(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

There's nothing in XTRA-PC of any interest to a Puppyist. It's just a Linux preinstalled on a flash drive, with a reasonable selection of the standard productivity apps and tech support to hold your hand. The target customer is someone who doesn't know anything about Linux and doesn't want to, just wants to make an XP-era computer reasonably functional again.

I see lots of comments complaining that anyone can make their own bootable Linux flash drive. That's missing the point. You can bake your own bread and change the oil in your car yourself, too. MOST people are perfectly happy paying someone else to do these things.

It's great that the 14.04 LTS series of Ubuntu still works on my (ten year) old machine even when so many other distros don't, including later versions of Ubuntu.

I've just installed Kubuntu 14.04.5 on my machine and performed a full distro upgrade, only to find that LibreOffice was still at version 4. I found these instructions for installing the latest version of LibreOffice in Ubuntu, and fortunately they work even in this release;

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:libreoffice/libreoffice-prereleases
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libreoffice

https://askubuntu.com/questions/1000061 ... -in-ubuntu

So I can use LibreOffice 6 on this old machine! (I think I can in Debian Testing as well, but I've yet to try that out.)

Merry Christmas.

,
I updated a Manjaro install that I did a few months ago, works well.

--------------------------------------------
Edit: also updated this Manjaro install:

System: Host: bill-pc Kernel: 4.20.0-1-MANJARO x86_64 bits: 64 Desktop: Xfce 4.13.2git-UNKNOWN Distro: Manjaro Linux
Machine: Type: Desktop System: Hewlett-Packard product: 200-009 v: N/A serial: <root required>
Mobo: Hewlett-Packard model: 2B38 v: 1.02 serial: <root required> UEFI: AMI v: 80.03 date: 12/15/2014
CPU: Dual Core: Intel Celeron 2957U type: MCP speed: 971 MHz min/max: 800/1400 MHz
Graphics: Device-1: Intel Haswell-ULT Integrated Graphics driver: i915 v: kernel
Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.3 driver: intel unloaded: modesetting resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz
OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Haswell Mobile v: 4.5 Mesa 18.3.1
Network: Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet driver: r8168
Device-2: Broadcom and subsidiaries BCM43142 802.11b/g/n driver: wl
Drives: Local Storage: total: 29.82 GiB used: 13.17 GiB (44.2%)
Weather: Temperature: 3 C (37 F) Conditions: Overcast Current Time: Sat 05 Jan 2019 12:36:24 PM EST (America/Toronto)
Info: Processes: 163 Uptime: 1h 08m Memory: 1.80 GiB used: 705.0 MiB (38.2%) Shell: bash inxi: 3.0.28

Works great.
---------------------------------------------
EDIT: Also updated this install:
System: Host: bill-pc Kernel: 4.20.0-1-MANJARO x86_64 bits: 64 Desktop: Xfce 4.12.4 Distro: Manjaro Linux
Machine: Type: Laptop System: Apple product: Macmini6,1 v: 1.0 serial: <root required>
Mobo: Apple model: Mac-031AEE4D24BFF0B1 v: Macmini6,1 serial: <root required> UEFI: Apple
v: MM61.88Z.0106.B03.1211161202 date: 11/16/2012
CPU: Dual Core: Intel Core i5-3210M type: MT MCP speed: 2013 MHz min/max: 1200/3100 MHz
Graphics: Device-1: Intel 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics driver: i915 v: kernel
Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.3 driver: intel unloaded: modesetting resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz
OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Ivybridge Mobile v: 4.2 Mesa 18.3.1
Network: Device-1: Broadcom and subsidiaries NetXtreme BCM57766 Gigabit Ethernet PCIe driver: tg3
Device-2: Broadcom and subsidiaries BCM4331 802.11a/b/g/n driver: bcma-pci-bridge
Drives: Local Storage: total: 465.76 GiB used: 17.65 GiB (3.8%)
Weather: Temperature: -13 C (9 F) Conditions: Partly Cloudy Current Time: Mon 07 Jan 2019 05:38:49 AM EST (America/Toronto)
Info: Processes: 186 Uptime: 18m Memory: 15.57 GiB used: 658.0 MiB (4.1%) Shell: bash inxi: 3.0.28

tried antiX the other day - base version
quite fast, low RAM consumption, lower than puppy, only marginally though.
multiple WMs
dropbox works OOTB without asking u to move it to ext4 partition
video tearing is there in browsers but so is in puppy, until u modify the xconf file in etc
a good control center, aggregating all the system control options
i dont know, porting jwm files over to antiX might just work, havent tried yet. holidays over now
back to work

Good for you! AntiX is one of the best distros out there, especially for people like me with older computers. I installed the latest version od AntiX, 17.3.1 (64-bit), this week and it's working well and seems very economical on resources (the default wallpaper of a train station in the evening is surprisingly effective too);

https://distrowatch.com/images/cgfjoewdlbc/antix.png

BTW, although I haven't done any comparison test between the system resources the 64-bit version uses compared to the 32-bit, I haven't so far noticed any great difference between the two.

AntiX is good no doubt but puppy has perfect integration with JWM. So easy to modify JWM here as opposed to Antix. There I had to make changes in xml even for a little change (not that inconvenient) but its always preferable to have a gui especially for a gui junkie like me

And yes for all practical purposes puppy seems more resource efficient and practical

Fair enough but I've never found a way in jwm to display links to all my open windows, as I can in fluxbox and icewm (openbox too if I remember rightly), and that's something I often need to do. Also, in the past there was a bug in either jwm or softmaker office which meant that you couldn't maximise a window in, say, textmaker when you were in jwm (there's a thread on it somewhere here).

stumbled across q4os the other day
its most notable feature - plays tear free videos ootb on my system.
i have tried various distros but there is video tearing across all
But no such issue in q4os. it seems to be most suited for my hardware for playing netflix at the moment.
also with lxde it isn't resource hungry at all

Colonel Panic wrote:Fair enough but I've never found a way in jwm to display links to all my open windows, as I can in fluxbox and icewm (openbox too if I remember rightly), and that's something I often need to do. Also, in the past there was a bug in either jwm or softmaker office which meant that you couldn't maximise a window in, say, textmaker when you were in jwm (there's a thread on it somewhere here).

Bookmarks menu button / recently visited?

nic007 wrote:

Colonel Panic wrote:Fair enough but I've never found a way in jwm to display links to all my open windows, as I can in fluxbox and icewm (openbox too if I remember rightly), and that's something I often need to do. Also, in the past there was a bug in either jwm or softmaker office which meant that you couldn't maximise a window in, say, textmaker when you were in jwm (there's a thread on it somewhere here).

Bookmarks menu button / recently visited?

Thanks for replying. I've looked but can't see any bookmarks menu (I'm in Slacko 6.9.9.9 right now). Joe might be able to correct me if he was here but I think it's something that just isn't a feature of jwm at the moment.

sickpig wrote:stumbled across q4os the other day
its most notable feature - plays tear free videos ootb on my system.
i have tried various distros but there is video tearing across all
But no such issue in q4os. it seems to be most suited for my hardware for playing netflix at the moment.
also with lxde it isn't resource hungry at all

Do you have any trouble getting wifi to work in Q40s? I put it on a little old laptop I put together (had a couple of HP Pavilion DV2000, and stuck a good screen on one with cracked screen but good motherboard, etc. etc.). Anyhow,...Trinity desktop did OK setting up wifi,...but can't get LXQT to work. The Trinity desktop is nice and quick on old laptops, though. I really prefer LXQT desktop,...but so far,...no wifi.

EDIT: oh nevermind,...seems that even in the Trinity desktop on Q4os,..wifi won't work for me on these old laptops. No problem at all connecting with a Puppy (Xenial 7.0.1).
I really like the idea of Q4os, though. Nice small Debian distro that works on older stuff (if I could only get the wifi going).
I'm going to go look for another small distro (besides Antix) to slap on and see what happens. The distro HAS to fit on a CD, though (this old laptop won't do DVDs or USB boots).

nitehawk wrote:

sickpig wrote:stumbled across q4os the other day
its most notable feature - plays tear free videos ootb on my system.
i have tried various distros but there is video tearing across all
But no such issue in q4os. it seems to be most suited for my hardware for playing netflix at the moment.
also with lxde it isn't resource hungry at all

Do you have any trouble getting wifi to work in Q40s? I put it on a little old laptop I put together (had a couple of HP Pavilion DV2000, and stuck a good screen on one with cracked screen but good motherboard, etc. etc.). Anyhow,...Trinity desktop did OK setting up wifi,...but can't get LXQT to work. The Trinity desktop is nice and quick on old laptops, though. I really prefer LXQT desktop,...but so far,...no wifi.

EDIT: oh nevermind,...seems that even in the Trinity desktop on Q4os,..wifi won't work for me on these old laptops. No problem at all connecting with a Puppy (Xenial 7.0.1).
I really like the idea of Q4os, though. Nice small Debian distro that works on older stuff (if I could only get the wifi going).
I'm going to go look for another small distro (besides Antix) to slap on and see what happens. The distro HAS to fit on a CD, though (this old laptop won't do DVDs or USB boots).

Nitehawk have you tried Austrumi? It's based on Slackware but it does fit on a CD (don't know about the wi-fi though).

Colonel Panic wrote:
Nitehawk have you tried Austrumi? It's based on Slackware but it does fit on a CD (don't know about the wi-fi though).

No,..I've actually never fooled with that. Was hoping for a Debian based distro, though. I got the old laptop to actually TRY and boot from a USB flashdrive, and burned BunsenLabs to one. So far it won't boot. May try CrunchBang ++

Also,...I have used Bodhi before, but It wouldn't let me add much software to it (was very limited it what you could download and add). Or so it seemed to me.

The laptop is about 1.9 Ghz,..with 2Gb ram...250G hard drive. Not too bad for an oldie. Think it is from 2006. It has trouble with most Puppy distros,. (as it does Antix) possibly because of the Nvidia chip playing bad with JWM and it's pinboard.
It will work fine for a long time,....then flash a warning about having no pinboard, and the graphics go all distorted and "wookie". So far Xenial Puppy is still working on a partition. (Fingers crossed).

OK,..wish me luck. I've been using Salix on my main computer for some time now. I tried putting it on the laptop last night, but the install looked pretty intimidating! This 32 bit "mini" install looks very Slackware "Old School" stuff. All text, no graphic. I've done that before, but it's been awhile, and not on an old laptop. Still,...I am very fond of Slackware, and Salix has the added Gslapt to add software. I'm giving the install a try,...

EDIT" Well,...scratch that. Laptop refused to install from the USB. Back to the drawing board.

Nitie, how about Tinycore? I tried it a couple of years ago from one of these "5 distros on 1 DVD" disks that get given away with Linux magazines over here and I was pleasantly surprised by the results. It comes with a very minimal set of software as standard though so you have to install things like a web browser, office software etc. yourself.

Or, John Biles's Legacy might work on your laptop. It used to be one of my favourite distros when I had my old computer but it won't work on this one (sadly).

I have a similar problem to yours in that my computer is old and ailing and won't boot a lot of modern distros, but I've found there are some distros it will work with (most Puppies, Debian, Devuan, 32-bit Slackware and Ubuntu 14.04), and so as long as I confine myself to those I'm OK. (And Tinycore; I'm posting this message from it now just to show it's possible).

I wasn't able to play a video with accompanying sound when I was using it though it may just have been that I failed to figure out a way to do this.

Hi ETP (and Billtoo, who's also been posting about Manjaro lately);

ETP wrote:Manjaro-18-stable-x86_64 (Cinnamon community version)

Never thought that I would say this but it's current boot speed & subsequent performance trounces most Pups and Dogs that I have used.

I, too, have had a play or three with the most recent Manjaro (Xfce) - just running as a live session from a USB 2.0 stick on an old Intel Core2 Duo P8600 w/4 Gb RAM laptop. The speed/response of the desktop is indeed quite phenomenal - pages in Firefox seem to open & display almost instantly, as do other applications/processes. A fantastic distro! Just wish I had some room to install it on one of my old laptops floating around here...

This has to make me wonder if there's something inherently different or unique about Manjaro/Arch, compared to other mainstream Linux distributions...( ) Manjaro sure appears as if it would make an absolute stellar run-from-RAM/USB, Puppy/Dog-like system! Just curious as to where this "magic" response and speed might originate from...

Bob

Colonel Panic wrote:Nitie, how about Tinycore? I tried it a couple of years ago from one of these "5 distros on 1 DVD" disks that get given away with Linux magazines over here and I was pleasantly surprised by the results. It comes with a very minimal set of software as standard though so you have to install things like a web browser, office software etc. yourself.


Or, John Biles's Legacy might work on your laptop. It used to be one of my favourite distros when I had my old computer but it won't work on this one (sadly).

Never tried TinyCore,..looks very interesting though. And John Biles' Legacy was one of my all time favorites! But looks like I may just have a "winner" for my old laptop. BunsenLabs seems to be installing right now as we speak. Looks really nice,..and my wifi even ran in the live cd version. I like.

Moat wrote:Hi ETP (and Billtoo, who's also been posting about Manjaro lately);

ETP wrote:Manjaro-18-stable-x86_64 (Cinnamon community version)

Never thought that I would say this but it's current boot speed & subsequent performance trounces most Pups and Dogs that I have used.

I, too, have had a play or three with the most recent Manjaro (Xfce) - just running as a live session from a USB 2.0 stick on an old Intel Core2 Duo P8600 w/4 Gb RAM laptop. The speed/response of the desktop is indeed quite phenomenal - pages in Firefox seem to open & display almost instantly, as do other applications/processes. A fantastic distro! Just wish I had some room to install it on one of my old laptops floating around here...

This has to make me wonder if there's something inherently different or unique about Manjaro/Arch, compared to other mainstream Linux distributions...( ) Manjaro sure appears as if it would make an absolute stellar run-from-RAM/USB, Puppy/Dog-like system! Just curious as to where this "magic" response and speed might originate from...

Bob

Hi Bob,

Phenomenal is an apt description. I have been desperately been trying to account for it's all round speed.
It is as fast as some of the old very light weight Pups loaded entirely into RAM but is in my case, running as a full install.
Easy access to the AUR is a bonus. In the unlikely event that a package you require is not in the Manjaro repositories
or the AUR all is not lost if a deb is available. In the AUR is a package named debtap which converts deb packages to arch packages!
If you only have a pet package you can first use Fredx181's pet2deb converter.
Yes, I am smitten with it but as everything just works, it does not present the fun/challenge/satisfaction that Puppy provides.
Manjaro is a large fully stocked distro and is therefore best left as a full install. It makes the best use of systemd
that I have seen to date and everything appears to be in turbo mode.

ETP wrote:I have been desperately been trying to account for it's all round speed..

Systemd?

rcrsn51 wrote:

ETP wrote:I have been desperately been trying to account for it's all round speed..

Systemd?

Well, I kind of wouldn't think so. I've a number of distros using systemd, of which I've tweaked a bit in order to eliminate unneeded background processes - and still, none are nearly as fast or responsive "feeling" as Manjaro once up and running. (in fact, if anything, I've found boot speeds, at least, to be noticeably slower using systemd vs. older inits)

What little I've been able to find on the 'net mentions Manjaro's use of a custom kernel - supposedly tweaked/optimized specifically for desktop use - vs. generic, usually Debian-sourced "jack-of-all-trades" kernels. I'd guess there might be some particular tweaks in regards to the use of RAM, as the speed I noticed felt well beyond what one would expect in reading and writing to/from even the USB2 stick I was testing from.

I meant (and forgot) to check if the "preload" package/deamon was installed and running OOTB, which could account for some of the difference (although I've used it before, and didn't really notice such significant differences in application load/execution times).

That settles it... I just need to install Manjaro on one of my boxes and get familiar with it for a good while! Hmm... which box, which spare HD, which Manjaro edition...

Bob