Who's treated themselves to some new hardware recently?

[Mike Walsh]

I found a flat bed scanner in an alley, so it's new to me. As far as I can tell, it's in perfect working order.
But it uses a parallel port connection and I haven't been able to get it to work in Bionicpup64. http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=118649

I'm guessing you'd need something like one of these, Flash:-

https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?d=Parallel+to+USB+Adapter

But I'm doubtful as to whether a 4-series kernel would still retain driver compatibility for parallel-port stuff......and that's before you start looking around for software that would work with such an elderly item.

I wish you luck with it, but you may face an uphill struggle.


Mike.

[rockedge]

I think I can make a kernel that will support parallel ports....these are important for connecting to CNC machines and there has been some work done to include this in a Puppy Linux.

I may look into what it will require....otherwise there must be an adapter!

Any way these modules must be present in the kernel for Linux to access the port. And can be included I think in a series 4 or 5 kernel if so specified

Code: Select all

parport
parport_pc
ppdev

[ozsouth]

@rockedge, my 5.4.8 kernel has parport & parport_pc as modules, but ppdev 'is not set' - DOTconfig is easily changed for a new compile.

[Flash]

Thanks for the help, guys. In a separate thread, perdido found a Windows program that might work the scanner in Windows XP. I downloaded it but haven't tried it. I'd rather get the scanner working in Puppy. In the same post, perdido mentions several possible Linux programs that might do the job. I haven't looked into them yet.

@rockedge, if by "adapter" you mean a USB-to-parallel port adapter cord, I have two that I found in a junk pile at work. Puppy sees the converter chip in them. The adapter cords are cheap, less than $15, and readily available. They were intended for use with printers but I don't see why they won't work with any IEEE-1284 compliant device. This pdf even says they work with Linux and gives some instructions on how to proceed, but the instructions don't do me much good because apparently Bionicpup doesn't have all the stuff it needs and I don't have any sort of driver for the scanner.

[Mike Walsh]

Well, I've now taken the plunge & done a wee bit to 'future-proof' this new Pavilion tower where I can.

It came with 4 GB of DDR4 RAM, which I promptly doubled to 8 GB. I've now taken this to the next level, and treated myself to a 16 GB kit from Crucial.

My usual suppliers, Offtek here in the UK, wanted around GBP £100 for two 8 GB sticks by the time delivery costs were factored into it. I'd always thought Crucial were even more expensive, but was pleasantly surprised to find a 16 GB kit, with delivery, was nearly £30 less.....

So I 'went for it'..!

I think the 'Coffee Lake' Pentium G5400 should remain capable for a long time.


Mike.

[rockedge]

Hello Mike!

I also have 8 gigs on one machine and 16 gigs in another..both run Puppy's,Dog's, and WeeDoglinux's very well. I have like 15 - 30 variations of Puppy Linux alone on just one of the disk drives and I can't decide which runs the fastest or smoothest....so close hard to tell. That amount of RAM running lets say a Bionic64 opens up wide the possibilities of RAM intensive work like editing video, graphics or recording audio and producing electronic music

I do have a 2002 IBM T-42 laptop that just cranks on UPUP 3.9.9.2 Raring with 1 gig and an ancient CPU. Can't kill it...no battery, no hard drive and it's one of the most reliable working dogs I have laying around in semi-retirement

[bigpup]

Just got a new HP Stream 14 laptop.
Got it at that big box store, on clearance, for a ridicules low price ($138)
Has Intel Celeron N4000 processor
Intel UHD Graphics 600
4GB 2400 DDR4 RAM
32GB internal emmc drive
WIFI
3 USB ports
HDMI port.

Had Windows 10s on it, but that is totally removed.
It now, only has a frugal install of Bionicpup64 8.0.
Everything on it is working OK, with Puppy Linux.

Windows 10s was using up 16GB of that 32GB internal drive.

Makes a nice Puppy Linux laptop.

Has a normal UEFI bios, that was easy to setup to boot, something other than Windows.

Now I have to load it up, with probably, a few other versions of Puppy.

[Mike Walsh]

@ bigpup:-





Mike.

[dancytron]

I bought an:
HP 2540P NOTEBOOK PC - 12.1" DISPLAY - INTEL I7-640LM CORE I7 2.13GHZ CPU - 160GB HDD - 4GB RAM - DVDRW that originally had Windows 7 on it.

for $95 including shipping and sales tax from the giant computer leasing/recycling warehouse.

It is an HP Elite Book, which is HP extra nice executive line of laptops.

Stretch Puppy, Tahr Puppy, Precise puppy all booted from a manual frugal install and appear to work in all respects, including wi-fi. Bluetooth not tested.

Debian Dog stretch installation from my other computer pasted over and works.

My main instance has become a Debian Dog Buster with Chrome from the build script.

Bill's bluetooth tool works flawlessly.

I like it. It has a great keyboard and a very well built expensive feel to it.

It's the golden age of cheap computers.