(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Hey all! Is anyone interested in a puppy for (much) older computers? I know that the Wary branch has been "retired", so I'm wondering if anyone is interested in reviving it or something close to it? I would be willing to be a tester. I do that for a living, so it wouldn't be that much of a jump for me if someone would want to take the lead on a Wary 6.x. Alternately, I could start working on this myself, but since I'm a n00bie...that would take much longer. I would need instructions. :/

Opinions? Ideas?

--Ray.

What's wrong with the current Wary 5.5 on your machine?

What features do you think need upgrading?

I would say all of them. It's a couple years old at this point. It's just time to think about this.

Hi maddog,

A bit of history may explain why no one has created a Wary 6. It has to do with binaries --the "nuts, bolts, and building-blocks assembled" to create an operating system and the applications which will run under it. As I understand it --I don't compile-- Source is merely a text file of instructions/arguments which one "feeds" into a compiler which then generates the binaries. The hard part is getting the instructions/arguments right.

Excluding DebianDogs (which are actually modified DebianLiveCDs) and remastery of an existing Pup to generate a Derivative, creation of a Puppy entails "woofing=assembling" binaries. Binaries can be compiled from Source or obtained from other Linux Distros which have already compiled them from Source. Pups before Wary. Quirky and FatDogs before Fatdog 7x, and Wary, itself, obtained binaries by compiling them from Source using the T2 Build Kit.

After creating Wary 5.5, Barry K --inventor of Puppy and Woof-- tested it against Precise Pup, a Puppy "woofed" using the binaries from Ubuntu Precise Pangolin. He concluded that there was no advantage gained in the creation of a Desktop operating system using binaries compiled via the T2 Build Kit over using the "pre-made" binaries of other distros.

He still does his own compiling in the creation of Quirkies -- his experiments for operating systems having unique capabilities.

The Linux Kernel is constantly evolving -- to overcome problems discovered and to take advantage of the potential of newer hardware. To a significant extent a change in the Kernel may require re-compiling hundreds, even thousands, of the binaries which are to run under it. A Wary 6 would only make sense if it were to employ a new Kernel. And perfecting such Wary 6 is likely to run into the same "teething" hurdles you'll find on the FatDog 70x threads, where kirk and Jamesbond published their creation using the hundreds(thousands?) of binaries compiled from Source via Linux From Scratch.

In the end, an operating system is merely a platform on which to run applications. The most efficient way to create it is likely to be the way it is created. Being able to eliminate the need for personally creating hundreds, if not thousands, of binaries in order to reach that objective was Barry K's inspiration for creating Woof.

mikesLr

Hmmmm.... If Debian Dog has been compiled for i486, it may be the way to go. ...and for the record, I don't really need a Wary 6. I need a linux distro that will run on a K6/2 cpu that isn't so slow that it's not worth it. Pretty much comes down to either Debian and Slackware. I just happen to remember Wary and have a good opinion of it.

--Ray.

Hi Maddog,

Have a look maybe at different pups running live and see what works best - some of the earlier lucids, Precise Retro or Debiandog Squeeze and add a later browser eg firefox can be downloaded and run as a portable app. I do this meaning I only worry about updating individual programs instead of a whole base.

There are lots of barebones pups to build a system that suits your machine.

maddog wrote:Hmmmm.... If Debian Dog has been compiled for i486, it may be the way to go. ...and for the record, I don't really need a Wary 6. I need a linux distro that will run on a K6/2 cpu that isn't so slow that it's not worth it. Pretty much comes down to either Debian and Slackware. I just happen to remember Wary and have a good opinion of it.

--Ray.

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 789#906789

Suggests that K6/2 support is being pulled by Debian.

Robert123 wrote:Hi Maddog,

Have a look maybe at different pups running live and see what works best - some of the earlier lucids, Precise Retro or Debiandog Squeeze and add a later browser eg firefox can be downloaded and run as a portable app. I do this meaning I only worry about updating individual programs instead of a whole base.

I had thought of this as well, which had lead me back to this forum to ask about Wary.

Robert123 wrote: There are lots of barebones pups to build a system that suits your machine.

Do you have a barebones pup in mind?
--Ray.

How about using Racy 5.5. Exactly the same applications as Wary but with a later kernel which has more capabilities eg. being able to use xz compression. I'm using it now after using Wary for ages. Although the newer puppy's like Precise and Tahr run well on my 10 year old machine, there are some issues. Racy works perfectly and satisfies my needs.

Old thread but interesting reading:

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=83841

A collection:

https://archive.org/download/PuppyLinux_barebones

Personally I use Lucid 5.11 version - Anyway a starting point.

Also have tried this James C classic:
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/Puppy525Retro

For your older processor though the older 511,515 Lucids or the 525 retro may work better - trial and error.


Some Firefox releases to use use Xarchiver to unzip them once you have sorted a suitable base distro:


https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/

K6/2-500, eh...? That brings back memories... my father had a "CTX" brand pile of whotsit that had that chip inside. Not AMD's fault that the thing was otherwise trash.

It had a spectacular death, IIRC -- the thermal grease in between CPU and an aftermarket heatsink he installed, was also the adhesion mechanism for said heatsink somehow (methinks Dad missed a bracket somewhere!) and when it failed, the cooler landed on the graphics card and basically shorted out the entire system. Took out the File Allocation Table on the hard drive, on top of everything else, not kidding. I'm pretty sure Dad eventually gave up on stitching all those file fragments back together... it was a couple-of-gigs hard drive, after all, and he'd been using it for quite some time...

On topic: K6/2 CPUs are 5x86-class devices, so they do not have the "CMOV" (conditional move) instruction that permits execution of packages targeted for 6x86-class CPUs ("i686" packages). maddog, you need a Pup that's entirely i386/i486/i586 packages. I seem to recall that Lucid 525 was found to be the last Pup made with that particular characteristic...

rcrsn51 -- I want to say you're the one that figured that one -- can you confirm it for me?

maddog -- one other thing -- I assume this is not your main system? I sure hope not... K6/2 stuff is from forever ago. You're going to be extremely severely limited with that box. You won't even be able to watch the ads on most webpages (which may or may not be a plus) let alone get to YouTube or the like. Heck, I'm not sure you can load animated GIFs on that heap. That box at this point is basically good as a word processor and maybe an email box if you can somehow get a compatible email client...

If that *is* your main system, and you are in the USA, *and* you are interested in upgrading -- shoot me a PM. Seriously. Heck, even if you're outside the US (please let me know what country you're in) -- shoot me a PM if you want an upgrade and I'll see what I can arrange. I tinker so I'm familiar with a few things that might help you. I know it's a little odd -- but I try to help when and where I can.

starhawk wrote:K6/2-500, eh...? That brings back memories... my father had a "CTX" brand pile of whotsit that had that chip inside. Not AMD's fault that the thing was otherwise trash.

It had a spectacular death, IIRC -- the thermal grease in between CPU and an aftermarket heatsink he installed, was also the adhesion mechanism for said heatsink somehow (methinks Dad missed a bracket somewhere!) and when it failed, the cooler landed on the graphics card and basically shorted out the entire system. Took out the File Allocation Table on the hard drive, on top of everything else, not kidding. I'm pretty sure Dad eventually gave up on stitching all those file fragments back together... it was a couple-of-gigs hard drive, after all, and he'd been using it for quite some time...

On topic: K6/2 CPUs are 5x86-class devices, so they do not have the "CMOV" (conditional move) instruction that permits execution of packages targeted for 6x86-class CPUs ("i686" packages). maddog, you need a Pup that's entirely i386/i486/i586 packages. I seem to recall that Lucid 525 was found to be the last Pup made with that particular characteristic...

rcrsn51 -- I want to say you're the one that figured that one -- can you confirm it for me?

maddog -- one other thing -- I assume this is not your main system? I sure hope not... K6/2 stuff is from forever ago. You're going to be extremely severely limited with that box. You won't even be able to watch the ads on most webpages (which may or may not be a plus) let alone get to YouTube or the like. Heck, I'm not sure you can load animated GIFs on that heap. That box at this point is basically good as a word processor and maybe an email box if you can somehow get a compatible email client...

If that *is* your main system, and you are in the USA, *and* you are interested in upgrading -- shoot me a PM. Seriously. Heck, even if you're outside the US (please let me know what country you're in) -- shoot me a PM if you want an upgrade and I'll see what I can arrange. I tinker so I'm familiar with a few things that might help you. I know it's a little odd -- but I try to help when and where I can.

Glad I could bring back a "happy" memory for you. My K6/2 was my first pc and I refer to it as "my toybox". It's long since been replaced as my main system. I don't need anything for it. Frankly, it kept getting nicer cards and more ram over the years. I'd have to double-check but I think the mobo is maxed out. Thanks for the offer though.

Thanks everyone! There does seem to be a ton of options, many of them I hadn't thought of. Much thanks to all!

Right now the old beast has a Win98/Salix/Debian 8 on it. Surprisingly, Debian with TDE is running the best. The only browser that I've found that'll work well is Dillo. I've also played with TinyCore and DebianDog. I now have a long list of possibilities to try.

There's this thread that showed up this morning. The last post is interesting.

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=101582

--Ray.

Hi Maddog,

Glad your having fun and making some progress with that machine,


You could also try this Debian based distro which is lighter than Debian.
http://linuxbbq.org/bbs/index.php

Particularly this iso I'm running at the moment
http://linuxbbq.org/bbs/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2395
Uses a 586 kernel.

Needs to be 100% free of i686 and later packages to run.

NOTHING compiled for i686 using the standard target/options/switches/etc will run, because it's meant to have that CMOV instruction. Technically the instruction is optional, but in practical terms it's not, because everybody includes it. I assume there's a way to compile for i686 *without* the CMOV requirement but I'm not familiar with programming enough to even be certain of that -- and we'd be talking a package-by-package recompile anyways which obviously isn't going to happen.

Hi maddog

Have a look here on Debian Dog Jessie Project .It is is really a hot Project .
The best of Debian and the best of Puppy Linux .
Even better than both alone .
In the beginning it looks a bit difficult ......but let me tell you ..it is more than worth it .

Debian Dog Jessie :

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=99460

Cheers !

Release notes for Linuxbbq Break - Openbox based distro

You are not afraid of sid/experimental? lol, nope
GTK3 is on your blacklist? yesh sir
You don't need no systemd? f---- no
Your computer is from the last decade, has a RAM size of three digits and a CPU that powers a solar calculator? last decade? last millenium,
You give a flying f--- about GPT and UEFI, just want to give your smelly Pentium a new home? yeah kinda
You promise not to use btrfs and lvm? i promise i use wtf instead
To update, upgrade and install packages you use the excellent 'apt' command? rofl no, i call the postman,
You believe in beards, sandals, or clicky keyboards? i believe in dog...
You like process trees that don't need a scroll wheel to display all their beauty? what is "scroll wheel"?
You know that 'sudo bbqinstaller' will put the live system onto a prepared partition? none of your business
You remember that the password for the live session is 'root'? what was the root password again?
You have heard of the mighty 'adduser' wrapper? I might(y) use useradd, you bloatface
You absolutely want to change to root password after installation because 'root' is simply not safe enough? yeah i change it to

http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxbbq/files/2016/

I,for one, would be interested in an updated Wary. If there is one floating around somewhere. Yes I have tried the so called successor, only to find out that 'xorgwizard' when typed into a command line does not work if you don't use xorg. I prefer xvesa.

For the moment, the ability to delete the X symlink, and restore it when done, is kind of important.

An updated 431 would be great

hey maddog

K6-2 waw!

I thought my machine was old, but yours is better still!
I have athlon palomino with geforce256 and 1G RAM.

You must run into all kind of restrictions.
But one can be surprised by puppy. I can run Tahr happily with vesa. For nvidia driver I have to use Wary with the older kernel. I do not know which is better at the moment. i have some issues on either.

An update for wary would be nice. I am thinking of adding gtk3 and updating/upgrading the libraries if possible. Also adding some tools and scripts or newer version of them like uextract, listdd ...
The bigger apps are really nice I think. And it is quite easy to add bigger apps like firefox (firefox-portable) or FreeOffice if needed.
I do not know if work with woof or compiling would be needed. I have done neither so far. Maybe work on the main.sfs and init would be enough? But I doubt this could be called a new Wary.

Really interesting thread so far, btw.

To be old is not a criteria ! I run wary 5.3 because 5.5 give me black screen.
Repository is rich, very rich.
Young perhaps would be a default for our Puppies, due to lack of feed back when installed, and teams gone to newer version.
Wolx 2014 is a newer version of Wary 5.5. Just set is as US at first settings. What is new however will appear in french, not sure that translation to english has be done.
What is sure, is that if you ask help in forum francophone, they will hep (even in English). They help for any french Puppy, whatever old it is.
Link to ISO by ASRI EDU, released february 2014
Openbox, Lxpanel, Opera and Frisbee are the main changes compared to Wary 5.5 . I use it on ACER Aspire 1640 512MB born 2004, died ? not yet)