Using an older Puppy, like Racy, instead

[ac2011]

I've been using Fluppy (a Jemimah-rolled puplet) for years on a couple of Core2Duo laptops, now running at 2.33GHz with 2GB RAM.

With some careful tweaks this distro is up to date in security terms and running the latest version of the Pale Moon browser that was released less than a week ago. My entire remaster, with dozens of applications including LibreOffice, WINE, GIMP, media players, etc. is 650MB and can be run entirely from RAM if required.

One of the laptops is now over 10 years old and has been used pretty much every day of that time, connected to an external HD monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc. It's still my main work machine and runs subjectively faster than the Windows-based computers in the offices I sometimes visit. My wife says it's much snappier than the computer she uses at work too.

I know I could upgrade (the laptops and/or the OS), but I haven't yet found a compelling reason why I should.

[mikeslr]

Hi all,

Nice work ac2011. Yah, the "old" Puppies did a great job of providing users with the applications they needed on computers lacking the gobs of RAM required by the current crop of applications. And Fluppy was one of jemimah's great creations.

With most applications the difference between the "old" version and the current version is incremental: something only a hard-core user of that type of application would notice. The two exceptions are security and web-browsers.

Intrigued by ac2011's mention that he was running the current Palemoon on the now 7 year old Fluppy by employing some tweaks, I did a Wellminded Search, http://wellminded.net63.net/ on "Fluppy glib". The reason current browsers generally won't run under older Puppies is that the older Puppies don't have the graphic libraries (glibs) required by the newer browsers. And even if the newer glibs could be installed, doing so could break the builtin applications requiring the older glibs. So I wondered how ac2011 did it. For those interested, he provides his "recipe" here: http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 538#907538.

Very nice ac2011.

mikesLr

[nic007]

Hi all,

Nice work ac2011. Yah, the "old" Puppies did a great job of providing users with the applications they needed on computers lacking the gobs of RAM required by the current crop of applications. And Fluppy was one of jemimah's great creations.

With most applications the difference between the "old" version and the current version is incremental: something only a hard-core user of that type of application would notice. The two exceptions are security and web-browsers.

Intrigued by ac2011's mention that he was running the current Palemoon on the now 7 year old Fluppy by employing some tweaks, I did a Wellminded Search, http://wellminded.net63.net/ on "Fluppy glib". The reason current browsers generally won't run under older Puppies is that the older Puppies don't have the graphic libraries (glibs) required by the newer browsers. And even if the newer glibs could be installed, doing so could break the builtin applications requiring the older glibs. So I wondered how ac2011 did it. For those interested, he provides his "recipe" here: http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 538#907538.

Very nice ac2011.

mikesLr

Will this work if one, instead of installing the pet to a temp folder, load the contents as an sfs on the fly?

[ac2011]

Very nice ac2011.
mikesLr

Thanks - and thanks for digging out that link. Watchdog has since been providing regular Pale Moon update packages using the same method.

It never seemed sane to me to upgrade an entire computer, operating system and applications just to run one resource-hungry new application (i.e. web browser). But I suppose eventually I'll have to do just that, whenever the final 32-bit Linux browser goes end-of-line.

[ac2011]

Will this work if one, instead of installing the pet to a temp folder, load the contents as an sfs on the fly?

No reason why not, as long as you don't mount it over the top of the existing GlibC files. There may be background processes launching that might otherwise get confused.

Don't forget the important tweak to the plugin-wrapper to get later plugins working by the same method too (e.g. Flash).

[nic007]

Very nice ac2011.
mikesLr

Thanks - and thanks for digging out that link. Watchdog has since been providing regular Pale Moon update packages using the same method.

It never seemed sane to me to upgrade an entire computer, operating system and applications just to run one resource-hungry new application (i.e. web browser). But I suppose eventually I'll have to do just that, whenever the final 32-bit Linux browser goes end-of-line.

Do these palemoon pets produced by Watchdog, include the necessary (newer) libraries, ie no need to install the lib packages seperately?

[ac2011]

Do these palemoon pets produced by Watchdog, include the necessary (newer) libraries, ie no need to install the lib packages seperately?

Yes. Follow mikeslr's link earlier and read that thread to the end. You may need some other updates (e.g. dbus) but those are also detailed in the thread and aren't intrusive to install.

[nic007]

Do these palemoon pets produced by Watchdog, include the necessary (newer) libraries, ie no need to install the lib packages seperately?

Yes. Follow mikeslr's link earlier and read that thread to the end. You may need some other updates (e.g. dbus) but those are also detailed in the thread and aren't intrusive to install.

Great, thanks.

[Robert123]

At the moment I'm using Jemimiah's Fluppy 013 with Watchdog's latest Palemoon .pet on my E625 Emachines laptop and it just flies.

Also had 560 slacko running on it working better than any modern puppy.

[Sailor Enceladus]

Robert123 your signature keeps changing or is there more than one Robert and I'm confusing you guys

[Robert123]

Change signature as I change Pups.

[Robert123]

Just trying Stardust 013 a 4.31 Pup with Broadcom drivers and Ati drivers seems to work ok on the E625 - very fast.

Browser is Palemoon from Watchdog 27.3.0

[Pelo]

Virtual keyboard 3.7 with nice script added by Argolance to get personalized appearance installed but allo used successfully on my Racy 5.3
Bravo Argolance ! Click the blue, and have fun (of course you can type with it your mail, even in magyar and polish)

[Mike Walsh]

Howdy-doody, boys and gals.....it's a bee-yoootiful day..!

(Well, as far as I'm concerned it is, 'cos I now have Chrome and NetFlix running in Racy 5.5.....)

All thanks to Battleshooter's glibc-220 Racy/Carolina upgrade:-

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=806989

I followed the link from Mike's post, through ac2011's post, to Battleshooter's thread.

It's surprisingly easy to set up, actually. Install the GCC deps first, followed by binutils, then Glibc-220, and GCC last of all (as Battleshooter posted). I've sym-linked my common, 'remote' install of Chrome 48.0.2564.116 (the very last 32-bit Linux release) into Racy at all the appropriate points, and it's working nicely.

It wasn't all plain sailing. It did want a few extras that weren't in the 2.20 glibc upgrade. libevent, for one (mikeslr found he wanted this, further back in the thread); libnotify.....and it also wanted a newer version of libX11.so, 'cos I kept running into a 'symbol lookup error'.....something to do with 'XGetRequest'? I tracked down the solution to that one on one of the Google productforum blogs from a couple of years back, and 'borrowed' a somewhat newer version of libX11.so from Precise 571.

(I backed up Racy before I did so, 'cos I had visions of 'X' giving up the ghost when I rebooted with this newer version. Needless to say, my fears were unfounded.....and the backup wasn't needed.)

I also had to sym-link libnss3.so and libnssutil3.so from watchdog's 'tweaked' PaleMoon that I use on here, alongside QtWeb.....for some reason, the sym-link from SeaMonkey didn't work (probably too old a version); after this, she finally burst into life. I knew the libs from 571 ought to work, since I've had a bunch of Chromium-based browsers running in Precise for well over a year now.

All of which goes to show that there's ways round anything in Puppy, if you're persistent enough. I'm well chuffed.

Many thanks to Robert123 for updating the links to Battleshooter's stuff.

Thanks also to Russoodle for keeping hold of battleshooter's stuff, and the biggest thanks of all to Battleshooter.....for the original project.

Cheers to one and all!


Mike.

[Mike Walsh]

Just added SlimJet; 'Slimmie's always been a favourite.

I attempted sym-linking the current, remote version into Racy (14.0.8.0; this is the one currently based on Chromium 58), but all the text came up in weird-looking scribbles & hieroglyphics. I decided I wasn't digging around in Racy's guts again, so I've made up an SFS of the older version of SlimJet which is equivalent to the last 32-bit Chrome that I run.....this being 8.0.5.0, which I downloaded from the SlimJet 'back-catalogue'...

http://www.slimjet.com/release/archive/

Which runs a treat. I'm a happy bunny..!

I'm also using a slightly older version of SMPlayer: 17.1, compiled by ninotix, which works perfectly in Racy. Nice one, mate. Cheers!

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 085#846085

I'm gradually switching from VLC to SMPlayer in all my Pups, as I get around to it. I like the feature you get in SMPlayer, where it remembers where you left off watching something, and re-starts at that same point again. VLC doesn't do this.

I am really enjoying Racy's speed and versatility. It's quite an eye-opener.


Mike.

[Robert123]

Hello Mike,

Been using Racy Barebones 5.3 by JRB with same Glibc upgrade using Palemoon and its bloody marvellous on this Dell E6500. Very fast so far.

[greengeek]

Hello Mike,

Been using Racy Barebones 5.3 by JRB with same Glibc upgrade using Palemoon and its bloody marvellous on this Dell E6500. Very fast so far.

Hi Robert - do you have a link to that iso? cheers!

[Robert123]

Hi Greengeek,

As requested




https://archive.org/download/PuppyLinux ... ebones.iso

[greengeek]

As requested
https://archive.org/download/PuppyLinux ... ebones.iso

Thanks Robert. Downloading now. Got a feeling I tried this once before and it didn't work on my Toshiba due to xvesa incompatibilty (blank screen) but I think I will try it on a Lenovo and see how it goes. I like the idea of an older machine running a newer browser.
cheers!

[greengeek]

Been using Racy Barebones 5.3 by JRB with same Glibc upgrade using Palemoon and its bloody marvellous on this Dell E6500. Very fast so far.

Any chance of a link to the specific Palemoon you got running on Racy 5.3? Turns out the barebones does boot on my Toshiba and I'd be keen to get a browser working.

Also - what do you reckon is a good lib donor puppy to correct missing libs on Racy5.3? cheers!