Puppy2 With 2.4 Kernel

[Dougal]

I've noticed a few people lamenting Puppy2's use of a 2.6 kernel, it causing various problems, especially with older hardware.

As you might recall, Puppy2 didn't always use a 2.6 kernel: there was at least one "snapshot" using the 2.4 kernel.

When Barry moved to the 2.6 kernel I actually thought it might cause problems -- knowing many distros give you a choice between a 2.4 and a 2.6 kernel for that exact reason -- and messaged him about it, suggesting he might want to release a bugfix version of that snapshot as a special 2.4-kernel-Puppy2, so that people who want to use a 2.4 could still have a mk.II Pup.

Since people seem rather interested, I thought maybe a bunch of us should take that snapshot and update it as much as possible to be like the regular Puppy2, releasing it as some kind of Legacy-Puppy2...

I think we can do things like compare the /etc and /root directories in both (with GTKdiff) to see how things have changed, thus knowing which scripts to change in the snapshot. Same with various packages that might have changed. Then we can remaster it and get a 2.4-kernel Puppy2!

I don't have that snapshot anymore and don't know if it's online anymore, so we might need someone to upload it somewhere.
Maybe we should also use the Puppy CVS repository for working on it?

If someone has that snapshot and can make tarballs out of the /etc and /root directories and post them here I'll start working on it right away (I'll only be able to download the iso in another ten days or so).

Anyone up to it? Stop whining and make Barry proud of his pups!

[MU]

The reason for the switch to 2.6 were massive bugs in older versions of unionfs.
Unionfs for Kernel 2.4 does not include the latest bugfixes needed for Puppy 2, that now uses unionfs not only for /usr , but for all folders.

So using Kernel 2.4 is no option for Puppy 2.

Instead, people might try to continue creating a Puppy 110.

Mark

[BarryK]

as i see it, the problems experienced with the 2.6 kernel on older hardware are
fairly limited. Some people have reported puppy2 running on their old
hardware when it didn't with puppy1, so the reverse has occurred.
Some of the bugs reported are of the kind that will be ironed out in time, for
example this acpi/apm issue, which amongst other things affects shutdown.

[Nathan F]

Well it's been a mixed bag for me really. On the whole I think that 2.6 is better for my hardware but it's not without it's problems.

Case in my nasty old Toshiba laptop (again with the Toshiba...) -

Under 2.4 I had to remaster the cd and remove all pcmcia support to get it to boot at all, or else pass 'pci=off' at the prompt effectively disabling everything useful except the processor, memory, and HD. Once I did this it was fine with the exception of no pcmcia, and in fact the internal modem works, sound works, video is fine, and am even able to use a little usb to ethernet adaptor in liu of a pcmcia card.

Move to 2.6 and it boots up flawlessly (after Barry fixed some sound issues) without any tampering on my part. A definate improvement. However, trying to use the usb to ethernet adaptor, after I found the correct module, the system hangs indefinately at modprobe. And the internal modem is buggy, only got it to connect a few times (I should mention it's a lucent type linmodem). So all in all evrything worls better except for no internet connection. I have not yet tried any pcmcia because I don't own any cards.

On my desktop Athlon K-6 2.4 and 2.6 both perform identically for all intents and purposes.

My newest box, a newish Compaq with an Athlon XP, 2.6 is a definate improvement. I have a front mounted flash card reader that was never recognized under 2.4, and the old kernel never got usb right on that machine either. In fact, up until now there was no version of Puppy that would run everything on this box. 102 which had an earlier 2.6 kernel picked up the usb but dropped sound, while 104 couldn't do either usb or sound. Once we added Alsa the sound issues went away but still no usb or card reader. But under Puppy2 with the 2.6 kernel every single piece of hardware is now recognized, just what one would expect to have happen with a newer kernel and a newer machine.

I know there have been several discussions about issues with linmodems and it is being worked on, so I'm not too concerned about that. I think the problems will probably go away eventually. Really I'm of a mind that 2.6 is the way to go, on the whole. A few months ago it was a completely different ballgame and the other distros were right to include both, but 2.6 has made great strides on older hardware and I suspect that it will continue to do so. I think the best thing to do would be to wait another month or two and upgrade to an even newer kernel, to take advantage of any more new bugfixes and hardware support. As for me I don't want to look back too much to the 2.4, I had too many problems that there was no real solution to.

You know, I do kind of like the idea of another 1.xx series release though. I liked 109 a lot but a few things really bothered me about it. I think there was enough room for improvement to justify another go, although I still want to focus as much attention as possible on helping with Puppy2.

Nathan

[raffy]

Good news: just tested early this week Puppy 2 (saved earlier as multisession) in a 64-MB, no HDD PC with the (bit troublesome) Intel chips. See the free space: 38.2, which became 36+ after Seamonkey was loaded.



It uses the CD drive for reading files to be loaded, which is kind of slow in this 300 Mhz PC, but its ability to run in an old and resource-hungry PC is impressive.

This is a plus vote for the use of the 2.6 kernel, but I welcome Dougal's idea. After all, kernel 2.4 is enjoyed by many people as a very stable kernel.

Note: I was unable to save that session - must be because of the old Plextor CD-RW or the slow CPU (or both?).

[Sage]

More or less the same mixed results here, too.
Better chance of booting 2.6 on older kit, but run into shutdown, sound and other issues with old and, disturbingly, modern HW.
After some web reports to that effect, had assumed that DSL had upgraded to 2.6 - it hasn't: still uses 2.4. Over a wider range of machines, DSL is more successful, on average, at getting more functions working. However, Puppy has a lot more going for it. So, hope Barry can continue his magic.

[kdulcimer]

And the internal modem is buggy, only got it to connect a few times (I should mention it's a lucent type linmodem). So all in all evrything worls better except for no internet connection.

Nathan, many dial-up Lucent modems stopped working with kernel 2.6. You might want to take a look at this thread on the PCLinuxOS forums, third post:

http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php?topic=7385.0

I'd just about given up on getting Linux online for myself (I'm on my 4th modem!), but I might give this one a try.

[klhrevolutionist]

Puppy2 is able to recognize all of my hardware.
And I have an older computer.

The reason that I am still using the puppy1 series is because I am not used to puppy2 yet.
There are some differences, but nothing that time can not cure.

I advocated for the move to 2.6 & from my own opinion Barry got it right. However some people that use puppy have older hardware mostly modems that might not function correctly with the 2.6, again time & responses to the developers will cure this.

If someone makes a 2.4 kernel compatible for puppy2 series this would be good too.

[Nathan F]

Actually I'm not having any more problems with the Lucent drivers now. I installed them into OneBone and was connected in about five minutes after reading how to use eznet. I'll probably start connecting this way from now oneven with a gui running because it's easier than gkdial for me.

Nathan