Have more than 3GB of RAM? You need one of these Puppies

Using applications, configuring, problems
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p310don
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#21 Post by p310don »

Having a 2 TB drive and not having the OS see it, as is the case with many puppies, is disappointing.
I have not encountered this problem. My Lupu box has 2 x 2TB and 2 x 1TB drives, all formatted to EXT4 and then tune2fs'ed to make the reserve 1%. Puppy does all this fine, and give me maximum space, and maximum performance / robustness.

Sylvander
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#22 Post by Sylvander »

gcmartin wrote:Hope this is a simple easily understood explanation.
Yes, very clear. 8)
Thank you for that. :D

Pelo

I have more than 3GB

#23 Post by Pelo »

I have more than 3GB
No need of such power ! For games perhaps.

Ask the users why they use puppy and not Windows or bigger Linux : because they are small, light, easy to install.
Pocket tool !

The problem is that the applications provided by Linux are old-fashionned. Games are those when i was twenty years old, that means thirty years ago !

sorry sir. Pelo.

gcmartin

#24 Post by gcmartin »

Somehow, many may miss the message of this thread, I think.

I am not advocating anyone resort to PC expansion. But, the community has found that should anyone of us have a PC, where there are 32 bit (and 64bit) Puppy distros whose PAE design allows Linux to use all of your RAM for any productive work you have. This design allows you also to increase/change memory or RAM size PCs and the distro has the intellect to insure that all RAM (all the way to 64GB) will be available and used for the user's productivity. Therefore, you can add as much RAM as you want and the distro will make it available for productive use without chaining anything. The non-PAE distros will NOT allow you to do this because they don't have the smarts to understand how to use this proven hardware feature.

The community's finding and making it available is NOT about size. Its about effective use of PC RAM for user's system usage....automatically. Again, to reiterate, PAE in PUPs have been shown to allow effective Puppy RAM management with NO apparent downside in its operations. No slowness, no crashing of appls, ... nothing apparent. In fact, many members were reporting faster systems as well as effective RAM use with the PAE distros. Thus, if you have a PC and the processor contains the PAE feature, you will experience effective system's use no matter how much memory you add (although, some have reported equivalent performance with non-PAE distros throughout the internet, I, personally, would recommend what I have seen from several PUP developers which suggest "you have 384MB+ RAM).

That all any of us, who tested and used these Puppy distros, have said.

I applaud this community for being one of the first production distro(s) who have made this available. In fact, since the Puppy announcement, at least 10 of the other "big-name' Linux distros are now making PAE versions available to their 32bit community. Some of the others were already doing it before PAE PUPs came along with our findings and implementations.

Puppy has made an impact, not only within its community, but others (commercial and non-commercial) have followed this building, as well.

Question
Should any of us find any problems with the use of PAE PUPs, please, please alert us. (But, thus far, the industry continues to make use of this 1995 feature of 32bit CPUs.) Has anyone experienced negative behavior from a PAE distro?

Here to help.

kattami
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#25 Post by kattami »

Thank you everyone, for this wonderful information.

After being on 1 Gb RAM laptops for years, we are about to expand.

We are going to get at least one, perhaps two, of the Acer Aspire One 756.

This little laptop has 8 Gb RAM.

Which we need because one of us work with photos. RAW format photos is difficult to work with if not having at least 8 Gb RAM.

And we are going to travel for the possibilities to take photos. Hence laptops has to be small and light.

So its very nice to find information about puppylinux OS that can use all of the RAM.

Atle
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#26 Post by Atle »

Its great with PAE versions, but not so great that the main flagship is a PAE version.

If you imagine your totally new to Puppy and come here to download, your likely to end up with a PAE version that will not boot your good old laptop,

Most users that looks up Puppy and Slitaz is doing so in stead of updating their Windoze or to use old hardware.

So in my opinion the PAE version should not be the standard download, but a alternative for large amounts of RAM.

That said, I do not know if RetroPrecise will boot on all PC's as Lucid does, but its for sure that Precise does not boot on any machine i have as they are a bit old.

So for the first time users i think the Puppy experience is limited to a not so great experience, unless the first time users happens to have a great new computer, that probably runs Windowz well...

just some thoughts

atle

gcmartin

#27 Post by gcmartin »

Atle wrote: ... So in my opinion the PAE version should not be the standard download, but a alternative for large amounts of RAM. ...
I can see your point. But, here is some ideas that might help to see benefit with what developers are trying to do for the user community.

Are you aware of the approximate percentage of PCs (this includes laptops) that have been manufactured since 1995 that do NOT have PAE..

The idea is that if 99% of PCs have the RAM management facility built-in, then the likelihood would be small that anyone would have a non-PAE PC which has limited RAM capacity.l. Most every user in this community as well as those who are new, has a PAE PC.

I am NOT speaking for the development community, but, I can see how a single distro with PAE would run on any PC from 256MB to 16GB where the distro would take advantage of thr RAM for system-user use.

This cannot be done without PAE on 32bit PCs .

Imagine your disappointment should you come with a large RAM PC and the distro ignore much of your RAM? Recent tests by members are showing when they test/post the PCs they are using, that the evidence is enormous that PAE addresses most of the user PCs in the community.

This does not even begin to see the number of users who now are using 64bit PCs, as well.

Lastly, since PUPPY first reported PAE offerings, many of the Distrowatch distros now, also, are providing their 32bit community a PAE offering. One could assume that those Distrowatch providers were watching the advances in Puppy LInux and deciding that there is benefit, as well.

Hope you find this of benefit. BTW, I have NOT seen ANY exodus from traditional Puppy distro builders. And, in case you may not have noticed, some of the community developers ONLY make PUPSs for small RAM older PCs.

This thread was opened to bring awareness to the community so that they would understand how to spot the benefits of using a PAE aware PUP on most PCs that they have. The thread does NOT discourage use of non-PAE Puppy distros. I fully support them as well as understand benefits.

PAE is not known to bring negative benefits in its operations on PCs that can run it....NONE, currently known or witnessed in this community's testing. In those cases where testing and comparison was performed, benefits were reported for community observation. Those reports were positive from the membership.

If you have really old PCs with limited RAM prior to 2006, you will probably need to pay attention and ONLY use distros which boot on your hardware. And, if you'll post the make and model of your old PCs, I will help you ID a distro for your liking.

Here to help

p310don
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#28 Post by p310don »

I don't want to rain on your parade gcmartin, and you know my view on PAE, but, your stats may be out a little.
Are you aware of the approximate percentage of PCs (this includes laptops) that have been manufactured since 1995 that do NOT have PAE..

The idea is that if 99% of PCs have the RAM management facility built-in, then the likelihood would be small that anyone would have a non-PAE PC which has limited RAM capacity.l. Most every user in this community as well as those who are new, has a PAE PC.
I don't know the actual percentages, but, I do know that many or most of the Atom processors don't like PAE. That's pretty much all netbooks that don't like PAE kernels.

I agree with Atle's opinion that the default major release shouldn't be PAE as it does exclude some.

What should be made available is education as to what is best for the user. Do you have 4gig or more ram? Get a PAE Puppy. Could we call that a Paeppy? Do you have less than 4gig, get the regular. And make sure the user understands why they got what they got.

gcmartin

#29 Post by gcmartin »

I understand what you are sharing. And as I have stated, I am NOT a distro developer and I DO NOT have a "hard-on" for one technology versus another. But, there are some very obvious advantages and this is why developers in the community presents PAE.

Anyone who read this and has an ATOM processor, be aware, that some DON'T have PAE ability. Further, there are also few INTEL P4s that do not have PAE. In total, this is a minority in comparison. In fact, my office mate has just shared that his Netbook is running Barry's RACY and it has an ATOM processor. So some ATOMs have PAE. ... Right?

The early ATOMs ARE a Intel version which they produced; and have, since, been actively increasing and adding features as they move forward. We have seen where Intel has 64bit versions of that processor as well. And, according to Intel there is a bright and rich future for this low energy processor inexpensive chip as a 64bit unit.

That said, again, the total number of systems in the world today are mostly PAE systems. And, RAM remained constant in price over the past 2 years. Even cheap 2nd-hand RAM from a local computer store,

Again, I applaud the development community for what they have done for this community as well as the overall Linux community which followed what appears to have been a Puppy lead.

And, again, should anyone who is running a PAE, they are/should be aware that they can add as much RAM as they choose and expect that the PAE Puppy distro will make that RAM available for your benefit without the need to change anything in your distro.
Last edited by gcmartin on Tue 19 Feb 2013, 00:18, edited 2 times in total.

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Q5sys
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#30 Post by Q5sys »

First off:
gcmartin wrote:Lastly, since PUPPY first reported PAE offerings, many of the Distrowatch distros now, also, are providing their 32bit community a PAE offering. One could assume that those Distrowatch providers were watching the advances in Puppy LInux and deciding that there is benefit, as well.
That's probably the most massive assumption I've heard all year. And I heard Obama's State of the Union Address. :lol: Puppy was not the first to offer PAE, so I doubt the greater linux community looked at us and thought 'oh man Puppy is doing it, so we better do it too.'

Sadly I doubt puppy has much affect at all in the greater linux community. Most of the developers from other distros that I know and talk to always look at puppy linux with a look of confusion and bewilderment at how we do everything 'backwards' (in their eyes).
Pretty much their face is:
Image

Anyway returning to the point of PAE though...

Kinda ironic that I found this thread today, because this weekend I overheard a discussion between two people about PAE. I'll paraphrase it below, because I found it humerous.

As for my opinion. PAE is useful in some circumstances. That is absolutely true. But I've noticed that some distros are making PAE default, and this I dont think is the best option. Because the users who can benefit from it, are dwarfed by the number who gain no extra ram from it. And in the case of Puppy where we are focused on reviving older hardware, and in particular older laptops... we may screw over alot of Pentium M and Celeron M users if we tried to make it default.
PAE made sense when 64bit Linux distros were horrible, but now that most distros have polished up their 64bit offerings, I dont see the point.

Also as for the claims that there is no drawbacks to PAE... there is a minor one. It probably isnt important to most people, but reports from Red Hat as well as reports from the BSD community, have said that there is approx. a 5% performance drop between a PAE and Non PAE kernel with regard to memory access and usage.
I've never tested it myself, but thats what I've read from multiple sources.


Now take this next statement with a grain of salt because I'm a bit partial to 64bit... but I think we would better serve our community by focusing on further 64bit development, than in 32bit with PAE. But again... I'm partial.
I think PAE should be an option... but I feel default for 32bit should be non PAE. The old Kernel adage is 'dont break userspace'. Should we default ship a kernel that we KNOW wont work on some hardware? Or should we ship what we KNOW is compatible for everyone and those that desire 4gb instead of 3.5gb ram can choose to download that release.
Which brings up an interesting question... why aren't we just offering the PAE kernel in the PPM, for users who want it? Would mean developers wouldn't have to bundle and host two ISOs.

Paraphrased conversation. (this is for entertainment only)
PAE fanboy: OMG, PAE is awesome, its the wave of the future. Every distro should use PAE by default.
Skeptic: Why?
PAE fanboy: So you can use more than 4gb of ram. Tons of new systems come with more than 4gb of ram.
Skeptic: And those are all 64bit processors, so why would you run a 32bit distro with a patch instead of a proper 64bit distro?
PAE fanboy: Good point, well there are current 32bit processors made.
Skeptic: Yes thats true, there are current Intel Atom 32bit processors, but those actually dont have PAE support built in. So in fact your PAE-kernel distro wont run.
PAE fanboy: Oh, well you can use it on older hardware, PAE has been around in the chips since the Pentium 2.
Skeptic: Do you use 4gb or more on a Pentium 2 system?
PAE fanboy: No
Skeptic: Do you know anyone who uses 4gb or more on a Pentium 2 system?
PAE fanboy: No
Skeptic: Are you even aware of any motherboard thats uses the Pentium 2 that can handle 4gb of ram?
PAE fanboy: No
Skeptic: So how does the fact that its in the pentium 2 support your position?
PAE fanboy: Ok, so it doesnt, but what about the Pentium 3!
Skeptic: Ok fair enough, Do you use 4gb or more on a Pentium 3 system?
PAE fanboy: No
Skeptic: Do you know anyone who uses 4gb or more on a Pentium 3 system?
PAE fanboy: No
Skeptic: Are you even aware of any motherboard thats uses the Pentium 3 that can handle 4gb of ram?
PAE fanboy: No
Skeptic: So how does the fact that its in the pentium 3 support your position?
PAE fanboy: Hmm... well I know there are motherboard use the Pentium 4 that can use more than 4gb
Skeptic: Thats true, but not every chip in the Pentium 4 family has PAE support?
PAE fanboy: They dont?
Skeptic: Nope, the Pentium M, Celeron M, and a few other Pentium 4 based mobile processors dont have PAE support. And even if they did, laptops of the era didnt support more than 4gb anyway.
PAE fanboy: Oh
Skeptic: So P4 PAE support is mostly going to help you with desktop users.
PAE fanboy: So see there you go.
Skeptic: And how many users of Pentium 4 systems have more than 4gb?
PAE fanboy: Well I dont know.
Skeptic: And do you think there are more users of P4 systems out there with more than 4gb than there are users with laptops that run chips based on the P4 M and Celeron M chips?
PAE fanboy: Probably not, those laptops are everywhere.
Skeptic: Right, so you want to cause a problem for a bunch of people, just so a few over 4gb can be happy.
PAE fanboy: Well... All of those older users could still be able to use the full 4gb instead of just 3.5gb of ram.
Skeptic: What distro do you use?
PAE fanboy: [insert random distro here]
Skeptic: And what exactly can you do with 4gb of ram that you cant do with 3.5 gb of ram?
PAE fanboy: Um... I dont know. I know you need a lot of ram for things like video editing, and stuff.
Skeptic: Are you doing video editing on a Pentium 2?
PAE fanboy: No
Skeptic: Do you know anyone who is doing video editing on a Pentium 2?
PAE fanboy: No
Skeptic: Are you doing video editing on a Pentium 3?
PAE fanboy: No
Skeptic: Do you know anyone who is doing video editing on a Pentium 3?
PAE fanboy: No
Skeptic: Are you doing video editing on a Pentium 4?
PAE fanboy: No
Skeptic: Do you know anyone who is doing video editing on a Pentium 4?
PAE fanboy: No, but I'm sure that some are.
Skeptic: You're probably right, but if those people are willing to wait days and days to render things because they are trying to render video on a P3 or P4... are they really going to notice a difference with an extra 512mb of ram available?
PAE fanboy: Oh.
Skeptic: So whats the benefit of PAE again? And is that benefit great enough to deal with all the problems it'll bring about for other 32bit processors that dont support it?
PAE fanboy: I'll shut up now.

gcmartin

#31 Post by gcmartin »

I updated the thread to reflect ATOM processors.

This thread is as accurate as possible base upon what is seen in the industry and remembering what we did in Puppy testing of PAE,

Puppy does something rather unique in its operation that feeds the performance benefit from PAE use. PAE is NOT some special kind of Puppy. It is a Linux build that has the smarts to take advantage of built-in CPU features that were added after the original Pentium design. Intel never retooled the old RAM methodology or the newer PAE methodology. This design model continues and was embraced when the manufacturers moved from 32bit to 64bit. We continue to see the PAE RAM model in many/most of the 64bit CPUs, even today if you should run a 32bit distro on it.. If you have a 32bit PC and it can suport PAE, none of our testing has surfaced Linux degradation no matter how much RAM you throw at your PC. It just does NOT degrade performance. In the greater IT community, its been shown that under certain workloads, in "Tom's Hardware Comparison's" measurements, to provide positive performance results. This matches Intel's own decades old internal report. And, This is consistent with what we found in the testing here in Puppyland. PAE can and does have a positive impact by comparison..

This thread intends to shed light on community findings of PAE benefits. It is to be viewed as helpful in understanding the developer's PUPs that are being offered and the benefits that users will acquire in the use of PAE.

No one who has most of today's PCs should expect or will see any loss of performance in the operations of your desktop use with a Puppy PAE Distro. In fact, you should expect benefit in your use. All that Puppy LInux does is exploit the hardware for your use.

No offense anyone. This is for understanding. It is NOT designed to build camps of people for or against. It is information for person to understand the benefit being presented by developers.

It is hoped that it is seen as such. Here to help

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Q5sys
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#32 Post by Q5sys »

gcmartin wrote:We continue to see the PAE RAM model in many/most of the 64bit CPUs, even today if you should run a 32bit distro on it.. If you have a 32bit PC and it can suport PAE, none of our testing has surfaced Linux degradation no matter how much RAM you throw at your PC. It just does NOT degrade performance. In the greater IT community, its been shown that under certain workloads, in "Tom's Hardware Comparison's" measurements, to provide positive performance results. This matches Intel's own decades old internal report. And, This is consistent with what we found in the testing here in Puppyland. PAE can and does have a positive impact by comparison.
I'm trying to track down the Red Hat White paper, waiting to hear back from a few people about it, but there can be a performance hit. Thats even stated in the BSD docs
To access more than 3.2 GB to 3.7 GB of installed memory (meaning up to 4 GB but also more than 4 GB), a special tweak called PAE must be used. PAE stands for Physical Address Extension and is a way for 32-bit x86 CPUs to address more than 4 GB of memory. It remaps the memory that would otherwise be overlayed by address reservations for hardware devices above the 4 GB range and uses it as additional physical memory. Using PAE has some drawbacks; this mode of memory access is a little bit slower than the normal (without PAE) mode and loadable modules are not supported. This means all drivers must be compiled into the kernel.
When might this be an issue? Well here is one that I can think up... If a user grabs the PAE version of Slacko (for example), and then downloads a virtualbox pet that was built on a non-PAE slacko system. I'm not quite sure if there would be any issues in loading the vbox kernel driver. Will there be a problem? I dont know. Someone would have to test it out. If someone is having trouble running vbox this may be the reason and not be aware of it. (this is actually a good example of why its best to compile vbox on your system instead of trying to grab a pet for it)
Same also goes for TrueCrypt since it can utilize kernel crytpo services. I have tested neither so I dont know.


Does this render PAE a bad choice. No, it doesnt. I'd honestly doubt if most people could even notice a 5% performance issue in their ram. But for those that want to push things... its something to take into account. Toms Hardware isn't really a reliable source for fact... to many people on there making claims and not enough facts to back it up.

Benchmark: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=a ... _pae&num=5
Only a very small drop in performance can be found with the PAE kernel in the PostMark disk test, but the 64-bit kernel was immensely faster.

In the fourteen tests for this article we did not find using Ubuntu's 32-bit PAE kernel to have a dramatic performance impact whether it be positive or negative. Granted, we were using just 4GB of system memory that is common to many desktops, but if using 8GB, 16GB, or even a greater memory capacity the performance penalties are perhaps higher. By far though exhibiting the best performance was the Ubuntu 64-bit kernel that often ended up being leaps and bounds better than the 32-bit kernel. Unless you have technical or business reasons for not migrating to 64-bit Linux with compatible hardware, there is no reason to stick around with a 32-bit kernel and worrying about physical address extension.
The simple fact is that on a fundamental basis PAE has to be a bit slower because of the mapping requirement to be able to access all the ram. There have to be more access requests for memory space to find exactly what you're looking for.

I asked a friend of mine for some other test results and he gave me these: Showing PAE as slower than non-pae
Image
Image
Image


But here's one showing them the same
Image


And here's one showing mixed results.
Image


I also remembered another possible drawback with PAE... not all drivers support higher than 4gb memory addressing, so in the case of non typical hardware, some drivers wont work. This is a minimal instance, and probably wont affect many people but its still a possibility. The only possible issue that springs to mind right now has to do again with Vbox.

Does all of this support not using a PAE-kernel, not really. But facts are facts. People should at least be aware that there may be a minimal performance difference. It's a personal choice. <5% ram performance vs greater ram space.
I would be willing to bet most would desire the larger memory space, but I'm sure there are others who wouldn't. In any case, users have the right to know and make that decision for themselves. Which way do I go? Well both actually. For a laptop I'd opt for speed over space, for a desktop I'd opt for space over speed.

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01micko
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#33 Post by 01micko »

Q5sys wrote:... If a user grabs the PAE version of Slacko (for example), and then downloads a virtualbox pet that was built on a non-PAE slacko system. I'm not quite sure if there would be any issues in loading the vbox kernel driver. Will there be a problem? I dont know. Someone would have to test it out. If someone is having trouble running vbox this may be the reason and not be aware of it. (this is actually a good example of why its best to compile vbox on your system instead of trying to grab a pet for it)
Same also goes for TrueCrypt since it can utilize kernel crytpo services. I have tested neither so I dont know.
For that particular circumstance that is why I patch the Makefile of the kernel such that PAE or 4g is appended to the kernel version. That is, typing uname -r in console returns the kernel version with the 4g or PAE appended. That means that anything compiled in the other is not available for the native kernel.

While this could potentially cause issues with some woof scripts it hasn't so far. I tested it with Barry's version comparison utility vercmp and it seems to handle that scenario fine.

This is a common practice (patching kernel version). All the major distros (apart from Slackware) do this.
Puppy Linux Blog - contact me for access

gcmartin

#34 Post by gcmartin »

PAE is not some special "BIG" performance impacting hardware feature. Its a simple replacement model for providing access to RAM versus the old (and current) method of accessing.

It is exercised at the system level on behalf of system/subsystem requests.

It merely carries out request for RAM on behalf of the OS.

Here is also a definitive report by a respected group on benefits. It kinda mirrors what we have seen with PAE use in the Puppyland community testing that has been done.

Here is a simple explanation of PAE hardware which also has been echoed previously published in threads.

Hope anyone who might be confused can get a good understanding from this information as well.

Be aware, that I am consistent in suggesting that should anyone have a 64bit PC, they may find very good packaging from FATDOG64 and from LightHouse64.

For 32bit PCs, most come with PAE and should you have one, a PAE version of a Puppy, when offered will give excellent performance which equals what you would get from its non-PAE conterpart. This is what the testing has shown. And, you can be assured that it will make use of ALL RAM you can throw at it for your workloads.

And non-PAE will perform on all platforms. But be aware of its limitation.

Hope these references brings clarity.

Atle
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#35 Post by Atle »

Thanks for a really wanted and needed crash course in uppers and downers on PAE. Now I even know what it means :D

Despite getting dragged trough complex information so hard to understand that the radio needed to be turned off for a while here, I still want to point out that the issue for me is that i feel Puppy is like a "Light linux", always listed on "mini distro" articles and recommended for small spec hardware.

And its there things goes wrong in my eyes. The current flagship is PAE and that is not so good for getting new users. At least there should be a better set of information on the major download site,

Once the flagship became PAE, i have noticed that Puppy is dropping at Distrowatch and that might be the reason. People THINK they will get a sleek nice minidistro for their wifes computer or their old one etc, and they end up with not being able to boot the live CD they burn. THAT is the problem. Not PAE or 64 bits this and that.

Most people i know would not be able to tell you what PART of technology PAE derives from. Is it shortterm for some rocketscience stuff? A vaccine? Those batteries burning inside the Dreamliner? What what what?

I fancy Puppy for its simplicity and HORRIBLE ability to just do things that are ABSOLUTELY stunning within computing. I love the idea of PAE. Its great.

But its not so great that a certain percentage of new users that has burned their CD and awaits a AWESOME experience are left with nothing but a message... This PC is not PAE compatible...

Do they then come back to puppyland to search the forum for a workaround or just jump to another distro or even WORSE... stick to Windowz.

PAE is here to stay and its good news. But that said, please change the flagship to the NON PAE and make sure there is CLEAR information about when one should download and try the PAE version.

I think the entire Puppyland will grow stronger under such a presentation and that new users are more likely to LOVE puppy at first sight if the FIRST experience is bootable for ALL.

I honestly felt like left out when i tried this PAE first time... It was like... Huuuuu :shock: Did they leave all of us that think OLD computers are great and are struggling with 512 ram in 2013?

Then... after some time i discover I can try "retroprecise".

While the floor is mine for a second... Retro does mean among other things BACKWARDS... That is not very excellent considering one is going forward.

To conclude... A first time user experience should come before anything else and having non bootable CDs for a certain percentage of new users is not gone do Puppyland any good.

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#36 Post by Q5sys »

Atle wrote:To conclude... A first time user experience should come before anything else and having non bootable CDs for a certain percentage of new users is not gone do Puppyland any good.
I couldn't agree more. PAE should be an option, but not the default.
(Right now with Slacko that is the case right? Anyone know about Presice?)

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#37 Post by Atle »

Precise is the current flagship, and the PAE version is the "main option".

Slacko does not have PAE version as a primary choice as far as I have seen.

One can have a look [ur=http://puppylinux.org/main/Download%20L ... lease.html]here[/url]

I guess this is the page where most people have their first landing in Puppyland. I guess most people will end up downloading the first option and that is the Precise with PAE.

gcmartin

#38 Post by gcmartin »

Hi @Atle

Could you run this command and post results here using the PC you had problems booting, please.

Code: Select all

hardinfo -r -f html > report.html.gz
At the bottom of your post, you have the option to attach the "report.html.gz" file the command creates.

Maybe we can spot something
Thanks in advance

gcmartin

#39 Post by gcmartin »

I just went thru the Slacko thread. I am looking for evidence of some large (or small) persons reporting PAE is not working.
Edited: I, also, just went thru Barry's Precise thread, too.

Since in excess of 98% of all desktops/laptops sold have the PAE feature, especially those machines sold before 2006 (which is what is being presented by members recently in this thread), I (and you too) should expect to see complaints that PAE is not working from its ISO.

Where is the evidence???

P310Don, whom has helped us in the past by bringing the early ATOM processor issue to our attention and (I think) another member did also share that they had a rare Intel (newer than 2005) that did not have the PAE. These are two accounts of the many many who have posted and shared their configurations and their boot problems in the forum. Everyone else was able to boot and run without issues. Everyone!

The most prevalent problem with booting is the ISO hash on downloads....not PAE. And those of us who have been around Puppy Linux for awhile and help by testing have, on accasion, gotten a bad download whch borks at boot time.

So where is the evidence that any PAE is turning off users....old or new and steering them away from Puppy, as is being suggested? i, personally, have been responsible for at least 40-50 people over the last 3 years to boot PUPs and of late, to boot Slacko and Barry's RACY. Not one has reported issues. Somewhere, or somewhere else, there must be evidence of what you share.

This is not a challenge, its a request for assisting information.

Please help.

Atle
Posts: 596
Joined: Wed 19 Nov 2008, 12:38
Location: Oslo, Norway
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#40 Post by Atle »

I am doing this hardware test as i write, but its been going on for like 25 minutes now. I think the hardware test failed on my machine as its gone near silent now...

But let me make a test as suggested, as I can create a bootable USB as done before, check that the PAE version works on a newer laptop I can access tomorrow and then test it on my own personal stock of crap hardware. I got 4 laptops and that is:

Dell Latitude D505 512 Ram
Acer Aspire One ZG5 512 Ram
Fujitsu Siemens Amilo X1 2 gig Ram
Fujitsu Siemes Lifebook S7010D 1 gig ram

Anyhow... I need to boot into Lucid as i think there is a feature there that can verify the download of precise to be ok or not.

If the ISO is ok, is a USB boot good to go as a test?

I can report on all four machines pretty fast once iso is verified.

I am running Slacko as we speak.

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