Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[linuxsurfer7]

-Me: Linux noob. Grew up on Dos so was amazed how much trouble I had with Linux. I could be a moron. I'll try to keep this short.
-Goal: Convert old laptop (Compaq Armada 1700 PII266mhz/192M/4G) into Linux- only fast web-surfer.
-Tried hdd installed DSL. Dillo was very fast but did not render most web sites properly, I assume due to lack of Java support but just guessing. Firefox worked perfectly but was S-L-O-W. Read that Chrome was fast but did not find an install for DSL.
-Formatted hdd as sda3-100mb-ext2/sda2-150mb-swap/sda1-3.7gb-ext2. Read a long time ago that system and swap partitions only needed to be as big as OS.
-Installs were all attempted on sda3.
-Tried BrowserLinux pup501 LiveCD that had the Chrome installer with pfix=ram but Firefox was still very slow. Installed on hdd but went INSANE trying to create "menu.lst". Tried many variations and while the program went through the motions and acted OK, I could never find the "menu.lst", and got GRUB error 15 (file not found) at boot.
-Formatted hdd as sda3-100mb-ext2/sda2-350mb-swap/sda1-3.5gb-ext2. Read now that pc memory plus swap partition should be at least 512mb.
-Blew off pup501 since I didn't want Firefox anyway and tried the Chrome version pup431 (which seems more intuitive and straight forward) and had several other problems trying to install to hdd. I think some of these are legitimate bugs in 431. Still cannot create/find "menu.lst" and still get GRUB 15 error at boot.
This is the much shortened version of hours of blue air.
Thanks for your help.

[rcrsn51]

The problem with these stripped-down Pupplets is that they don't always behave like normal versions.

However, I would try the automated install method here.

[linuxsurfer7]

Hello again, Thanks for the very fast response.
- Ran the auto-installer twice. The grub config took about a tenth of a second so no way to stop that.
- Chose full install. Auto set up 1 full 4.01G hdd partition sda1, no swap partition.
- Found 128mb pupswap.swp in /initrd/mnt/dev_save.
- /initrd/mnt/dev_save/boot/grub/ and /mnt/home/boot/grub/ contained identical menu.lst files:

timeout 0
default 0
title Puppy Linux Full
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda1 ro vga=normal

- BOOT goes to grub stage 2 error 15 file not found, press any key.
- ENTER goes to select OS with only 1 entry "Puppy Linux Full".
- ENTER gets Error 15: file not found - Press any key to continue.
- A continuous loop.

[greengeek]

Hi, although I can't be of any use in getting past the error 15 in this case, I do suggest the following:

1) When I was trialling Browserlinux on a slow machine I could not install it to HDD (I wanted to do this in an effort to speed it up) and I seem to recall other forum members expressing the same frustration and commenting that broswerlinux was intended only as a Live environment. I don't know whether those comments were valid or misguided, but in any case I then moved to Puppy NOP 431 which is one of the best puppies I have found for low powered machines. (It comes with Opera which is a matter of taste, but might at least provide a comparison regarding successful HDD install)

2) I believe your machine specs may be too low to handle the modern webpage requirements in a way that is fast enough for your needs. There is so much embedded flash and other rubbish that the browser ends up hogging a lot of memory. (using flashblocking can make things a lot better, but if you are wanting to view Youtube vids I just don't think your machine has enough power)

For slower machines I think it is worth trialling a full install of Puplite:
http://puppylinuxnews.org/home/p_2/

or maybe Akita (which is a successor to Puplite)
Akita is here:
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=67811&start=599

[greengeek]

I don't know if it will help you, but you might be interested to look at this other post too:
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=623654#623654
.