Does precise puppy 5.7.1 retro support AMD K6-2 cpu?

[fronkonstin]

Does precise puppy 5.7.1 retro support AMD K6-2 cpu? If not, which is the most updated puppy supporting that cpu?. Thanks in advance.

[RetroTechGuy]

Does precise puppy 5.7.1 retro support AMD K6-2 cpu? If not, which is the most updated puppy supporting that cpu?. Thanks in advance.

A machine that old might struggle with the newer Puppies... (even if it runs).

I've had good luck with 5.25 Retro, load wise (though my 333MHz laptop strains to run that -- I've rolled it back to 4.12 Retro).

What is your CPU and how much RAM?

5.25 Retro thread:

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=67724

[Dewbie]

fronkonstin wrote:

Does precise puppy 5.7.1 retro support AMD K6-2 cpu?

Read Jades' posts over here.

If not, which is the most updated puppy supporting that cpu?

Wary.

[mikeb]

214x maybe.

When we had a k6 machine I usually ran puppy 2.02 on it.... that gave it useable performance and could play medium resolution xvids.

mike

[fronkonstin]

Thank you for your answers.

It's a K6-2 500Mhz, 256Mbytes RAM. Not mine, but it is in a relative's house who I'm visiting in the near future. That's why I want to know in advance which puppy distro I should provide to upgrade that computer.

So I understand my options are:
- Lucid 525 Retro-2.6.30.5
- Wary 5.5
- Or maybe trying another distro like AntiX (according to its home page: "All versions use kernel 3.7.10 - customised for antiX to allow booting with PI and AMD K5/K6 CPUs"). But, if possible, I'd prefer a recent Puppy instead because I tried it with other laptops with only 256Mbytes RAM and I know it works nicely.

[RetroTechGuy]

Thank you for your answers.

It's a K6-2 500Mhz, 256Mbytes RAM. Not mine, but it is in a relative's house who I'm visiting in the near future. That's why I want to know in advance which puppy distro I should provide to upgrade that computer.

I have an old Compaq laptop, Intel PII, 256 MB RAM. I put on a 512 MB swap partition (I use the rule of thumb that you should have at least 512 MB memory RAM+Swap).

I recently rolled it back to 4.12 Retro, but it ran 5.25 Retro OK (I think it was just a little too heavy for this machine). Your machine is a little faster, and should do better. The problem with 4.12 is that the browser is considerable out of date (and I'm nervous about trying an upgrade).

It ran ttuuxxx's 2.14X OK, but the keyboard map was all goofed up (likely because it's an old laptop, rather than a desktop).

I've been meaning to try Wary on it, but haven't done so yet.

(this old machine is just a test-bed, that I tinker with from time to time -- I have much faster laptops, and much faster desktops for regular use)

So I understand my options are:
- Lucid 525 Retro-2.6.30.5
- Wary 5.5
- Or maybe trying another distro like AntiX (according to its home page: "All versions use kernel 3.7.10 - customised for antiX to allow booting with PI and AMD K5/K6 CPUs"). But, if possible, I'd prefer a recent Puppy instead because I tried it with other laptops with only 256Mbytes RAM and I know it works nicely.

I would give Wary a try.

Based on what I've seen with 5.25 Retro, it is virtually guaranteed to work (I have not yet run across a machine that it didn't work on) -- so a good backup plan.

The real trouble you will have is picking a browser. My 333 mentioned above would really struggle with Firefox (which has becomes a hideous memory hog). Seamonkey works OK (though I haven't pushed it very hard).

I'm sure that if you ask that question (which browser), you'll get about 20 different answers...

[ally]

why not put a few builds on the machine and see which one works (or like) best?

[RetroTechGuy]

why not put a few builds on the machine and see which one works (or like) best?

Yes! Easy enough to put multiple frugal installs...

[mikeb]

Out of date browsers run well ... I finally migrated to firefox 3.6...then there's opera 10 which is very good in terms of ram and disk space..
4.12 should be fine with recentish browsers....
One determining factor is the level of linux support for the graphics card... for one old machine linux was a dead loss and XP flew for that very reason.

mike

[Dewbie]

Here's a fast, up-to-date browser.
(Read closely, though; it has some limitations.)

And here's another issue with the K6-2.
(Again, read closely.)

[fronkonstin]

Here's a fast, up-to-date browser.
(Read closely, though; it has some limitations.)

Thanks for the clue. I know Qtweb. I use it frequently, even on Windows, as a portable browser. Last version 3.8.5 at this moment, works nice on that platform. I haven't tested it on puppy yet.

And here's another issue with the K6-2.
(Again, read closely.)

I'm reluctant to use old Java versions because of security bugs, but this is good to know, sure. Thanks

[fronkonstin]

Re-reading the release notes for 5.7.1 Retro (http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/precis ... -5.7.1.htm), it says:

The Retro 3.2.48 kernel is configured for a minimum i486 CPU, no PAE support (so will not recognise more than 4GB RAM), supports the old ISA and EISA cards, and true-SCSI drives. The Modern-flavour 3.9.11 kernel requires a i686 CPU minimum (which is the vast majority), will recognise more than 4GB RAM, will not work with ISA/EISA.

(and Jades' tests referred above mentions 5.6.1-final, not 5.7.1 Retro)

So I understand 5.7.1 Retro was intended to support K6-2 CPUs. Does it works? And, if not working, should that be considered as a bug?

[mikeb]

Lack of SSE can be a problem (think its that one so some apps wont work regardless of the base. Support for such hardware will not be so wonderful regardless of the retro title with newer linux releases and even if it works will be more bogged down... unless you like slow

armpits

mike