best puppy for very old computer

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Dewbie

#41 Post by Dewbie »

@eskimo:
What Jemimah said...and Monsie mentioned the same thing on the previous page.
Did you make any RAM / swap changes before your most recent post?
This needs to be included for context.

Follow this simple formula:
(RAM only) or (RAM + swap) = 512MB.

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greengeek
Posts: 5789
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Location: Republic of Novo Zelande

Re: the story continues...

#42 Post by greengeek »

eskimo wrote:The wakepup floppy I had created with Puppy 4.3.1 the previous week couldn't find MeanPup on the CD
Any chance of trying that CD on your other system to confirm a healthy burn? If the CD is fine I would suggest it might be worth trying "Barely Pup" which is available here:
http://puppyisos.org/isos/2007-01-to-06/
It is very lightweight and won't give you any real functionality beyond file browsing on your disk drives unless you add other programmes, but it would be an interesting comparison of the booting time/issues.
Do you think creating another WakePup floppy directly in MeanPup could help me to get over this?
Sorry, I have no experience yet with WakePup.
I answered Yes to the question whether to install Adobe Flash Player
I don't think you have enough memory to use flash. I would recommend you evaluate the browser performance without flash first. It should still be fine for email use at least, especially if you avoid the newer versions of browsers that are memory hogs

I don't have any info to add regarding the mouse and sound card issues, except to say that trialling other puppies can give surprisingly different results, depending on the hardware the developer trialled them on.

I still recommend anyone using older hardware to trial Puplite or Akita for comparison purposes.
Akita is here:
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... &start=599
Puplite:
http://puppylinuxnews.org/home/p_2/

Good luck and please keep us updated. thx

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antiloquax
Posts: 405
Joined: Fri 27 Jan 2012, 09:17

#43 Post by antiloquax »

I have Wary 5.3.3 running fine on a Pentium II with 196mb RAM :)
My System:Arch-Arm on RPi!
"[url=http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=76049l]RacyPy[/url]" puplet on Toshiba Tecra 8200. PIII, 256 MB RAM.
[url=http://raspberrypy.tumblr.com/]RaspberryPy[/url]: Lobster and I blog about the RPi.

tommy
Posts: 133
Joined: Tue 04 Oct 2005, 20:21
Location: Italy

#44 Post by tommy »

eskimo,
256MB of ram are good to play with Akita beta 8 or Turbopup extreme 1.0. They are a Puppy 4.2 derivatives, they use a 2.6.25.16 kernel (there are TONS of drivers, games, emulators and applications for this kernel in puppy repos and in this forum) and need little CPU power to run. The former is more up-to-date. If you have an hard disc, create a 256 MB swap file or a swap partition.
I also suggest standard Puppy 2.16 or 3.01, especially if you have problems with older pci or ISA sound cards.
Puppy 2 series are faster in starting programs. On my old PC (256MB ram & no swap) it took 2 seconds to start Seamonkey in puppy 2.16 and 7 seconds in 3.01!! Pup 2.14X10 is good but is RAM hungry.

Also, if your PC has an USB port and you have a USB pendrive, don't waste CDs and install puppy on your pendrive, then boot using Wakepup or Plop boot floppy. Here you will find my post on how to modify wakepup floppy if the standard one doesn't recognise your USB pendrive.

As for hard disc, if you want to play with different puppies and don't want to mess with USB pendrives, create directories in your HD (for instance name them: wary; akita; turbopup; pup216; pup301 ecc), copy the content of the respective puppy ISO in them (vmlinuz, initrd.gz, pup****.sfs, zdrv***.sfs) then modify the file in Hard Disc: /boot/grub/menu.lst as described here:http://puppylinux.org/main/How%20NOT%20 ... 0Puppy.htm . Pay attention to the 'psubdir' option! Puppy 2 series need a 'root=/dev/ram0' option just before the 'psubdir' option. Akita may need 'nosmp' option also. And remember that grub IS case sensitive!

As for new puppies, I have tried Puppy Wary, Lupu, Racy & newer ones but on old PCs they are too slow in my opinion.

Have fun.

I-Dont-Know
Posts: 49
Joined: Sat 21 Aug 2010, 08:22
Location: Boston

How to choose which Puppy

#45 Post by I-Dont-Know »

By default, I choose the latest Puppy. e.g. 5.28 because I am not familiar with all the various Puppies.

I see things called Wary and Classic Puppy etc but don't know what these variants are for.

Is there a webpage that explains what each does so that one can better understand what they are and what they do ?

Just asking.... thought someone might be able to direct me to a helpful url.

Many Thanks,
I-Dont-Know

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rjbrewer
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Joined: Tue 22 Jan 2008, 21:41
Location: merriam, kansas

Re: How to choose which Puppy

#46 Post by rjbrewer »

I-Dont-Know wrote: By default, I choose the latest Puppy. e.g. 5.28 because I am not familiar with all the various Puppies.

I see things called Wary and Classic Puppy etc but don't know what these variants are for.

Is there a webpage that explains what each does so that one can better understand what they are and what they do ?

Just asking.... thought someone might be able to direct me to a helpful url.

Many Thanks,
I-Dont-Know
It would help to know the make and model of the machine.

Wary 5.2 should work well on older hardware and will
let you choose i810 when loading.
5.2 iso here:
ftp://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/dist ... /wary-5.2/

Faster download:

http://ftp.nluug.nl/ftp/pub/os/Linux/distr/quirky/

Inspiron 700m, Pent.M 1.6Ghz, 1Gb ram.
Msi Wind U100, N270 1.6>2.0Ghz, 1.5Gb ram.
Eeepc 8g 701, 900Mhz, 1Gb ram.
Full installs

Dewbie

#47 Post by Dewbie »

Also, Wary and Classic Pup 2.14x are built with older kernels, and have more dial-up drivers than the newer-kernel Puppies.

The newer kernels are less likely to work well with dial-up.

jobo
Posts: 111
Joined: Thu 26 Apr 2012, 16:58

Re: How to choose which Puppy

#48 Post by jobo »

I-Dont-Know wrote: By default, I choose the latest Puppy. e.g. 5.28 because I am not familiar with all the various Puppies.

I see things called Wary and Classic Puppy etc but don't know what these variants are for.

Is there a webpage that explains what each does so that one can better understand what they are and what they do ?

Just asking.... thought someone might be able to direct me to a helpful url.

Many Thanks,
I-Dont-Know
yes how old, most folk on here mean about 4 or 5 years when they say old, if you have a liate XP or early vista maching with a 2 or 3 ghz processor and a gig or more of ram , you can just chose one of the latest, if by old you mean a p3 or 4 processor and a quarter gig of ram or less then you need to be a bit more selective

ive just installed wery on a very old lapy( 12 years) p3 with 125 ram and it was very poor loverly to look at and with lots of features but god awfull slow and prone to freezing

so i installed vertion 2, which is no where near as pretty or with as many features but is lighting fast. faster than the wifes brand new net book

as the process of installing is only complicated the first time you do it, id start low and work my way up if i had my time again, rather than getting discouraged trying to get a later one to work

im going to try a v 3 next to see how that goes

rkonrad
Posts: 30
Joined: Fri 21 Jan 2011, 04:50

back to trident cyberblade video card

#49 Post by rkonrad »

Sorry for the temporary absence - other work to do!

Here is the printout of my xorg.conf file regarding my Puppy Wary 5 (only puppy that works with card - sort of).

#Special base config file used in Puppy Linux.

# **********************************************************************
# Module section -- this section is used to specify
# which dynamically loadable modules to load.
# **********************************************************************
#
Section "Module"

# This loads the DBE extension module.

Load "dbe" # Double buffer extension

# This loads the miscellaneous extensions module, and disables
# initialisation of the XFree86-DGA extension within that module.
SubSection "extmod"
Option "omit xfree86-dga" # don't initialise the DGA extension
EndSubSection

# This loads the font modules
Load "type1"
Load "freetype"

# This loads xtrap extension, used by xrandr
Load "xtrap"

# This loads the GLX module (if present)
Load "glx"

# This loads dri module (if present)
Load "dri"

EndSection

# **********************************************************************
# Files section. This allows default font and rgb paths to be set
# **********************************************************************

Section "Files"

# The location of the RGB database. Note, this is the name of the
# file minus the extension (like ".txt" or ".db"). There is normally
# no need to change the default.

RgbPath "/usr/X11R7/lib/X11/rgb"

# Multiple FontPath entries are allowed (which are concatenated together),
# as well as specifying multiple comma-separated entries in one FontPath
# command (or a combination of both methods)

FontPath "/usr/X11R7/lib/X11/fonts/misc/"
FontPath "/usr/X11R7/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/"
FontPath "/usr/X11R7/lib/X11/fonts/TTF/"

EndSection

# **********************************************************************
# Server flags section.
# **********************************************************************

Section "ServerFlags"

# Uncomment this to disable the <Crtl><Alt><Fn> VT switch sequence
# (where n is 1 through 12). This allows clients to receive these key
# events.

# Option "DontVTSwitch"

# Enables mode switching with xrandr
# There is a report that this can cause Xorg not to work on some
# video hardware, so default is commented-out...
# but i want to use it in xorgwizard so leave on...

Option "RandR" "on"

EndSection

#everything past here is auto-generated by Puppy's Xorg Wizard...


Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "X.org Configured"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "kbd"
Option "XkbRules" "xorg"
Option "XkbModel" "pc102"
Option "XkbLayout" "us" #xkeymap0
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2" #mouse0protocol
Option "Device" "/dev/mouse"
#Option "Emulate3Buttons"
#Option "Emulate3Timeout" "50"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5" #scrollwheel
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
#DisplaySize 270 210 # mm
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "TOS"
ModelName "8 Panel"
Option "DPMS"
HorizSync 31.5-67
VertRefresh 50-75
#UseModes "Modes0" #monitor0usemodes
Option "PreferredMode" "1280x1024"
EndSection

Section "Modes"
Identifier "Modes0"
#modes0modeline0
EndSection

Section "Device"
### Available Driver options are:-
### Values: <i>: integer, <f>: float, <bool>: "True"/"False",
### <string>: "String", <freq>: "<f> Hz/kHz/MHz"
### [arg]: arg optional
#Option "AccelMethod" # [<str>]
#Option "SWcursor" # [<bool>]
#Option "PciRetry" # [<bool>]
#Option "NoAccel" # [<bool>]
#Option "SetMClk" # <freq>
#Option "MUXThreshold" # <i>
#Option "ShadowFB" # [<bool>]
#Option "Rotate" # [<str>]
#Option "VideoKey" # <i>
#Option "NoMMIO" # [<bool>]
#Option "NoPciBurst" # [<bool>]
#Option "MMIOonly" # [<bool>]
#Option "CyberShadow" # [<bool>]
#Option "CyberStretch" # [<bool>]
#Option "XvHsync" # <i>
#Option "XvVsync" # <i>
#Option "XvBskew" # <i>
#Option "XvRskew" # <i>
#Option "FpDelay" # <i>
#Option "Display1400" # [<bool>]
#Option "Display" # [<str>]
#Option "GammaBrightness" # [<str>]
#Option "TVChipset" # [<str>]
#Option "TVSignal" # <i>
Identifier "Card0"
Driver "trident" #card0driver
VendorName "Trident Microsystems"
BoardName "CyberBlade/i1"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Card0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 16
#Option "metamodes" "1280x1024_60 +0+0" #METAMODES_0
Subsection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1280x1024"
EndSubsection
EndSection

#PuppyHardwareProfile=Trident_CYBER_8620TOSHIBAInte

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greengeek
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Location: Republic of Novo Zelande

Re: back to trident cyberblade video card

#50 Post by greengeek »

rkonrad wrote:Sorry for the temporary absence - other work to do!

Here is the printout of my xorg.conf file regarding my Puppy Wary 5 (only puppy that works with card - sort of).
How well is this xorg working for you? Any problems?

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Monsie
Posts: 631
Joined: Thu 01 Dec 2011, 07:37
Location: Kamloops BC Canada

best puppy for a very old computer

#51 Post by Monsie »

rkonrad,

Welcome back....

Given your specs for your video card and display, I recommend dropping your screen resolution to 1024X768 This should give you better performance from both your video card and monitor, especially because your hardware was designed to render a display ratio of 4:3 and not 5:4 You will also (of course) be using less video ram at the lower resolution.

Further,-->Menu-->Desktop-->Set Global Font Size and set your dpi to 96 This is your optimal resolution for your display since your monitor appears to have an actual screen size of 13.4 inches. I confirmed your dpi setting here at the lower screen resolution.

Lastly, I would think the change in resolution would make text much easier for you to read!

Monsie
My [u]username[/u] is pronounced: "mun-see". Derived from my surname, it was my nickname throughout high school.

rkonrad
Posts: 30
Joined: Fri 21 Jan 2011, 04:50

trident video card

#52 Post by rkonrad »

How well is this xorg working for you? Any problems?
All is the same as before. The card seems to be working without it's own memory and so really drags. At least it works. It's interesting how picky it is. So far it only works on - and I've tried a lot of distributions - Puppy Wary 5.2, a Puppy Opera which I've forgotten (couldn't get wireless networking working on it) and Vector LInux 5.9 (Vector 6 and 7 didn't work!). In all cases that don't work, the screen goes blank and the whole system freezes causing me to have to power down. I am about to look at the older xf86 config file someone posted with the same card. Perhaps I'll add some of those values to my xorg.conf.

Thanks Monsie for the resolution suggestions - I've made the changes. It's odd though that whatever resolution I pick, the monitor readjusts itself to the same size and proportion. 96 seems a bit too big for my taste though - I think I may change it back...

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Monsie
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Location: Kamloops BC Canada

best puppy for very old computer

#53 Post by Monsie »

rkonrad,
It's odd though that whatever resolution I pick, the monitor readjusts itself to the same size and proportion.
Can you post the output of this command at the terminal:

Code: Select all

xrandr
This should give you the default and/or the max resolution for your monitor. Given the size of your screen, I would think it would be 1024x768 and if I am right, you may have to run Xorg video wizard to change it permanently. If it turns out that I am wrong and that your monitor prefers 1280x1024, then you can choose to leave it as is, or drop your resolution to the lower setting (my recommendation).

Monsie
My [u]username[/u] is pronounced: "mun-see". Derived from my surname, it was my nickname throughout high school.

rkonrad
Posts: 30
Joined: Fri 21 Jan 2011, 04:50

resolution

#54 Post by rkonrad »

Yes, running the command, the max resolution is in fact what you recommended.

Richard

rkonrad
Posts: 30
Joined: Fri 21 Jan 2011, 04:50

trident card

#55 Post by rkonrad »

Well, I'm fairly close to giving up, not because of staying power - but I do have another life......

Thanks for previous post, there is a xf86.conf file which enters my card as well as the amount of video ram which is 4000 or something. Is there an older puppy that uses xf86 rather than xorg or is there a simple way of installing having puppy wary 5.2 read xf86 instead of xorg? In my current xorg.conf, there is no entry for the card's videoram. Maybe that's appropriate I'm not sure.

Still hanging in there but by a thread. Thanks for everyone's help!

Richard

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