My Puppy slowed way down

Using applications, configuring, problems
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jpmcbooks
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My Puppy slowed way down

#1 Post by jpmcbooks »

I installed puppy linux on my wife's computer about 8 months ago and it worked relativley well on her pentium4 tower . Now it is slow as molasses .
What can I do to speed it up?

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Fossil
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#2 Post by Fossil »

A bit more information would not go amiss. What version of Puppy? Frugal or full install? A Pentium 4 tower, but what processor, hard drive, memory?
Does the Puppy install work alright - aside from being 'slow'? Is the hard drive functioning correctly? Is the Puppy folder full of downloaded items and the usual flotsam collected over a period of time?
Try this first. Purge the browser cache. Then, assuming a frugal install, create a folder or series of folders outside the Puppy install and transfer all videos, pictures and any other large file download to there. Then reboot and see if that makes Puppy run faster!

p310don
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#3 Post by p310don »

A great test is to boot into Puppy using the pfix=ram boot parameter.

This doesn't use your save file. If your puppy still goes slowly, the problem is probably hardware related. If your pup works well, then you have to investigate further into your install.

Note, this is for a frugal installation.

jpmcbooks
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puppy runs slow

#4 Post by jpmcbooks »

Im using a Dell Dimension 3000 computer with a Intel Celeron 2.4 ghz
I got a St3160815a ide 160gb drive. running 5.6 puppy I believe is full install not frugal (how can I determine this?) The drive passes a butterfly pattern test and cpu passed diags on Microscope diags. The PS fan is working good. memtest is good.

Fossil: My wife only has about 3 or pdf files saved nothing else , no movies music etc.
How do I purge the firefox browser?
Where is the save folder in the file browser?
p310don: If it is frugal , how do I boot using pfix=ram

thanks

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Fossil
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#5 Post by Fossil »

Puppy "5.6". I'm guessing Slacko, not Precise, as you mention Firefox.
In Seamonkey it would have been: Preferences, Advanced (click the down-arrow), Cache. Clear Cache (it might also be wise to limit the amount of useage by creating a maximum size - cache disk space. As I'm not using Slacko, the Firefox equivalent browser Preferences may or may not be slightly different, although the same principal applies.

jpmcbooks
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slow puppy

#6 Post by jpmcbooks »

Now the firefox browser has exploded the picture on the homepage of yahoo.com
it takes up the whole screen. Yahoo is working fine on another computer. everything else is normal on screen ,
I installed seamonkey and it does the same thing! any ideas?

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Fossil
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#7 Post by Fossil »

Browser, Preferences, Appearance, "Resize large images to fit into browser window?"
What video resolution are you running at?

jpmcbooks
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puppy slow

#8 Post by jpmcbooks »

Fossil:
Im at work now , will check that out this evening.
The problem is limited to yahoo's picture on homepage , all other pages and sites work ok . If it was resolution setting it would affect everything would'nt it?

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Semme
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#9 Post by Semme »

Yahoo trouble?

They want you to update your browser. Not my method, but good for beginners. This, or spoof it's user agent.
>>> Living with the immediacy of death helps you sort out your priorities. It helps you live a life less trivial <<<

jpmcbooks
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slow puppy

#10 Post by jpmcbooks »

Semme: I read the update link and will look into it.
I installed the latest version of seamonkey and it does the same thing. Should'nt that have fixed it if it was a update issue?

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Semme
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#11 Post by Semme »

SM's NOT FF. It works without the tail-end here.. Yep >> the "user agent switcher" extension.
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686; rv:32.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/32.0 SeaMonkey/2.29.1
Without the extension, you'll need a "user.js" file to handle the edit:

Code: Select all

// Yahoo homepage rendering fix
user_pref("general.useragent.override", "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686; rv:32.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/32.0");
==

Now about the "puppy pfix=ram" boot.. Any quicker?
>>> Living with the immediacy of death helps you sort out your priorities. It helps you live a life less trivial <<<

slavvo67
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#12 Post by slavvo67 »

I'm not sure if this will help but I wrote a script for myself to clean out the junk from Root every once in a while. I called it CleanCache2 and made a menu entry that will appear under Business or Spreadsheets. It doesn't get everything but for me it gets the stuff that can be big. If you use this, please be sure there's nothing you downloaded that you didn't move from root.

Below is my amateur script or you can download the pet (includes menu entry mentioned above) at:

http://www.complianceman.com/puppy2

It's the 2nd to last file on the bottom.

# Dump to Clean
cd /
rm /root/*
cd /
rm /root/downloads/*
cd /
rm -rf /root/.cache/*
cd /
rm -rf /root/.thumbnails/*
cd /
rm /root/Downloads/*
cd /
rm /root/.mozilla/*
cd /
rm /root/.Trash/*
cd /
rm -r /root/.opera/cache/*
cd /
rm -r /tmp/Youtube/*
rmdir /tmp/Youtube
cd /
rm -rf /root/.mozilla/firefox/*/Cache/*
rm -rf /root/.mozilla/firefox/*/thumbnails/*

jpmcbooks
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slow puppy

#13 Post by jpmcbooks »

I loaded ubuntu 14.04.1 32 bit and it runs very slow also. I am convinced that I have a computer hardware problem not software. I'm not sure what, fans work memory test ok
maybe I try cleaning it out of dust.

Thank you all for your support. I guess this topic is closed being it is not a puppy issue.

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8Geee
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#14 Post by 8Geee »

I would try reloading puppy onto a USB Flash Stick. I have noticed that certain HDD's get slow with age due to rewrites. Also configuring the browser is very important... Firefox is Edit --> Preferences. One does not want to save cookies, and should set the the cache to zero. Do not enable reporting in the Advanced --> Data Choices tab, and in Security UNcheck site attacks and forgeries. All these things in the FireFox browser tend to slow down older computers.

I have to ask is any other OS loaded?, and what Firefox version are you now using?

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