Newbies - Puppy needs YOUR help too!

[Dewbie]

Old puppy wrote:

I was able to install puppy-wary 5.2.2 on a toshiba satellite 2180cdt 64mb ram...it appears that the seamonkey embedded in wary 5.2.2 is meant for higher class machiness than mine. It starts to load. And continues. Nothing else.

You need more RAM.
Recommended minimum for full installation is 128MB; for frugal installation, 256MB.

Then go to Menu / System / GParted and make a Linux-swap partition.
RAM-only or RAM+swap should equal 512MB.

[pikacane]

I'll make a help thread with more specifics on this, but...

I've used Puppy off and on for several years. It's taken a few old laptops of mine from dinosaur to happy puppy-a specific example: I was given a PIII Sony Vaio with (iirc) 128 mb of RAM and told that I could keep it if I could get it to work. It was running XP with a fancy theme including moving wallpaper and a starfish cursor, as well as a full Norton suite, and took 45 minutes to boot. It was marginally usable after I replaced Norton with avast! and stripped it back to a minimal theme, but when I dropped Puppy 421 on it, I swear it started dancing jigs.

What I've noticed over time, though, is that Puppy either notices wireless on first boot (for those computers that have it installed), or it will never work. If it wasn't autodetected, no matter how many things I try in the network setup wizard, it never finds a working one. I've let it autoprobe the entire list.

Going to go make a thread with the issues involving the specific computer I'm working on at the moment. Just adding my two cents that, while I know wireless is always the Linux bugaboo, it's often nearly impossible to set up and probably drives away a lot of people looking for plug and go distros.

[Old puppy]

You need more RAM.
Recommended minimum for full installation is 128MB; for frugal installation, 256MB. Then go to Menu / System / GParted and make a Linux-swap partition. RAM-only or RAM+swap should equal 512M

Thank you for your answer, it was really appreciated.

Indeed, that is, but being close to (finally) buy a new machine, I'd face 10 WBA rounds with both hands tied rather than to spend a single cent for this laptop. In addition, through years I've forced this poor win98-based hw to perform -somehow- all the tasks required and, as far as I could foresee, Wary 5.2.2 won't be an exception, since all performance troubles are coming from heavy apps and not from the mere OS. Sure, I could try older puppy versions, but I want to deal with last kernels.

Back to thread topic.
Having a lot of free time, yesterday I've started a Puppy full immersion stage, being really impressed by devs and community skills.

It took me a while to understand the reasons behind the lack of a proper uninstalling feature for ISO unwanted apps (hence petget mgr/petbegone aside): I'm now aware that remastering (at first sight I prefer Douglas rem script) is the way to go, but, as a newcomer, I've felt the urge of it while moving my first steps in a new environment, more if considering the limited disk space.

However, it hasn't been a difficult task to uninstall unwanted apps without remastering (even considering the cross-interactions such as Seamonkey-gxine & co): it gave me the opportunity to surf and understand puppy's files/directories management and mechanisms (all those .txt are amazing!) and to learn some basic tricks (such as to put files into a directory to see them working: something really weird coming from win98 :s), right what I need at the moment.

This said, I'd like to spend few words about Wary Puppy's Help: in my opinion, a newbie one, it should come such as a standalone rather than default browser input, or, at least, to rely on a very light editor able to deal with basic links: this would ensure that everybody can take advantage of it , and, talking about a Puppy such as Wary one meant for dated hw, this could be more than welcome.



Once again, thank you for your efforts and time!

[edit]

@ Dewbie:
Nevertheless,
I've just followed your suggestion about the swap file. I've created it via console (64 mb -I think that it was the best way, at least for me, to prevent eventual troubles) and setted it to automatically mount at puppy boot.
Having uninstalled seamonkey, I've added a temporary standalone ff 2.0.0.20 to write this edit and all works fine (lol all is working without cpu fan ranting vs me ). The next step will be Flash 10.x, but since this CPU doesn't support all required sse instructions, I'll need either to find a way to emulate them like I've already done in win98 or to find out who and how did it before me :p

Guys, you don't immagine how it feels discovering your world coming from the stone age!

[Dewbie]

Sure, I could try older puppy versions, but I want to deal with last kernels.

BarryK intentionally builds Wary with an older kernel (but newer packages), to keep it compatible with older hardware.
Read here.

I've just followed your suggestion about the swap file.

Those instructions were for a swap partition.
You can also make a swap file with Puppy; I have no idea how to do this.

[Old puppy]

Got it, and sure, you talked about a swap partition. I've preferred a swap file just because atm I feel more comfortable with them than with partitions. This is what I've done (following somebody else instructions, ofc):

dd if=/dev/zero of=/mnt/home/puppy.swp bs=1024 count=64k
mkswap /mnt/home/puppy.swp
swapon /mnt/home/puppy.swp

and then I've added, before rebooting,

swapon /mnt/home/puppy.swp

to /root/.etc/rc.d/rc.local

I've read even an old thread in this forum (~2010) linking a .pet swap-file manager, but I preferred the manual way.

[edit]

I remembered win pagefile (win386.swp for win98) while writing this post, and I've searched this forum for possible interactions between it and puppy. I've found out that I can use it (=disk space friendly) without any troubles, hence I've forced it's size (dynamic by default) setting the same initial and maximum size through virtual memory management (change). The rest ws quite easy following

My experience is the pagefile makes a fine Linux swapfile

In rc.local

mount partition windows partition rw (as necessary)
format pagefile to linux swapfile
then activate the swapfile

Then Linux uses it

When you boot Windows it is not bothered by the markings
Linux made to it, so there is nothing to do.

OT: I'm thinking to collect all "very old and weak machines users"-friendly tips I can find on this board while I'm getting started with puppy and to publish them into a dedicaded thread. Is it ok?

[RetroTechGuy]

You need more RAM.
Recommended minimum for full installation is 128MB; for frugal installation, 256MB. Then go to Menu / System / GParted and make a Linux-swap partition. RAM-only or RAM+swap should equal 512M

Thank you for your answer, it was really appreciated.

Do you know what you have installed? i.e. 2 slots, 1 occupied... Or perhaps 2 empty slots, with 64MB soldered on the Motherboard?... It might be possible to scrounge some more RAM, potentially for free or nearly so, and bump it up.

I have an old Compaq Armada 333 (laptop), that I managed to stuff 256MB total into. I added a 512MB swap partition. It runs 5.25 Retro and Firefox (though Firefox eats a lot of memory) -- functional, though not speedy...

Guys, you don't immagine how it feels discovering your world coming from the stone age!

You don't think that there are a lot of us from the stone age? (actually, I have some moderately new machines that I normally run on, but like to play with really old hardware).

<edit>

It looks like your 64MB may be soldered in. And it looks like it will (I'm guessing) take another 2 x 64MB SO DIMM 144-pin, PC100 from the specs. The question is would it handle 128MB chips (manufacturing specs are sometimes conservative)...

http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/toshiba ... 33566.html

<edit 2> Just found a spec sheet, but doesn't clear up the memory slot question. I did, however, find this model being sold with > 300 MB RAM (indicating like expansion 2 slots -- and 128MB in each)...

http://www.retrevo.com/support/Toshiba- ... ag124/t/2/

[Puppyt]

@Old puppy -
loved your first post - what an elegant and constructive way to introduce yourself to the kennels! Many Thanks!
You might have seen this thread earlier, started by Yours Truly, but real experts have added to it so there might be some useful tips for you in getting Puppy unleashed on hardware it wasn't really geared for:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... b5ac17f1f3
From the get-go may I suggest you consider upgrading your lappie hard-drive from the original (ye olde PATA?) drive? Without RAM additions possible, a newish 7200 RPM IDE drive, or an SD-card with IDE adapter makes a MAJOR speed improvement in all desktops I've renovated. When using SD- or CF-cards as hard-drives I found that the puppy.swp was probably better for the life of the card, rather than a swap partition,
Cheers!

[Old puppy]

You don't think that there are a lot of us from the stone age? (actually, I have some moderately new machines that I normally run on, but like to play with really old hardware).

People feel lonely for a number of reasons. Everyone experiences loneliness. Luckily, though, there are a number of ways to overcome loneliness, and you've just helped me

It looks like your 64MB may be soldered in. And it looks like it will (I'm guessing) take another 2 x 64MB SO DIMM 144-pin, PC100 from the specs. The question is would it handle 128MB chips (manufacturing specs are sometimes conservative)...

Thank you very much for your time and efforts!
I have considered to do it (yup, it is soldered), but then, looking at the whole picture (no working cd, floppy and Keyb - I use an external one - plus a GPRS connection without a working usb charger below puppy -> GD87 ...) it appears that the time to change this machine (plus net and OS) has come. I've spent last 18 months learning all I could about each single actual and announced piece of hardware and their own benchmarks (waiting for trinity apus community feedbacks for the last choice -cpu+gpu- the A10 3870k should come with an integrated radeon ~7000 and cost, joined to its fm2-socket mobo, like a mere i5 2500k cpu - the most sold worldwide in last months), about modding, about overclock & co, and atm I should be able (remember that I'm an OLD puppy) to build a decent machine from scratch spending as less as possible (and then to keep it for the next 13 years :s ). However, this machine will always have a special place in my heart and on my desk, and I'll use puppy for a long time because, as far as I could see, it is right what I need to feel comfortable with Linux.

what an elegant and constructive way

Hmm, I think that this is the first time that the word "elegant" has been associated to me, and I can't deny that it sounds good! Many thanks to you! (Don't worry: I know my limits, and I'm back to reality already )

You might have seen this thread earlier, started by Yours Truly...

No, I hadn't seen that thread before, but after having written my last post I've spent a lot of time here around and now I know that I could hardly add something new to what has been previously said. This is the proof that enthusiasm may involve everybody, and not just younger beings..

From the get-go may I suggest you consider upgrading your lappie hard-drive from the original (ye olde PATA?) drive?...

My Toshiba Satellite wants me to make you aware that he feels honoured by your interest, so, not wanting to see it moved to tears, I've decided to do this: first, I will build the new machine, then, with the euros left from the budget, I'll see what I can do to make it feel better

@ moderators: I'm sorry, this post went totally off-topic, but these guys deserved a reply!

[RetroTechGuy]

You don't think that there are a lot of us from the stone age? (actually, I have some moderately new machines that I normally run on, but like to play with really old hardware).

People feel lonely for a number of reasons. Everyone experiences loneliness. Luckily, though, there are a number of ways to overcome loneliness, and you've just helped me

Should I mention that my newest box was purchased in 2005?... The tower that I'm on right now is older than that (but still pretty solid: 2200 Athlon, 1 GB RAM).

My nephew did find a Asus eee900 netbook in the trash, and gave it to me. I ran that for a while, to replace the 900 Athlon tower I was using as my primary (it only had 384MB RAM, the eee900 had 1GB and the same speed benchmarks...). Then there's my older 750 Duron, with 512 MB, which I used as a computational machine at work (dual boot Puppy/Win98). My 1.6 GHz laptop has Win98, and Puppy (dual boot via Lin'N'Win).

I've thinned out most of my older machines...

It looks like your 64MB may be soldered in. And it looks like it will (I'm guessing) take another 2 x 64MB SO DIMM 144-pin, PC100 from the specs. The question is would it handle 128MB chips (manufacturing specs are sometimes conservative)...

Thank you very much for your time and efforts!
I have considered to do it (yup, it is soldered), but then, looking at the whole picture (no working cd, floppy and Keyb - I use an external one - plus a GPRS connection without a working usb charger below puppy -> GD87 ...) it appears that the time to change this machine (plus net and OS) has come. I've spent last 18 months learning all I could about each single actual and announced piece of hardware and their own benchmarks (waiting for trinity apus community feedbacks for the last choice -cpu+gpu- the A10 3870k should come with an integrated radeon ~7000 and cost, joined to its fm2-socket mobo, like a mere i5 2500k cpu - the most sold worldwide in last months), about modding, about overclock & co, and atm I should be able (remember that I'm an OLD puppy) to build a decent machine from scratch spending as less as possible (and then to keep it for the next 13 years :s ).

I'm guessing from your avatar that you're not in the US. But you can run Puppy on some really old hardware (in fact, I tried to run 5.28.004 on a colleague's 64-bit machine, and it hung -- I'm guessing "too much" hardware). I didn't get a report back as to whether Fatdog worked.

Here in the US it isn't uncommon to pick up perfectly workable computers from the trash (in fact, my nephew does it all the time -- often virus laden WinXP systems, which are cleaned up and distributed to computer-less folks). On your system, assuming that you wanted to upgrade storage, rather than looking at a new internal HDD, I would look at a PCMCIA USB2 card. Then you can get or assemble an external HDD storage and plug it in, or just a really large flash drive (which won't require an external power supply to run it). There are some here who run old machine with no HDD at all -- running either from flash, or rewritable CD/DVD.

My Compaq 333MHz has a 4GB internal, but has no trouble handling a large (500GB or more) external drive -- but those external drives do need external power, as the PCMCIA really doesn't supply enough power to run even a laptop drive.

BTW, you may be a little surprised to learn that many here are pushing or well past that half century mark.

[cleg223]

Hi, I have been using puppy linux for the last few days, and I have to say im impressed!
I have managed to get it to work, despite being new to linux!!!

the biggest problem i have had with it is getting the tor browser bundle to work..... I have spent 11+ hours on this so far....

I have installed openssl from the package manager which is a dependency for tor... this worked fine... the next task was libevent, which was more difficult to find and use. (i couldn't find it in the package manager of download it form there.

I found it on the internet, and extracted the gz file, everything from there needed to be explained to me... a long process!!!....

eventually i got it installed and even created my own .pet file.. but i have no idea how!!!... however, its now installed and working....

I then installed the tor browser and connected, but not without problems..... when the tor browser connects to its network, it then automatically launches a version of Aurora Firefox... this didn't happen and im still trying to fix it...

It mentions somewhere on the tor website.... Do not unpack or run TBB as root.

this is where my problems really start as I know that puppy linux runs everything as root, and so far i cannot find a work around, i will be starting a separate thread about this somewhere.

Other than that I cannot see any problems with it but i do have a few questions and suggestions,

would you make a step by step guide on how to install packages for newbies? I have read the install files of other applications and they make reference to $ make however, when I type this in the terminal, it doesn't like it

also, Seamonkey wouldn't open an irc chat, but i suppose Ayttm was good for that, so its not really a complaint.

ohh, one of the biggest things i have found is that if I install a program, the program sometimes needs to be installed every time I boot up, is there a particular install directory i should use?


and how do i get these programs to run in the startup process?

I think thats every thing... whilst my comments may have been "annoying to read" I think its shows a good picture of what its like for a newbie, hope this helps, as I want help from you now

[cthisbear]

Seen this.

" Puppy Crypt 528 is a remake of the old Puppy Crypts but turned in
a new direction.
Where as the old Puppy Crypt was designed more for simply encrypting files on your computer and having a few more communication and office applications, Puppy Crypt 528 is geared more towards keeping you
as anonymous as possible online with as little technical knowledge needed as possible "

1. Avast-1.3.0 w/fix
2. Elinks-0.11.7
3. Firefox-7.0.1
4. Tor_Bundle-2.2.33-3(Beta)

and much much, more

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/32731622/Puppy% ... pt_528.txt

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=72178

""""""""""

And welcome to Puppy cleg223.

Supply your hardware specs
and Puppy version you have and we will see if
we can supply you with more help.

Chris.

[celeronM]

Im relatevely new here in the forum, but im running puppy since 2012 in my laptop. I have tried wary,racy, lucid528, 3 head dog, slacko 5.327 legacyos4 akita 8, all these have booted fine in my machine.
My web experience is only for play zynga games in FB, so with that in mind, i tried almost all browsers in the package managers of all puppy, the one that really run was 5.28 because i think has optimized i686 libraries but only IRON browser run zinga games in a level of 10%-25%, well i use one stylesheet to block the annoyng ads of zinga that makes the 45-50% zinga games playable in my machine, but the wireless driver that comes with 5.28 lost conectivity if I go to far of away from modem, meanwhile in slacko is more stable and i can go far away without lost conection, but in slacko is imposible to play zinga games even with IRON browser, in slacko when i close my laptop go to sleep and never come back to life again so i have to cut power of my machine, another problem i cant use my touchpad in slacko if dont copy wary xorg file in it, in racy is the same i cant use touchpad if i dont copy wary xorg file in it, wary and racy are fine but even youtube videos play sluggish, meantime in lucid play just fine,I recently installed legacy os4 and i like so much, all the features, but i cant install IRON browser to see if can run zinga games. So with that in mind. How can I make my own custom puppy for my machine since i know can do well better, with more specific drivers modules libraries kernels and programs. Can someone put me in the right direction?
THESE ARE THE ASPECTS OF MY MACHINE.

[dogle]

Thanks for your comments, CeleronM, and welcome.

If you are keen to build your own custom Puppy, take a look here -
http://bkhome.org/woof/index.html

You are likely to get a better response to particular technical queries if you post in the appropriate forum section (rather than in this thread) - but check the Puppy search engine first,
http://wellminded.com/puppy/pupsearch.html
- quite likely it will save you the trouble!

[knsridhar]

sir
puppy Linux is really a very good distro and i have been using on my low end computers (old) and also on my new ones ,it boots fast and is sufficient for me for doing day to work probably good for professionals also.i recommend puppy linux to all my friends.our nation (India) can save a lot of money by using old computers at home ,schools and organization.support is also very good ,installation is slightly difficult for we are asked many question.pl.ensure that not many questions asked especially with regards to partitions , many people may find difficult to use gparted , otherwise puppy Linux is very very good

[hribarj]

I just installed Puppy about a week ago and thought I would provide some feedback while the trials and tribulations are still fresh in my mind. I will try not to ramble. I have worked with computers all my life, but always with Windows. I'm retired now and have more time to "play around" with some of the new capabilities (music, movies, pictures) that are available on machines today. I ran across Linux when I looked around and saw that I had several old laptops sitting around that were no longer useful. My primary computer is a desktop with all the computing power I need, but I don't have an operating laptop. I really didn't want to buy a new laptop if I could avoid it. That is when some research unearthed Linux. The first distro I tried was Mandriva 2009. With the help of patient people on the forum I was able to get it running, and I used it exclusively for web browsing while watching TV in the living room. Unfortunately, every time I tried to add a functionality I was completely lost. In fact, almost every time I tried, I would mess up the stuff that was working. During this period I learned something about people. Windows users, like myself, tend to think of computers as a necessary evil to achieve an objective. Linux users tend to enjoy making the computer do things just for the sake of the challenge. Both are necessary and fine with me. However, when the two types try to communicate - problems arise! My advise to Linux users: PATIENCE!

[rokytnji]

My advise to Linux users: PATIENCE!

But it can be so hard sometimes hribarj.

@roky It was ignorant of me to expect free help from the type of individuals who choose to use this terrible platform. Your generic advise didn't help and wasn't appreciated.

We are Just volunteers. Just trying to do the pay it foward. Kinda like Old Bikers around a campfire showing the younger bikers the tricks we have learned through experience.

Being a Biker myself. Not a IT professional. Disrespect me at a Campfire, you might end up on your butt.

Online. You just made the ignore list. I can relate to being a babe lost in the woods. I can't relate to being disrespectful or not being polite when requesting help , whether a windows user,linux user or a biker.

If the above person had been a biker and his motorcycle had broke down and I pulled over to give assistance. Well. With that attitude. He would have seen my dust trail.

I can only speak for myself. If you have the desire for adventure. Follow instructions from heads wiser than you.

Be Respectful

I for one will do my best if it is my my power to help. AS do many other members on this forum do. You will be surprised actually on the knowledge base here at Murga and the friendly responses on this forum. I am a Happy Harley Rider and Puppy Linux user.

Happy Trails, Rok

[jobo]

my feed back, after a couple of days, is its likely rebuilding a car engine with the instuctions from ikea, there are pages of instruction bthey mean nothing to me, open this,,,, tranfere to that,, open a fat partision on your hard drive, a what ? i keep going from one ref source to another trying to find a starting point that i understand

I know this is largly my problem, but i cant be alone in finding it pages of jibberish, there needs to be a idiots dummies guide that assumes no prior knowlwdge at all and takes you through it in a logical order

the problem is , that very clever people who know it backwards cant believe you need to be told something as obvious as that, where as i do

[Dewbie]

jobo wrote:

there needs to be a idiots dummies guide that assumes no prior knowledge at all and takes you through it in a logical order

Try these:
http://www.puppylinux.com
http://www.puppylinux.org
Take your time and read thoroughly.

[jobo]

thanks
but the feedback im giving as a renewbee pupy user, at now 3 days and about 30 hours hair pulling, is that if linux in general and pupy in particular want to get out the computer fanatic market and into the main stream then its needs to be able to install and have it operating at a base level in about 4 hours, any persistance beyond that is based on being obsesive or in my case desperate, any one who just want to use a computer to do somethingwould just give up

the fixation with using a cd is a ( my) problem, but as its designed for old/ailing computers, having a prerequirement that you are either an expert or have a cd burner is a barrier to its use

one of those links gave the advice that if you dont have a computer with a cd burner, then get one ? if i had a working computer with a burner i wouldnt be doing this in the first place, if fact cds at all are becoming rares with notebookes etc

[killapup]

G'day all,

I'm fairly new to linux in general and Puppy in particular, I'm finding it a bit clunky especially after MacOSX. To fill everyone in, my son-in-law gave me an old Hp t5000 series thin client and told me about small linux OSes that work. Bless his cotton socks... ggrrr Darren.

Anyway, the upshot is that I have been playing with Puppy for about a month now and sort of enjoying it, it certainly is challenging. In short, I have had one install that went well until I somehow blew the boot sector, in the process of trying to clone the working install to a larger pendrive.

Fortunately, I was able to get my second install, after a few false starts mostly due to not making notes along the way, loaded onto a 4Gb pendrive. Unfortunately, this install doesn't seem to be as good, not sure why, as it was done from the same liveCD as the first, I'm using Slacko 5.3, and it seems quite good generally but some things seem to be broken or just very slow to start.

Over the next little while, I will be posting questions to resolve some of these issues. In the meantime, I will be trying things to find out how the whole system works. I've had a little experience with command line stuff through OSX Terminal but some/most commands are different or not available in Puppy compared to OSX, for obvious reasons.

I will continue to use OSX as my main OS but will continue to hammer Puppy into shape as long as I can find something useful to use it for, I have an idea for it.

Ok, I'll say 'woof, woof' for now and catch you later in the forum.