changing winecfg settings in "Graphics" to "Enable virtual desktop" fixed them. Does your Windows 98 laptop have soundblaster compatibility for Dos games or is it too new?
My recommendation: junk it.
I have used (and abused) a lot of old kit, from Commodore 64s on up. Right now I have, at least in the PC category, an XT that won't boot, a 386 desktop, a 486 laptop, a P1 laptop that needs a weird power cable, a pair of 2009-era netbooks, and the custom desktop that I'm typing this post on.
A Pentium III system can't really cope with today's world. It will hobble around on YouTube like an old cripple, at best -- and at worst, you'll have to download videos to watch them. The first Flash ad it hits will knock it flat.
Besides, Puppy really needs about 512mb RAM, bare minimum, to be happy. You have half of that, and your processor, even for a P3, is kind of slow.
I had a Pentium II laptop for a while... yes, I know that's different. Not by as much as you think, though -- and it had the same amount of RAM. I couldn't get it to run Puppy anywhere near even half-decently. I've spent literally years on that thing, and finally came to the conclusion that it couldn't be done. It sold on eBay a week ago... its one gift to me was the $35 I got from the sale.
You'll be far happier selling yours there and using the proceeds to trade up, than you will poking at it for month after month trying to find something that won't take five minutes to boot and just enough time to be infuriating, in between keypresses or clicks and when the thing actually responds.
As they said about communication in the 90s -- sometimes you just have to face fax
Bin it.
I have used (and abused) a lot of old kit, from Commodore 64s on up. Right now I have, at least in the PC category, an XT that won't boot, a 386 desktop, a 486 laptop, a P1 laptop that needs a weird power cable, a pair of 2009-era netbooks, and the custom desktop that I'm typing this post on.
A Pentium III system can't really cope with today's world. It will hobble around on YouTube like an old cripple, at best -- and at worst, you'll have to download videos to watch them. The first Flash ad it hits will knock it flat.
Besides, Puppy really needs about 512mb RAM, bare minimum, to be happy. You have half of that, and your processor, even for a P3, is kind of slow.
I had a Pentium II laptop for a while... yes, I know that's different. Not by as much as you think, though -- and it had the same amount of RAM. I couldn't get it to run Puppy anywhere near even half-decently. I've spent literally years on that thing, and finally came to the conclusion that it couldn't be done. It sold on eBay a week ago... its one gift to me was the $35 I got from the sale.
You'll be far happier selling yours there and using the proceeds to trade up, than you will poking at it for month after month trying to find something that won't take five minutes to boot and just enough time to be infuriating, in between keypresses or clicks and when the thing actually responds.
As they said about communication in the 90s -- sometimes you just have to face fax
Bin it.
Thanks for all the replys.
The programas involved have not native Linux versions, and I don't want to risk to use them under wine (latency with I/O may be a concern).
About the soundcard, I'm not fully tested it. Some sites states that can have full DOS support (but I need some drivers) even in clean DOS (=without booting Windows 98 first) but I'd like to see it.
That Puppy is meant to do basic tasks and to complement Windows 98 so older Puppies can do the job.
Although that computer can't cope with modern internet, it can be useful to check documents and having *real* legacy devices is a must. I think that most computer techies should have one of those at their works.
I received the laptop for free without HDD and with a Puppy 5.2.8 CD on the drive, but it seemed a bit slow. Maybe installing it to HDD could speed up things a little, but I'm not sure.
I can't get rid of that Windows 98... The main reason is that I needed that laptop because has *real* serial, parallel and floppy disk. I use that parallel port with a Willem EPROM burner and the floppy disk with some tools to write old computers disks (=8 bit computers, like ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC).Sailor Enceladus wrote:For what it's worth, I have gotten almost all windows programs that worked in Windows 98 to work in Wine with Puppy. At a point I kept Win98 around because a few crashed in Wine, but I found out that changing winecfg settings in "Graphics" to "Enable virtual desktop" fixed them. Does your Windows 98 laptop have soundblaster compatibility for Dos games or is it too new?
The programas involved have not native Linux versions, and I don't want to risk to use them under wine (latency with I/O may be a concern).
About the soundcard, I'm not fully tested it. Some sites states that can have full DOS support (but I need some drivers) even in clean DOS (=without booting Windows 98 first) but I'd like to see it.
As I said before, I need that serial and parallel ports and that floppy disk drive. USB adapters are useless, because the software meant for that machine is hardwired to real port adresses (i.e.: 0x378 for parallel port) and USB FDDs can't write only PC format floppies (80 tracks, 2 sides, either 9 or 18 sectors/track starting at 0... and some FDDs can only write 18 sectors/track).starhawk wrote:My recommendation: junk it.
That Puppy is meant to do basic tasks and to complement Windows 98 so older Puppies can do the job.
Although that computer can't cope with modern internet, it can be useful to check documents and having *real* legacy devices is a must. I think that most computer techies should have one of those at their works.
Certainly agree with you there Zup another possibility that is for old computers is AnitaOS by darry1966 - the 412 version non-smp version may work for you plus there is software there to compliment it and browsers to run.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/anitaos/
https://sourceforge.net/projects/anitao ... o/download
https://sourceforge.net/projects/anitaos/
https://sourceforge.net/projects/anitao ... o/download
Devuan Linux, Stardust 013 (4.31) updated [url]https://archive.org/details/Stardustpup013glibc2.10[/url]
s57(2018)barebone[url]https://sourceforge.net/projects/puppy-linux-minimal-builds/files/s57%282018%29barebones.iso/download[/url]
s57(2018)barebone[url]https://sourceforge.net/projects/puppy-linux-minimal-builds/files/s57%282018%29barebones.iso/download[/url]
It will definitely run faster from HDD. If the full system is not copied into RAM from CD (which is probably your case), running from CD will be slow, guaranteed.Zup wrote:Thanks for all the replys.
I received the laptop for free without HDD and with a Puppy 5.2.8 CD on the drive, but it seemed a bit slow. Maybe installing it to HDD could speed up things a little, but I'm not sure.
I can't get rid of that Windows 98... The main reason is that I needed that laptop because has *real* serial, parallel and floppy disk. I use that parallel port with a Willem EPROM burner and the floppy disk with some tools to write old computers disks (=8 bit computers, like ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC).Sailor Enceladus wrote:For what it's worth, I have gotten almost all windows programs that worked in Windows 98 to work in Wine with Puppy. At a point I kept Win98 around because a few crashed in Wine, but I found out that changing winecfg settings in "Graphics" to "Enable virtual desktop" fixed them. Does your Windows 98 laptop have soundblaster compatibility for Dos games or is it too new?
The programas involved have not native Linux versions, and I don't want to risk to use them under wine (latency with I/O may be a concern).
About the soundcard, I'm not fully tested it. Some sites states that can have full DOS support (but I need some drivers) even in clean DOS (=without booting Windows 98 first) but I'd like to see it.
As I said before, I need that serial and parallel ports and that floppy disk drive. USB adapters are useless, because the software meant for that machine is hardwired to real port adresses (i.e.: 0x378 for parallel port) and USB FDDs can't write only PC format floppies (80 tracks, 2 sides, either 9 or 18 sectors/track starting at 0... and some FDDs can only write 18 sectors/track).starhawk wrote:My recommendation: junk it.
That Puppy is meant to do basic tasks and to complement Windows 98 so older Puppies can do the job.
Although that computer can't cope with modern internet, it can be useful to check documents and having *real* legacy devices is a must. I think that most computer techies should have one of those at their works.
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Sailor Enceladus
- Posts: 1543
- Joined: Mon 22 Feb 2016, 19:43
Missed this, above. For what it's worth, I recently bought one of these programmers. I haven't used it yet... yet. But it claimed at the time (the listing has since changed) to be Linux compatible. I have not yet tested that claim...Zup wrote:I can't get rid of that Windows 98... The main reason is that I needed that laptop because has *real* serial, parallel and floppy disk. I use that parallel port with a Willem EPROM burner and the floppy disk with some tools to write old computers disks (=8 bit computers, like ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC).
The programas involved have not native Linux versions, and I don't want to risk to use them under wine (latency with I/O may be a concern).
I know that alone won't solve your floppy requirement -- but it may help with ROM gear... I don't know. Depends on how attached you are to the old UV EPROMs
(seriously, there's very little difference, pinout-wise, between a 27Cxx chip and its 28Cxx version... and since 28Cxx chips program just like SRAM, they're easier to use...)By the way, the first use of that programmer, at least, the one I have -- is to program the ROM for a 6502 system
I'm getting started with a little homebrew setup that drives a very strange serial LCD. Doesn't have to do much... which makes it perfect as a first step toward learning such things.OK, so I've got (almost) ready my laptop.
At first I tested that Puppy Linux 4.3.1 with updates, and I must say that it's a complete waste of time. I burn in into a CD and then installed to hard disk (complete install on ext2 partition with swap) using Grub as boot selector.
The system starts fine, but...
- Most icons have no actions assigned. Click on setup and you'll get setup, click on edit and you won't get anything. Strange, because the updated version is way bigger than the normal version.
- Printer set up don't work.
- I've tried to install programs from Puppy repositories, but they have broken dependencies.
- Network setup don't save DNS information (maybe network scripts don't get that information). Every time I run with static IP, DNS is 192.168.1.1.
I didn't even try to resolve that problems. I downloaded and installed plain Puppy Linux 4.3.1 and everything works. Most packages were already installed and everything I've installed from repositories works.
At first I tested that Puppy Linux 4.3.1 with updates, and I must say that it's a complete waste of time. I burn in into a CD and then installed to hard disk (complete install on ext2 partition with swap) using Grub as boot selector.
The system starts fine, but...
- Most icons have no actions assigned. Click on setup and you'll get setup, click on edit and you won't get anything. Strange, because the updated version is way bigger than the normal version.
- Printer set up don't work.
- I've tried to install programs from Puppy repositories, but they have broken dependencies.
- Network setup don't save DNS information (maybe network scripts don't get that information). Every time I run with static IP, DNS is 192.168.1.1.
I didn't even try to resolve that problems. I downloaded and installed plain Puppy Linux 4.3.1 and everything works. Most packages were already installed and everything I've installed from repositories works.