What are Puppy's minimum system requirements?

[`f00]

Absolutely correct, capicoso. I was having a heckuva time with getting a certain window manager to load until I found a topic by zigbert from a few years back - the topic was aptly named in the subject line so I found it even with my almost total lack of any skill at searching.

Bringing back a 'necro'd' topic is not considered as such (usually) on the pldf. Funny coincidence(?) , the op here was necromatic

Now if only 'new' topics weren't so evergreen at coming back whenever "Lost my icons/desktop" happens

[starhawk]

Bringing back a 'necro'd' topic is not considered as such (usually) on the pldf.

OK, OK, I'm learning!

...sorry for the fireworks.

[RetroTechGuy]

RetroTechGuy wrote:

I have 5.25 running on a 333 MHz laptop, with 256MB RAM, and a 512MB swap partition. It's a little heavy for that machine

Are you referring to 525 Retro?

Yes, it is 5.25 Retro.

[hayden]

The reason Puppy's system requirements are so vague is that Puppy is so light that the applications you want to run will be the limiting factor rather than your choice of OS. Someone mentioned video. Generally, entertainment applications require far more resources than productivity applications. Puppy is a HUGE upgrade from Windows 3.1 because it writes CDs, supports USB devices, and gets on the Internet. To do that reasonably with M$ products requires at least Win98SE which will run MUCH slower than Puppy while attracting viruses. (no security updates)

Good targets for a Puppy installation are computers running Win 3.1 fine or 9* slowly. I find Puppy 2 runs slightly slower than 3.1 but much faster than 98 on the same hardware, and runs fine on hardware where 98 would be painfully slow. Probably anything that boots from a CD and has USB ports will be fine. (Anything that boos from USB will be way more than you need.) So first see if there is a CD drive and look in the BIOS setup to see if you can get it into the boot order. If so, do it. If not, you may need to do a frugal install and boot from a floppy. If you CAN boot it from CD, and have enough RAM to load Puppy into it, you should be able to see if it runs fast enough for what you want. (Unlike many live distros, Puppy does not run painfully slow from a CD if you have enough RAM.) If Puppy is slow, and the problem is not enough RAM, use Puppy to create a swap file on your hard drive, reboot, and turn on the swap file if your version of Puppy does not do that automatically. Boot times will be slow from an slow CD drive -- the question is how rapidly your applications of choice load and do what you want them to do. If they work OK you may want to install Puppy to the hard drive which will greatly speed up booting.

In addition to the 200MHz Pentium mentioned above I have a 233MHz non-Itel chip running Puppy 2 just fine. A slight hesitation when I click on something but no need to go make coffee while Abiword opens;-)

On the issue of adding to old threads, I LIKE to do that. Too often I have done a Google search that leads to several independent discussions that reach no conclusion because each has only part of the answer. So I like to add to the first relevant thread I can find that I have access to figuring that the next person to do the same Google search will land there as well, and get info both old and new. There is a question of whether the topic makes sense today. A thread on "latest Puppy version" that discusses 1.09 is not the place to post about 5.4, but for old hardware any Puppy that runs is OK so I think it is great to have all the relevant info in one thread.

[Dewbie]

hayden wrote:

In addition to the 200MHz Pentium mentioned above I have a 233MHz non-Itel chip running Puppy 2 just fine.

Java versions are also a factor with older hardware, as shown here.

[hayden]

Thanks. I think of Java as the greatest tool for slowing down computing since Windows so I wonder how this will work out on antique hardware.

I am working with the 233Mz machine now and will post what I learn as I learn it. I discovered the chip is a Cyrix 686. It is supposed to be like a Pentium 300 in performance (at least if you do not do heavy math.). 233 MHz is the maximum speed for the 1997 P5TX-A MB as is the installed 256Mb of memory. People talking about old computers often say "memory is cheap" but it ain't necessarily true for antique memory chips (though you might be able to find some for free is you scrounge around). There are also the issues of how much memory the board can handle, and finding out what sort of chips it requires. In any case, I noted that Puppy 2.02 had NOT activated the swap file yet performance was fine for just running the desktop and opening the default applications. No promises if you try to install KDE4 or edit movies;-)

As I joke I hooked up a USB Blu-Ray drive that I use for backups and was able to read files from a Blu-Ray disk. Pretty good for a 25-year-old system. Performance was rather slow with USB 1.0.

I see these antiques as useful for a variety of audiences. Poor kids who can use if for school. (Maybe it is a feather if it CAN"T be used for play?-) Older folks who want to get on the Internet and receive email from grandchildren who don't write real letters, or check the news and weather online, maybe shop a little. Someone who wants to write a book. but has no money.

[Dewbie]

hayden wrote:

Thanks. I think of Java as the greatest tool for slowing down computing since Windows so I wonder how this will work out on antique hardware.

To see if this might affect your computer, go to Menu / System / HardInfo / Processor, then scroll down. Look for cmov in the Capabilities section.

[WillE]

The problem is we aren't an unscrupulous marketing company like Microsoft.
We lack the incentive or financial motivation to lie to you.

If we were, the minimum specs could change, it might be like this:

• Minimum specs for Puppy is a 386 computer with 2MB RAM.
  Pay 89.95 at the register.

~

Well... I have successfully installed the basic Slacko 5.4 on a system with a K6 350MHz and probably 48 Mb RAM. I say probably because I think one of the sticks was defunct -- it was allegedly 64.

It was, of course, a full install to the (1Gb) hard drive.

It ran well; far better than the Windows 95 SE native to it.