The 4.x equivalent of 2.14x

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Fossil
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Joined: Tue 13 Dec 2005, 21:36
Location: Gloucestershire, UK.

#16 Post by Fossil »

Sadly, the 431J-P2012 Japanese browser was the off-putting 'feature'. If it had been capable of English script it would have been far more popular; it was a good concept. No, I didn't want to go down the road of loading SFS's simply to obtain an alternative browser.

What kernel is being proposed for the venture? Will it be the 4.3.1's? Rerwin also did a lot of work upgrading on this: "Simplified Puppy 4.3.1/4.3.2 Upgrade Center " http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 889#483889

starhawk
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#17 Post by starhawk »

A further thought -- there are a lot of low-spec machines out there, for cheap. If Pup4x can be made to run on them, modernize Pup4x (glibc at least, possibly a kernel update) so that it can use newer software... presto, cheap computers for the masses.

For the record: one super cheap source is eBay's selection of thin clients. (I recommend staying well away from Wyse, given recent experiences.)

A NeoWare CA19 is a fairly decent model. Right as I type this there is a seller on eBay offering them for $15 for one or $28 for a pair. Needs a power cable but it's just a standard 'mickey mouse' or 'three-leaf clover' style (depending on which side of the Atlantic you're on). Specs here, but despite being a little underpowered it's not that bad.

Replace the onboard flash disk (a Disk On Module or DOM) with a short 44pin IDE cable, CompactFlash->IDE adapter, and ~32gb CompactFlash card, and upgrade the RAM to a full gig -- and you've got a silent, ecologically- and economically-friendly computer that rocks. For the more adventurous, there's a footprint for a standard motherboard fan connector just waiting to be populated with that connector -- and then you can replace the fanless heatsink on the northbridge (under the heatsink in the middle of the motherboard) with one that has a fan, for better cooling. Makes a racket though.

Prices in us$, before shipping, currently on eBay (except for the CompactFlash card)...

NeoWare CA19 Thin Client = $15
Power cable = $2.99
44pin IDE cable (get the 4" cable, despite the price -- trust me!) = $6.99
CompactFlash->IDE adapter (44pin male connector) = $5.75
32gb CompactFlash Card (Newegg pricing) = $37.99
1gb DDR2 SODIMM (it takes laptop RAM) = $4.25

Total = $72.97 *

* Add $3.19+shipping for the heatsink&fan (I assume if you can solder that you have or can scrounge the needed connectors) -- get the golden squarish ones eBay has for video cards ("vga cooler" is the search term here). They're perfect.

I daresay that it'd be hard to find a good Dell for that price outside of a yard sale... besides, even if you did it would most likely be a P4 Dell that pulled about as much power as a carbon-arc searchlamp! ;) Pentium 4's are nasty beasts... you'd save a ton on your electric bill with this over a P4 anything -- enough to go to the movies every month or two, probably.

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greengeek
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#18 Post by greengeek »

Just found a couple of threads that may be of interest to anyone trying to updatify puppy 4.x

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 886#451886

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 889#483889

Edit:
also this one:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=66328

*** Edit2 : ***
See this current comment from Rerwin here:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 645#771645

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Colonel Panic
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#19 Post by Colonel Panic »

I've got some time this weekend so I'm going to get hold of a barebones pup, probably 4.12, and see if I can build it up into something worthwhile.

Have to say though that if I was going to build a community edition of Puppy for 2014 I'd probably use a 5 series Pup, most likely Wary as it's optimised for older computers.
Last edited by Colonel Panic on Fri 18 Apr 2014, 17:08, edited 1 time in total.
Gigabyte M68MT-52P motherboard, AMD Athlon II X4 630, 5.8 GB of DDR3 RAM and a 250 GB Hitachi hard drive running Ubuntu 16.04.6, MX-19.2, Peppermint 10, PCLinuxOS 20.02, LXLE 18.04.3, Pardus 19.2, exGENT 200119, Bionic Pup 8.0 and Xenial CE 7.5 XL.

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mikeb
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#20 Post by mikeb »

I had no trouble running Lucid on a pentium 2 with EIDE ...definately one of the best kernels of any puppy for wide support . The userspace can be slimmed down considerably and the wrapper scripts do make it appear to be slow but it is solid. Wary...well whats in a name?

mike

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Colonel Panic
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#21 Post by Colonel Panic »

Hi again Mike,

Wary uses older libraries than the other 5 series Pups. I've not heard of Lucid with EIDE - do you have to compile the kernel separately, or has someone else already put Lucid out with that kernel?
Gigabyte M68MT-52P motherboard, AMD Athlon II X4 630, 5.8 GB of DDR3 RAM and a 250 GB Hitachi hard drive running Ubuntu 16.04.6, MX-19.2, Peppermint 10, PCLinuxOS 20.02, LXLE 18.04.3, Pardus 19.2, exGENT 200119, Bionic Pup 8.0 and Xenial CE 7.5 XL.

starhawk
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#22 Post by starhawk »

Here, this should answer any questions people might have as to what architecture they need to compile for, given the make & model of a CPU. Anything without CMOV is a 586 as far as I'm concerned, so that's what I'm putting here. I've included some weird stuff to cover the oddball systems as best I can. I *think* I've got it covered but we'll see...

Anyone with something questionable that isn't covered here, start a thread in the appropriate place and PM me a link so I know to weigh in. I'll be there!

386,486 = don't even bother. If it has an FPU*, then you can run some kind of antique discontinued distro IF your other hardware specs will support it AND you can track down a download link that still works. Generally speaking, if you have anything earlier than an original Pentium, you're stuck with long-gone floppy-based distros. If you have a system without an FPU* then I'm sorry but you're basically SOL -- FPU* emulation in software is a kernel thing, and the distros that include that are phenomenally rare. It just bogs everything down horribly anyways...

If you are super doober out-of-your-mind desperate for the Linux experience on a relic, grab a copy of XWOAF from goingnuts here on the forum (you'll probably have to PM him, his website [goingnuts.dk] doesn't always work) and write it to a floppy (it's a disk image, so if you're not comfy with 'dd' you'd better get there). Then pray you have both a 486 with an FPU* (486SX+487, or 486DX) AND 24meg RAM, and if your prayers are answered it will boot for you... if, unlike my copy, it's not a corrupt disk image...

That said, if you actually *do* want to boot XWOAF on a 486 or similar, (a) please PLEASE post pics, and (b) you probably ought to get that checked :P

...now, onto the useful stuff...

Pentium 1 = 586
Pentium Pro = 686 (it was expensive and crappy, nobody cares)
Pentium 2 = 786
Pentium M = modified 686 (!)

AMD K5 = 586 (does anyone even remember this thing?)
AMD K6-anything = 586
(this includes K6 [AFAIK], K6-2, K6-2+, K6-III aka K6-3D+, K6-3+)
AMD Athlon (original aka K7) = 686 [AFAIK]

Cyrix 6x86 = 686 (OH GOD CYRIX :shock: :shock: :shock: )
(note for everyone -- don't use Cyrix crap, the FPU* inside is so pathetic that it's essentially marketing hype and nothing else!)

IDT WinChip = 586 (don't use this, either, it's FPU* is actually *worse* than Cyrix's stuff... I really don't know how they did that...)

VIA Cyrix III = 686 (Via bought both IDT/Centaur and Cyrix, and their crap isn't any better. Trust me, I have some of it!)
VIA C3 = 686 (these are later-edition, renamed VIA Cyrix III CPUs)
VIA C7 = modified 686 (basically a Celeron M, only far crappier)
VIA Eden = pick either a C3 or C7 and take out what few brains are still there, so that it can be fanless. So either = 686 or = modified 686.

Vortex86 (original) = 586 w/o FPU*
Vortex86SX = 586 w/o FPU*
Vortex86DX = 586
Vortex86MX / PMX-1000 / Xcore86 = 586
Vortex86MX+ = 586

*FPU = Floating Point Unit, also called Numerical Processing Unit (NPU), Math Coprocessor, or simply Coprocessor or Coproc. A module (with Pentium and earlier CPUs, often a separate chip) that enables non-integer math computations for CPUs that don't normally support that. As a side-note, if you have a motherboard with a 486SX, and you put in a 487 coproc, you are actually adding a rebranded 486DX that becomes the CPU. You could technically remove the 486SX and as long as the "487" stayed, your system would not even notice... that trick *only* works with 486/487 pairings, though!

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mikeb
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#23 Post by mikeb »

Well the standard kernel that came with lucid...2.6.33.x

Note that 4.12 's kernel did not work with the same machine (circa 1996)

Don't believe there is a world of difference between 4.31 , wary and lucid user space libraries apart from the latter will have a wider base of software to choose from.

mike

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James C
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#24 Post by James C »

There's also Lucid Retro http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 627#521627 ..... combining the kernel and drivers from 4.31 with the newer userspace and apps from Lucid.

Works well on older hardware but still allows all the newer Lucid apps.

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mikeb
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#25 Post by mikeb »

Gets a little confusing on puppy as its more about the kernel build config than the version used ..i put a slax kernel on puppy 4.12 for example as it made it fine for EIDE to SATA multicore machines, AHCI , raid support etc etc...its 2.6.24.5

So the very old to the pretty new seem fine with lucids build... and of course newer drivers can normally be build for whatever kernel assuming its not lacking something vital which sometimes happens for wifi devices I have found on occasion.

mike
Last edited by mikeb on Fri 18 Apr 2014, 21:20, edited 1 time in total.

starhawk
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#26 Post by starhawk »

Hey, mikeb, might want to double-check your math there.

EIDE is "Enhanced IDE" -- double check with Wiki if you don't believe me.

ATA-1
IDE (ATA-2)
EIDE
SATA

...in that order...

;)

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mikeb
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#27 Post by mikeb »

Hmm need to double check what the kayak was... thought it was EIDE...
machine was from 1996 ... and definalty could not see drives with 4.12 ....

one to check up on...

mike

edit ATA-33

from http://www.cnet.com/products/hp-kayak-x ... abu/specs/

Now what made me think it was EIDE

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mikeb
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#28 Post by mikeb »

Ok brain cheack...it WAS EIDE... so must have been something else about the controller that 4.12 did not support.

right...got there in the end

mike

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