Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[mechmike]

http://www.recoupit.com/Netbooks/Lenovo/Lenovo-IdeaPad-S9-Netbook-p9580846.html

[izezi]

Wary Puppy runs great on my 12 year old Gateway laptop. The LCD screen burned out on it several years ago and I use an external 15" Viewsonic CRT monitor with it that displays in 1024x768 with 24bit color.


-Computer-
Processor : Intel(R) Celeron(TM) CPU 1200MHz
Memory : 253MB (128MB used)
Operating System : Linux 2.6.32-uni (i686)
Distribution : Wary Puppy 5.2.2
User Name : root (root)
Date/Time : Mon 19 Mar 2012 04:38:27 AM CDT

-Display-
Resolution : 1024x768 pixels
OpenGL Renderer : Mesa GLX Indirect
X11 Vendor : The X.Org Foundation
-Multimedia-
Audio Adapter : Allegro - ESS Allegro PCI
Audio Adapter : ICH-MODEM - Intel 82801CA-ICH3 Modem

-Input Devices-
AT Translated Set 2 keyboard
AlpsPS/2 ALPS GlidePoint
Lid Switch
Sleep Button
Power Button
Video Bus
PC Speaker

-SCSI Disks-
ATA TOSHIBA MK2018GA
QSI DVD-ROM SDR-083
SanDisk Cruzer

-PCI Devices-
Host bridge : Intel Corporation 82830 830 Chipset Host Bridge
VGA compatible controller : Intel Corporation 82830 CGC [Chipset Graphics Controller]
Display controller : Intel Corporation 82830 CGC [Chipset Graphics Controller]
USB Controller : Intel Corporation 82801CA/CAM USB Controller #1
USB Controller : Intel Corporation 82801CA/CAM USB Controller #2
PCI bridge : Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge
ISA bridge : Intel Corporation 82801CAM ISA Bridge
IDE interface : Intel Corporation 82801CAM IDE U100 Controller
SMBus : Intel Corporation 82801CA/CAM SMBus Controller
Modem : Intel Corporation 82801CA/CAM AC'97 Modem Controller
Multimedia audio controller : ESS Technology ES1988 Allegro-1
CardBus bridge : O2 Micro, Inc. OZ601/6912/711E0 CardBus/SmartCardBus Controller
Ethernet controller : Intel Corporation 82801CAM

I run FreeBSD 7.4 with Fluxbox on the HD with Puppy booting from an 8GB USB stick. I couldn't believe how easy the install went, liked how everything had a wizard to get it up and running and am really happy with it.

[GJones]

Thinkpad 600E runs Wary 5.2.2 reasonably well.

Cost: seems to usually go for $50 to $100 on EBay, so not a particularly good value. OTOH it does qualify as cheap.

Specs for mine:
400 MHz Pentium II processor
192 MB of PC100 RAM (I think this was upgraded on mine though)
40 GB IDE hard disk (originally 20 GB but that one broke)
Some sort of Neomagic GPU
2 16-bit PCMCIA slots

Quirks:
Needs acpi=force to boot from the CD.
Takes a long time (~20 seconds) to POST.
BIOS setup screen is very unintuitive, and uses a cursor shaped like a duck, which flaps its wings when you move it.

Problems:
Only one USB port, which may or may not have lag problems with certain USB mice.
No ethernet, you need a PCMCIA ethernet card - I use an old 3Com model.
No wireless, and I've no idea if there are any compatible wifi cards.
Screen is rather low res, laptop is heavy and bulky, battery life is rubbish... etc.

What is usable:
Rox, Geany, Seamonkey... Basically most stuff. JWM's outline move/resize helps a lot. Responsiveness is generally on par with Windows 2000, and boot time is about the same. Don't expect Seamonkey to handle Hotmail or anything else JS intensive though.

What is not usable:
Abiword is completely broken - smooth scrolling is hardcoded into the current version, but the poor CPU is too weak to handle it, which makes the word processor unresponsive when typing. This is really the fault of the Abiword devs, for failing to provide an off switch for this behavior! Too bad though, because everyone needs word processing.

Misc. advice:
Use a full install, not a frugal install. Frugal takes twice as long to boot on this computer, and has no real advantages, at least until someone figures out how to make a multi-user distro run on this slowpoke.

P.S. If anyone does figure out how to make Debian or Slackware or something run usably on this thing, please drop me a line!

[mini-jaguar]

Here's some stuff to drool over:
http://damnsmalllinux.org/store/Mini_ITX_Systems
http://www.tekmote.nl/epages/61504599.sf/en_GB/?ViewObjectID=935271

[starhawk]

Thin client conversions are fun and some of them are actually useful, too. Just pull the flash disk module, and put in an IDE->CF adapter and either CF card or Microdrive (I like 8gig Microdrives a lot -- especially since you can put swap on 'em). You probably will want to upgrade the RAM as well.

Older thin clients (anything with an AMD Geode CPU) will be obnoxiously slow running Puppy of any kind (well... maybe not PupNGo...). However, I have a thin client right now that has Puplite 5 on it and is quite responsive -- about on par with my ASUS 1000HEB netbook!

That particular model (which I recommend) is a NeoWare CA19 that I purchased on eBay. (I was supposed to get a CA21, but whatever, it works fine.) There aren't many on eBay at this moment, but those that are are going for around $25-30 including shipping. You'll need about $10-15 for the RAM; the CF adapter should be $5 or less; and the CF card itself will set you back about the same price as the system unit if you get a nice one (same with Microdrives -- 4gig ones go for about $15, but the 8gig ones are more like $30).

The nice things about the CA19 are that it has fairly modern RAM (a DDR2 laptop style SODIMM) and that the drive connector is the laptop style 44pin -- that means that the connector is self-powering and you don't have to splice a 5/3.3volt CF card into a 12volt power supply somehow (probably this would involve a run to a local electronics supply store for some regulator components!). BTW, there's a USB header on the board, unused, so if you don't need a parallel port you can double your USB ports... handy.

More on the thin-client-as-desktop stuff --> www.parkytowers.me.uk/thin/
That guy is awesome and knows everything about this stuff.