bare-minimum installatio

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e_mattis
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bare-minimum installatio

#1 Post by e_mattis »

This may not be the correct thread for this, but as I am still new to linux and puppy, I thought it most fitting.

I am looking at booting a very old (k6-2 processor) laptop. All I want to use it for is internet, but it needs a super-fast boot time(like on and there). I've tried browserlinux but it is a little too slow on the boot and has some things I'll never use in it. I thought about trying to adapt Wary, but I don't know exactly what things I need to keep and what things can go.

This is a work-project and I need to have it ready to implement by first of the year, so I need some time to play with it and make sure it works like I need it to. I'm not very familiar with Linux programming and really don't have the time to learn atm.

Is there a "bare-bones" boot it functionable and add networking off-cropping out there? If not, what's the fastest way to compile a bootable and functioning "minimum"? Any help is very much appreciated!

starhawk
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#2 Post by starhawk »

Welcome, as we say, to the Kennels!

K6-2 is very limiting in terms of processor capabilities relative to, well, really anything in the past 10 years.

What exactly are you trying to do?

If all you want is basic browsing and email, and you intend never to get near anything more intensive (multimedia-wise) than the occasional MIDI file or animated GIF, then you should be OK as long as you are quite patient. I'm not even sure that you'll be able to handle MP3 playback on that thing. Streaming media -- or really any kind of interactive content such as Flash or HTML5 -- is right out for sure. Steer well clear of YouTube!

Keep in mind that even the fastest K6-2 and a minimal Puppy are going to limit you to dialup or ISDN page load times. This isn't anything to do with a connection -- it's simply the fact that you're working with processing power that is insignificant in comparison to anything even remotely modern.

Off the bat, I'll direct you to either pUPnGO 2012 or TurboPup Xtreme, with a couple notes before I give you links. (Depending on your answer to the bolded question above, I may change my mind, but these are the two best answers that I can think of, to start with.)

pUPnGO (2012 version or otherwise) does not yet have working WiFi to my knowledge. That said, it's most likely to be useful to you IF you only need a wired connection. You will probably want to add a more featured browser; I forget right now what browser is there but it's either Dillo (which would actually be about right for your specs) or something CLI-only (no images, clumsy UI).

TurboPup Xtreme is a stripped down version of Puppy 420. It has no support for desktop backgrounds or icons. I've no idea how it works -- but I do know that it's got a careful balancing act in the background. I've tried to strip stuff out of it before, a couple times, as well as to add features, and all I've ever gotten for my troubles was one badly broken Pup. (Adding stuff is safe, just don't try and remove anything!) IIRC it does have WiFi support without issues, although you may have to download drivers if your card isn't listed (look for and PM our resident drivers guru, tempestuous, if you need help with that). Also, the fellow who developed TurboPup is long gone (getting towards two years now) so support is going to be a little hard to find.

Both pUPnGO 2012 and TurboPup are on this forum. Here are the links:
pUPnGO 2012 --> http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=78941
TurboPup Xtreme --> http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=40477

FWIW, I have archived a couple of very old Puppy versions which may help you, depending on your need -- and a couple very very old floppy-disk based distros (not Puppy!) that may also help you if your system is operating without CD support. Actually -- if your CD drive on this system is a read-only (-ROM) drive, you will likely want to burn your CD-Rs or -RWs at 4x speed, to ensure compatibility with the older -ROM drive.

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wk57
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#3 Post by wk57 »

You could use a text-mode browser like lynx or w3m if you're genuinely willing to go with a bare-minimum installation that doesn't even have X-Windows.

amigo
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#4 Post by amigo »

Put Slackware on there for best results....

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e_mattis
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thanks

#5 Post by e_mattis »

thanks guys.

Starhawk, i need it to somewhat be able to function as a "browser OS" - basically work online long enough to get to a specified web page. Yea, I'm aware how the k6-2 limits the connection and know it's gonna be slow-go to load pages, etc. It does need the wifi and maybe some streaming capability, other than that, I'm not aware of any major media files that should be accessed through it - so Turbopup looks like the first i'll try. would like to try those you have as well.

amigo, I tried to get slack on it but it wouldn't boot. got as far as the initial boot notification then basically froze. too much for the old system to handle I think.

Wk57, thanks for that suggestion, but I know it will have to render some images and maybe a sound file or two.

So I'll try the Turbo first and see- mean time any other ideas will be appreciated 8)

Thanks again guys!

starhawk
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#6 Post by starhawk »

I have two floppy based Linux distros. They are TINY Linux and XWOAF (X Windows On A Floppy).

TINY Linux requires about 18-24 floppy disks (!) unless you've brand new (or nearly so) ones that you can abuse the dickens out of -- in which case you really only need two. Format one while the other is in use and swap.

Here are the install instructions for TINY Linux: http://tiny.seul.org/en/readme.txt
Download here --> http://www.datafilehost.com/download-a1dcf0de.html

XWOAF is a single bootable floppy, once you make it, you're good to go. I've attached it to this post -- it's that small!

In at least the case of XWOAF you will need RawWrite (more commonly rawrite) for a Windows system; on Linux you will need someone smarter than I to tell you how to use the 'dd' command ;) I've also attached RawWriteWin -- works in Windows' Command Prompt rather than real DOS. If you are still on DOS (whut...?) let me know and I'll post the real deal -- RAWRITE.EXE. It's oooooooold -- but so is DOS.

For all of this you will need a program to unzip stuff. If you're on DOS (not likely) let me know and I'll put up PKUNZIP. For Windows I recommend 7zip. Get it here --> http://www.7-zip.org/download.html

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e_mattis
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Kewl

#7 Post by e_mattis »

Thanks Starhawk,

No, haven't messed with DOS in quite a while (though I do still have a program or two that are qBasic and runs out of the DOS shell LOL). Just being curious, is Tiny Linux any relation to TinyCore? I've tried TC on another system and liked it, but it won't boot the old k6-2 8(

I'll play around with these and hopefully within the next week or so let you know what happened. Thanks again !

.

starhawk
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#8 Post by starhawk »

If there is a relation between TINY Linux and TCL (TinyCore) I've not heard it...

mill0001
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#9 Post by mill0001 »

Hi e-mattis, you might also want to take a look at this: http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=63381 It's very fast but maybe has more apps than you want.

starhawk
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#10 Post by starhawk »

Puplite5 is too powerful for what he needs -- I've a Pentium II laptop (Dell Latitude CPi D300XT) and it will BARELY run Puplite5.

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e_mattis
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Follow up

#11 Post by e_mattis »

Sorry this took so long.....

Anyway, thanks guys for all the input. I d/l turbopup and got it working then added the firefox to startup dir and it does what I need - for now. a little slow, but then again that is the tech being used.

I'm not savy enough to do this, but if someone would build a basic distro (desktop, network, etc - no apps ) i'm sure it would serve as a great base for others to build on. just a suggestion 8)

Thanks again !

amigo
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#12 Post by amigo »

"basic distro (desktop, network, etc - no apps )" The problem is that no two people will define 'basic' or 'apps' in the same way.
The only logical base would be the bare minimum to boot to CLI login on strictly-local hardware with no network or other services. Unfortunately, no Puppy or derivative of it will do this. tcl probably comes the closest to implementing this in a LiveCD distro.

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#13 Post by e_mattis »

Thanks amigo, i will have to try that.

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RetroTechGuy
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Re: bare-minimum installatio

#14 Post by RetroTechGuy »

e_mattis wrote:This may not be the correct thread for this, but as I am still new to linux and puppy, I thought it most fitting.

I am looking at booting a very old (k6-2 processor) laptop. All I want to use it for is internet, but it needs a super-fast boot time(like on and there). I've tried browserlinux but it is a little too slow on the boot and has some things I'll never use in it. I thought about trying to adapt Wary, but I don't know exactly what things I need to keep and what things can go.

This is a work-project and I need to have it ready to implement by first of the year, so I need some time to play with it and make sure it works like I need it to. I'm not very familiar with Linux programming and really don't have the time to learn atm.

Is there a "bare-bones" boot it functionable and add networking off-cropping out there? If not, what's the fastest way to compile a bootable and functioning "minimum"? Any help is very much appreciated!
I run 5.25 Retro on an old 333MHz PII laptop. I crammed in 256MB RAM, and have a 512MB swap.

You can get 5.25 Retro here:

http://208.109.22.214/puppy/viewtopic.p ... ef548d742e

Other alternatives might be Wary, and Ttuuxxx's Classic 2.x.

You'll want to watch your browser. Firefox is too much for my 333Mhz. Seamonkey seemed to work OK. It might be nice to have a lower load browser.

You probably won't be playing videos on a machine that old. But for basic browsing it should work.

BTW, I think that you mentioned boot time. IIRC, my 333MHz boots in about 30 seconds.
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