(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Hi i'm new here and i am wonder what are the minimum system requirements for lucid and wary, so i can choose the best for my system


greetings!

necromatic wrote:Hi i'm new here and i am wonder what are the minimum system requirements for lucid and wary, so i can choose the best for my system

Welcome to Puppy Linux!

At least 256 MB of RAM seems standard for comfortable running of most puppies, though more RAM is better. I'm not sure about Lucid. Have you looked at the thread here: http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=63251

Might be better if you stated what your system is.

Speed: probably no minimum, but 600 MHz runs okay. You'll want to store some stuff, and install more packages, as well as the puppy files, so a HD of 1 GB or more would be good. (Less will work, but is it going to be very useful? Maybe 256 MB would be the absolute minimum.) You don't need a CD drive, puppy can be installed on the HD or run from a USB flash drive.

Not very demanding really, is it? I'm pretty sure that Puppy can run entirely off the USB drive, you don't in fact even need a hard drive.

I believe the developer of Wary is making a point of being able to accommodate every available wireless modem, should that be relevant to you.

The problem is we aren't an unscrupulous marketing company like Microsoft.
We lack the incentive or financial motivation to lie to you.

If we were, the minimum specs could change, it might be like this:

• Minimum specs for Puppy is a 386 computer with 2MB RAM.
  Pay 89.95 at the register.

~

Bruce B wrote:The problem is we aren't an unscrupulous marketing company like Microsoft.
We lack the incentive or financial motivation to lie to you.

If we were, the minimum specs could change, it might be like this:

• Minimum specs for Puppy is a 386 computer with 2MB RAM.
  Pay 89.95 at the register.

~

I thought that Linux always required 4MB of RAM... And yes, years ago a friend and I had a server running on a 386-20 with 4MB RAM... She was dog-slow...but provided a common outbound dialup line for the house.

In answer to the OP, I have a 333MHz laptop running Puppy 4.3.1 Retro. I tested it with a mere 64MB, and it functioned, but I run 256MB RAM and a 512MB swap file. It is adequate for web browsing (but not for video).

My old 750 MHz and 900 MHz desktops both work quite well. They both have 512MB RAM.

I keep my pupsaves small, usually starting at 256MB -- though my current one has crept up to 448MB (with about 80MB free). I store all of my files outside the pupsave...

And Beem, another Puppian, runs a tiny 32MB pupsave... Wowzers!

Shep wrote:Speed: probably no minimum, but 600 MHz runs okay. You'll want to store some stuff, and install more packages, as well as the puppy files, so a HD of 1 GB or more would be good. (Less will work, but is it going to be very useful? Maybe 256 MB would be the absolute minimum.) You don't need a CD drive, puppy can be installed on the HD or run from a USB flash drive.

Many old machines don't support booting from USB. I like to use a frugal install on USB, and boot from CD as a starting system. Once you're comfortable with it, copy the pupsave and .sfs to the HDD and continue booting the CD. This also permits leaving the original OS, without mucking around with the boot record.

minimum system requirements for lucid and wary

Wary for older/ less powered systems,
(Tested with 128gb ram/ Pentium III with success).

lupu/ luci for newer ones.

bodbozzle wrote:

Wary for older/ less powered systems,
(Tested with 128gb ram/ Pentium III with success).

128mb

RAM recommendations

64MB RAM -- Bare minimum

Recommend turning off ROX-Filer, just use JWM, no extra applets,
background apps, use full installation, keep multi-tasking down, no
wallpaper, when using SeaMonkey, keep number of open tabs down. Also
needs a paging (swap) device.

128MB RAM -- Practical Minimum

User should use care with multi-tasking, needs a paging (swap) device.
Full install on fast media would be better install option.

256MB RAM -- Desirable Minimum

User should be happy with 'normal' computing, whatever that means.
Paging device highly recommended.

---------------------------------

Hows that?

~

RetroTechGuy wrote:And Beem, another Puppian, runs a tiny 32MB pupsave... Wowzers!

of wich I have 15MB free.

@necromatic,
Bruce B posted a very reasonable requirement.

And to add to this, I use sfs files to complement my application requirements like wine and pidgin.
Other applications like OpenOffice, FireFox, Opera, SeaMonkey, Sun Java are installed outside the save file and properly symlinked to have them integrated in the system.

I was going to start a new thread but, I think what I'm going to ask fits here. My wife's laptop, 800 mhz, 160mb ram is an odd bird. It's a Winbook Si and I've posted here, I think it may be haunted. It has run Puppy 431 for months with issues. Since it's an old laptop with no battery it occasionally loses power and has a hard shutdown. If 431 is fubar, I reinstall it full install.

As I said it has issues running 431. This time I thought I'd try a different Puppy and may find something it liked better. I full installed Wary 104 and 2.14x, each on it's own 1.2gb partition. They didn't last long because they both ran slow, especially 2.14x. I formatted and reinstalled 431 and it runs same as always.

I'm wondering what went wrong. Is it that 431 is the only one of the three that creates a swap file during installation? Is it that that machine only likes 431? Is it something else? If I were completely new to Puppy and installed 2.14x and it performed the way it did, I'd leave and never look back. Both CDs run fine live in a 1.3ghz, 375mb ram laptop and the md5sums were right.

obxjerry wrote:I'm wondering what went wrong. Is it that 431 is the only one of the three that creates a swap file during installation? Is it that that machine only likes 431? Is it something else? If I were completely new to Puppy and installed 2.14x and it performed the way it did, I'd leave and never look back. Both CDs run fine live in a 1.3ghz, 375mb ram laptop and the md5sums were right.

I have noted that there is an ongoing un-clean shutdown problem (with most/all versions I've tested). This will cause eventual terminal corruption.

Set your system to "fscK' on every bootup, and patch the shutdown.

Set your system to "fscK' on every bootup, and patch the shutdown.

Thank you, RetroTechGuy. That is good advice and I would give that advice to someone else. I tolerate some things probably more than is smart. I have no good excuse for why I haven't done that. Somehow doing a reinstall every few months doesn't bother me. No valuable data is lost and I'm thinking it cleans out some cobwebs, a lesson Bill Gates taught me perhaps.

What does bug me is why Wary 104 and 2.14x ran so slow. Firefox ran really slow on 2.14x and I tried to replace it with Seamonkey per ttuuxxx's instructions but Seamonkey wouldn't start. That's kind of neither here or there, the OS ran slow without starting a browser.

There are things I like about Wary 104 and 2.14x so this may be a bridge to cross in my future. My concern is, if a newbie had the same results I did they may be gone in the wind right off the bat.

obxjerry wrote:I was going to start a new thread but, I think what I'm going to ask fits here. My wife's laptop, 800 mhz, 160mb ram is an odd bird. It's a Winbook Si and I've posted here, I think it may be haunted. It has run Puppy 431 for months with issues. Since it's an old laptop with no battery it occasionally loses power and has a hard shutdown. If 431 is fubar, I reinstall it full install.

As I said it has issues running 431. This time I thought I'd try a different Puppy and may find something it liked better. I full installed Wary 104 and 2.14x, each on it's own 1.2gb partition. They didn't last long because they both ran slow, especially 2.14x. I formatted and reinstalled 431 and it runs same as always.

I'm wondering what went wrong. Is it that 431 is the only one of the three that creates a swap file during installation? Is it that that machine only likes 431? Is it something else? If I were completely new to Puppy and installed 2.14x and it performed the way it did, I'd leave and never look back. Both CDs run fine live in a 1.3ghz, 375mb ram laptop and the md5sums were right.

It is never correct to hijack the thread of another poster to raise an issue of your own.
Seeing your issue, I think it's better to start a new thread.

Ram is pretty cheap right now, so load up. Puppy with 2 GB flies.
But my next laptop will have 8-12 GB. (Win7 likes RAM, and I need it for work)

In the US RAM is ~$10/GB right now.

It is never correct to hijack the thread of another poster to raise an issue of your own.
Seeing your issue, I think it's better to start a new thread.

Thank you, Béèm. I have wondered for some time if I was repeatedly committing a faux pas on this forum. I thought I was on topic and the OP posted only once and that was 4 days ago so posted here. I need to work on my forum etiquette. Please believe me when I tell you I appreciate your heads up. I don't mean to offend.

Thanks again.

obxjerry wrote:

It is never correct to hijack the thread of another poster to raise an issue of your own.
Seeing your issue, I think it's better to start a new thread.

Thank you, Béèm. I have wondered for some time if I was repeatedly committing a faux pas on this forum. I thought I was on topic and the OP posted only once and that was 4 days ago so posted here. I need to work on my forum etiquette. Please believe me when I tell you I appreciate your heads up. I don't mean to offend.

Thanks again.

It is not always easy to distinguish if an own issue is the same as the OP's one.

But mostly the hardware and software can be quite different, so advise for one won't always work for the other.

Don't consider it as a faux pas (French is spoken in Kentucky?)

Béèm wrote:

obxjerry wrote:

It is never correct to hijack the thread of another poster to raise an issue of your own.
Seeing your issue, I think it's better to start a new thread.

Thank you, Béèm. I have wondered for some time if I was repeatedly committing a faux pas on this forum. I thought I was on topic and the OP posted only once and that was 4 days ago so posted here. I need to work on my forum etiquette. Please believe me when I tell you I appreciate your heads up. I don't mean to offend.

Thanks again.

It is not always easy to distinguish if an own issue is the same as the OP's one.

But mostly the hardware and software can be quite different, so advise for one won't always work for the other.

Don't consider it as a faux pas (French is spoken in Kentucky?)

However, the next step for the user is to establish a _stable_ Puppy system... So, the software discussion is not completely out-to-lunch...

azstew wrote:Ram is pretty cheap right now, so load up. Puppy with 2 GB flies.
But my next laptop will have 8-12 GB. (Win7 likes RAM, and I need it for work)

In the US RAM is ~$10/GB right now.

I think the older RAM (most likely what the OP has) is still fairly expensive (due to rarity and lack of production).

[quote="RetroTechGuy]However, the next step for the user is to establish a _stable_ Puppy system... So, the software discussion is not completely out-to-lunch...[/quote]I don't agree.
The discussion of the OP was requirements to run Puppy.

f someone comes in about his problems of his running installation, this has nothing to do with the initial thread.

But mostly the hardware and software can be quite different, so advise for one won't always work for the other.

Don't consider it as a faux pas (French is spoken in Kentucky?)

The OP never got a firm answer on his question. I've run 421-retro on 366mhz, 160mb ram in less than 500mb on the hard drive for almost a year. I think it runs plenty quick. I posted here because yesterday I installed two Puppys, I thought were designed to run on old machines, on a 800mhz, 160 ram computer and neither ran acceptably, not nearly as fast as 421 on the lesser machine.

I don't know a lot of things. I don't know whether my problem is user error, hardware, software or combination of those. I don't know what the minimum requirements are for any Puppy version. I do know the answer I would have given a couple of days ago is not what I would say today. Today I don't know much of anything. I do know how a newbie feels.

I'm a quarter French. I don't speak French but there are people in KY that do. KY is nothing if not diverse.