Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

sfeeley · Joined: 14 Feb 2010 Posts: 807

I a recently did a frugal install on an old sony vaio pcg z505js superslim. (PIII, 650MHz, 256ram). (a sexy little computer that was the macbook air of its day)

Things seem to run pretty well with one problem. Any streaming music off the web (Pandora and iceberg radio) tends to skip and run fast on occasion. This is a bit frustrating, esp., since those sites ran fine on windows 2000 (are we allowed to say that here?)

It seems to be worse, when I am doing other things (working on documents, etc)

***I don’t know if this is a problem with system resources or the soundcard. Do I switch to a full install or mess with the soundcards?***

According to ebay, the computer has a Yamaha 167770112 soundcard. But if I bring up the "multiple sound card wizard" it shows a YMF744 Yamaha DA-1S (YMF744) --confusing; perhaps they are the same.

I ran the Alsa wizard. It pulls up ymfpci 1073:0010 (rev 02) on my system. A scan for legacy cards also pulls up op13sa2 Yamaha OPL3SA2+. Both of these work about the same (dog bark, ability to stream music but skipping described above). There are some other cards also listed as possibilities by the wizard, but they don’t seem to do anything. Is there something else I should be doing with the sound card?

(Also, for some reason that I don’t fully remember I had to add IRQPOLL to my grub menu.1st file –don’t know if this is related)

Or, is it possible that I’m simply straining the system and it has nothing to do with the soundcard? In this case, would it help to switch from a frugal to a full install? I understand this works a bit better with low ram computers.

If this is the case, are there any suggestions on how to do a full install alongside a frugal? (That way I could test both)
-I assume that I need to repartition the harddrive?
-Do I create a swap partition for each install? (there is already one for the frugal, do I create another for the new full install?)
-Is there some special magic that I have to do with GRUB? (Do I run Grubconfig or merely add another set of lines to the menu.1st file)?
-Do I need to use the CD, or can I do this using files already on the harddrive (the machine has no CD-ROM, and switching the harddrive to a machine that has one is difficult. I can do it, but would prefer not if there’s an easier way).

Thanks in advance for all the help!
[One small edit: same skipping problem on mp3 running from the harddrive, so its not only an issue with streaming]

Aitch · Joined: 04 Apr 2007 Posts: 6825 Location: Chatham, Kent, UK

Hi

Ebay is not a good source for finding out about your drivers

According to Sony's website

http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/swu-list.pl?mdl=PCGZ505JS

Your lappy has Yamaha DS-XG driver, but I've only been able to find reference here

http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-433850.html

which seems to indicate it maybe in the kernel, so should autoload, maybe the YMF744, I'd have thought?

Maybe it's a combination of slow processor low ram, no swap browser/video/sound/flash kinda problem? Wink

Can only suggest try different things....

Aitch Smile

Aitch

sfeeley · Joined: 14 Feb 2010 Posts: 807

UPDATE:

Seems to have been the processor wasn't fast enough for that distro. I've since scaled back to Puppy 2.17 and sound works. Sounds like Aitch was correct Wink

disciple · Posted: Mon 01 Mar 2010, 01:38 Post_subject:

What "distro" was it?
I don't think a standard Puppy should exhibit that problem on a computer that fast. There must actually have been something wrong.
Anyway, glad to hear you're happy.

sfeeley · Joined: 14 Feb 2010 Posts: 807

@disciple
Initially it was the standard version of 4.31. I also tried harocafe with the same problem. (I also tried various other distros, but had wireless problems on those, making the sound issue moot). 2.16 was the first that I could get sound + wireless working.

If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them, since I'd like to switch to the more modern versions.
4.31 seemed to work quite well except for the sound issue.

disciple · Posted: Wed 10 Mar 2010, 02:16 Post_subject:

Ah. I think both those stations use Flash. Flash on Linux is pretty rubbish, although I thought it was mainly video that was the problem, not audio...
I think 2.16 might have an old version of Flash (7.x?). If so, I suspect that is the difference.
Otherwise, run top in a terminal window while playing those stations. What does it say about your cpu usage?