I was reading information on flash storage of the save configuration files when using 2.14. I am using 1.08 and am satisfied with the functionality, speed, and flexibility. I use Puppy as live cd with pup files on hard drive. The question, I guess, is technical. Does it matter, when using a flash drive for the configuration (save file) whether the usb bus is 1.1 or 2.0? My system has a 1.1 bus and it is not feasible, or economical, to upgrade as I do not use any peripherals that require high speed data rates. Considering the size of flash drive needed to host the save files would a usb bus with 1.1 protocols be too slow? I am interested in using 2.14 after reading the documentation and how it can be as fast, or faster, than the 1.xx series on ram chanllenged systems.
White Box Celeron 500
120 MB RAM
Puppy 1.08r1
Live CD
Does USB 1.1 make any difference if saving to flash drive?
For what it's worth, I installed USB 2 PCI cards in two old computers I have, to upgrade them from USB 1. The cards cost about $15 each. Both cards worked fine, in Puppy and in Windows 2000, without any configuration or software installing. The only real problem is the USB 2 port is in the back of the computer where the PCI cards are. I found that a USB extension cord works fine.
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Sit Heel Speak
- Posts: 2595
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- Location: downwind
Comparison times, USB 1.1 versus USB 2.0
First two tests are on a P3-800 Thinkpad laptop, with 256MB of PC133 RAM.
Third test is USB 2.0 on a P4-2666 with 1GB DDR400 RAM.
Distro: Puppy 2.01rc2, frugal install on a 2GB SanDisk Cruzer Mini USB flash thumb drive.
The Puppy install includes a 1GB pup_save file on the thumb drive.
Explanation of the tests:
"Boot time--floppy" = from hitting the power-on button, to the "Uncompressing the kernel" message.
"Boot time--to Linux desktop" = from hitting the power-on button, to desktop.
"Copy time--network" = time to copy the entire 1,149,137,252 bytes of files from the stick over my 100mbps internal network to the P4 machine's hard disk.
"Copy time--local disk write" =time to copy the 34MB file firefox-1.5.0.6-source.tar.bz from the stick to the local hard disk (UDMA-2 on the Thinkpad, Ultra-ATA133 on the P4).
"Copy time--USB stick write" = time to copy the 34MB file firefox-1.5.0.6-source.tar.bz from the local hard disk to the stick.
Shutdown times vary depending on what has been copied to and from the stick during the session, but very roughly USB 2.0 is about twice as fast as USB 1.1 at shutdown.
Test 1. Stick plugged into the Thinkpad's rear USB 1.1 port, booted using pakt's Wkpup11C boot floppy, with config.sys and autoexec.bat suitably modified to not pause, and to look for initrd.gz intead of image.gz, and to take boot parameters from linld.cfg on the stick:
Boot time--floppy: 55 seconds.
Boot time--to Puppy Linux desktop: 113 seconds.
Copy time--network: 22 minutes 15 seconds.
Copy time--local disk write: 26 seconds.
Copy time--USB stick write: 2 seconds.
Test 2. Same USB stick plugged into a USB 2.0 PCMCIA adapter, booted using pakt's wkpup2x-02 boot floppy, on the same P3-800 machine as above:
Boot time--floppy: 35 seconds.
Boot time--to Puppy Linux desktop: 75 seconds.
Copy time--network: 7 minutes 20 seconds..
Copy time--local disk write: 6 seconds.
Copy time--USB stick write: about 1 second.
Test 3. Same USB stick plugged into a USB 2.0 port, booted using pakt's wkpup2x-02 boot floppy, like test 2 except on a P4 2.66GHz machine (1GB DDR400 dual-channel RAM) with an ATA-133 hard disk:
Boot time--floppy: 45 seconds. More stuff to probe, I guess.
Boot time--to Puppy Linux desktop: 85 seconds.
Copy time--network: not tried.
Copy time--local disk write: 3 seconds.
Copy time--USB stick write: under 1 second.
In California, Arizona, and Washington, Fry's Electronics sells a 3.5"-floppy-drive-form-factor frontplate which has 2 USB 2.0 ports, 1 FireWire port, microphone and headphone jacks, in your choice of charcoal or beige, for $14.95 plus sales tax. The 5-pin mainboard connector for USB 2.0, into which this faceplate plugs, began appearing on P3 mainboards circa 2001. I have this frontplate on the P4 (Intel D805 CPU, Intel D865GSA mainboard) and that is the USB 2.0 port into which the stick was plugged on that machine for Test 3.
Ability to hot-plug/unplug is a separate issue. My experience (on three machines) is that USB 1.1 is hot-pluggable/unpluggable so long as the stick is not being read or written to at the moment. USB 2.0 (on my two machines that have it) is hot-pluggable-into but not hot-unpluggable, e.g. hot-unplugging causes the machine to reboot. Does anyone have differing experience?
HTH
SHS
First two tests are on a P3-800 Thinkpad laptop, with 256MB of PC133 RAM.
Third test is USB 2.0 on a P4-2666 with 1GB DDR400 RAM.
Distro: Puppy 2.01rc2, frugal install on a 2GB SanDisk Cruzer Mini USB flash thumb drive.
The Puppy install includes a 1GB pup_save file on the thumb drive.
Explanation of the tests:
"Boot time--floppy" = from hitting the power-on button, to the "Uncompressing the kernel" message.
"Boot time--to Linux desktop" = from hitting the power-on button, to desktop.
"Copy time--network" = time to copy the entire 1,149,137,252 bytes of files from the stick over my 100mbps internal network to the P4 machine's hard disk.
"Copy time--local disk write" =time to copy the 34MB file firefox-1.5.0.6-source.tar.bz from the stick to the local hard disk (UDMA-2 on the Thinkpad, Ultra-ATA133 on the P4).
"Copy time--USB stick write" = time to copy the 34MB file firefox-1.5.0.6-source.tar.bz from the local hard disk to the stick.
Shutdown times vary depending on what has been copied to and from the stick during the session, but very roughly USB 2.0 is about twice as fast as USB 1.1 at shutdown.
Test 1. Stick plugged into the Thinkpad's rear USB 1.1 port, booted using pakt's Wkpup11C boot floppy, with config.sys and autoexec.bat suitably modified to not pause, and to look for initrd.gz intead of image.gz, and to take boot parameters from linld.cfg on the stick:
Boot time--floppy: 55 seconds.
Boot time--to Puppy Linux desktop: 113 seconds.
Copy time--network: 22 minutes 15 seconds.
Copy time--local disk write: 26 seconds.
Copy time--USB stick write: 2 seconds.
Test 2. Same USB stick plugged into a USB 2.0 PCMCIA adapter, booted using pakt's wkpup2x-02 boot floppy, on the same P3-800 machine as above:
Boot time--floppy: 35 seconds.
Boot time--to Puppy Linux desktop: 75 seconds.
Copy time--network: 7 minutes 20 seconds..
Copy time--local disk write: 6 seconds.
Copy time--USB stick write: about 1 second.
Test 3. Same USB stick plugged into a USB 2.0 port, booted using pakt's wkpup2x-02 boot floppy, like test 2 except on a P4 2.66GHz machine (1GB DDR400 dual-channel RAM) with an ATA-133 hard disk:
Boot time--floppy: 45 seconds. More stuff to probe, I guess.
Boot time--to Puppy Linux desktop: 85 seconds.
Copy time--network: not tried.
Copy time--local disk write: 3 seconds.
Copy time--USB stick write: under 1 second.
In California, Arizona, and Washington, Fry's Electronics sells a 3.5"-floppy-drive-form-factor frontplate which has 2 USB 2.0 ports, 1 FireWire port, microphone and headphone jacks, in your choice of charcoal or beige, for $14.95 plus sales tax. The 5-pin mainboard connector for USB 2.0, into which this faceplate plugs, began appearing on P3 mainboards circa 2001. I have this frontplate on the P4 (Intel D805 CPU, Intel D865GSA mainboard) and that is the USB 2.0 port into which the stick was plugged on that machine for Test 3.
Ability to hot-plug/unplug is a separate issue. My experience (on three machines) is that USB 1.1 is hot-pluggable/unpluggable so long as the stick is not being read or written to at the moment. USB 2.0 (on my two machines that have it) is hot-pluggable-into but not hot-unpluggable, e.g. hot-unplugging causes the machine to reboot. Does anyone have differing experience?
HTH
SHS
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Sit Heel Speak
- Posts: 2595
- Joined: Fri 31 Mar 2006, 03:22
- Location: downwind
So, to sum up for oldguy:
USB 1.1 will probably meet your needs.
USB 2.0 will quicken the initial boot by 30-40%, and make your copies and saves and shutdowns happen in only 1/3 to 1/2 the time.
If you have the 5-pin USB 2.0 connector on your mainboard, and a free 3.5" floppy drive bay on the front of your computer, then you can buy a frontplate to connect to the 5-pin connector. These cost $16 locally, including tax.
If you don't have the 5-pin USB 2.0 connector on your mainboard, but if you do have a free PCI slot, then you can buy a USB 2.0 adapter card and simply plug it in and screw it down. Locally, used examples of this card cost $20 plus sales tax, call it $22 total. I don't know what new ones cost; undoubtedly CompUSA carries them. No doubt it is possible to find used ones or even new ones cheaper than my quote, but this is Seattle and computer gear (like coffee) is expensive here. This will give you two or four USB 2.0 ports at the rear of your computer, in addition to the one or two USB 1.1 ports you already have.
If you really want USB 2.0 ports on the front of your computer and do not have the 5-pin mainboard USB 2.0 connector and do not mind the cost then you could shell out ($16 + $22 =) $38 to buy the PCI USB 2.0 card _and_ the frontplate and plug the frontplate not into the mainboard but rather into the card. Make sure the card you get is indeed USB 2.0 and does have the 5-pin connector (a.k.a. the "USB 2.0 header"). If the card (or mainboard) has 2 onboard USB 2.0 channels with a connector (header) for each, then you'll see two rows of five pins, perhaps a 2-by-5 10-pin array.
HTH
SHS
USB 1.1 will probably meet your needs.
USB 2.0 will quicken the initial boot by 30-40%, and make your copies and saves and shutdowns happen in only 1/3 to 1/2 the time.
If you have the 5-pin USB 2.0 connector on your mainboard, and a free 3.5" floppy drive bay on the front of your computer, then you can buy a frontplate to connect to the 5-pin connector. These cost $16 locally, including tax.
If you don't have the 5-pin USB 2.0 connector on your mainboard, but if you do have a free PCI slot, then you can buy a USB 2.0 adapter card and simply plug it in and screw it down. Locally, used examples of this card cost $20 plus sales tax, call it $22 total. I don't know what new ones cost; undoubtedly CompUSA carries them. No doubt it is possible to find used ones or even new ones cheaper than my quote, but this is Seattle and computer gear (like coffee) is expensive here. This will give you two or four USB 2.0 ports at the rear of your computer, in addition to the one or two USB 1.1 ports you already have.
If you really want USB 2.0 ports on the front of your computer and do not have the 5-pin mainboard USB 2.0 connector and do not mind the cost then you could shell out ($16 + $22 =) $38 to buy the PCI USB 2.0 card _and_ the frontplate and plug the frontplate not into the mainboard but rather into the card. Make sure the card you get is indeed USB 2.0 and does have the 5-pin connector (a.k.a. the "USB 2.0 header"). If the card (or mainboard) has 2 onboard USB 2.0 channels with a connector (header) for each, then you'll see two rows of five pins, perhaps a 2-by-5 10-pin array.
HTH
SHS
Unplugging USB flash drives is not recommended in Puppy because probedisk and probepart, on which many Puppy apps depend, was not written with hot-plugging in mind and the apps break. Rebooting is even worse than I've seen, but I'll bet it trains you quickly enough not to unplug anything with Puppy booted.USB 2.0 (on my two machines that have it) is hot-pluggable-into but not hot-unpluggable, e.g. hot-unplugging causes the machine to reboot. Does anyone have differing experience?
I once experienced getting my flashdrives erased due to puppy's confusion with device names because of probedisk/probepart.
Plinej experimented with rewriting probedisk and probepart, but I don't know where that effort is now.
I tried USB flash on a USB1.1 port for a 512MB pup_save. I found it too slow to tolerate, personally. I did buy a belkin USB 2.0 pcmcia card with 2 ports which didn't work reliably earlier, but now seems to be OK in Puppy 214.
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Sit Heel Speak
- Posts: 2595
- Joined: Fri 31 Mar 2006, 03:22
- Location: downwind
Yes, I noticed that thread--framing questions accurately is half the battle. The ability to hot-swap, and to achieve correct drive letter order assignment and reassignment when doing so, is something I intend to iron out someday.PaulBx1 wrote:I once experienced getting my flashdrives erased due to puppy's confusion with device names because of probedisk/probepart.
@oldguy: when you plug the faceplate into the USB 2.0 header, be sure the black wire goes to the minus (-) pin, in other words observe proper electrical polarity.