Which apps to kill to reduce load, conserve RAM?

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Subito Piano · #1 Post by **Subito Piano** » Thu 10 Jul 2008, 20:39

Hi! FINALLY got Puppy going well on my P1, 48MB RAM laptop, by using 1.09CE with a 256 MB swap. It's basically for recording (i can't get the wi-fi configured -- yet). I thought i'd need audacity but XS does a better job of recording, no skipping, etc.

My problem is that it still can freeze up or take forever. How can i help it run faster? I did a frugal install so as to save speed (as opposed to running the live-cd with save). I can kill rox (don't need icons). What else can i stop before beginning recording? I don't need to do anything else at the same time.

Also -- how do i keep any "unnecessary" background apps from starting at bootup? Are there some options to optimize my precious little RAM?

SirDuncan · #2 Post by **SirDuncan** » Thu 10 Jul 2008, 21:08

If you want to make the most use of your RAM, you need to do a full HD install instead of frugal. You can't use sqashfiles that way (not directly, anyway) and making backups is more difficult, but it does use less resources.

Subito Piano · #3 Post by **Subito Piano** » Thu 10 Jul 2008, 23:07

Thank you -- but i tried that to start with....i ran into too many problems. I mean, i've done mulitple boots and full Puppy installs, but this laptop is...well, OLD!

Yeah, i know...but it's rather a challenge for me.

If i can get Puppy to get on the net and work fairly well with AbiWord, etc., then i may ditch my DSL on HDA2 and replace it with a full install of Puppy. (I'd rather use Puppy but right now DSL is the only thing that has any speed and connects.) I also tried MicroMuppy, etc., but they are a little past my abilities and i don't have the time to learn...sigh...
So...that's why i'm trying to kill programs.

muggins · #4 Post by **muggins** » Fri 11 Jul 2008, 03:26

Subito Piano,

have you tried John Murga's puppy-2.02-opera.iso?

Subito Piano · #5 Post by **Subito Piano** » Fri 11 Jul 2008, 04:00

Yeah -- it's beyond me....

Windoze is there for my old MusicTime program, basically. DSL gets online and plays music but recording is bad (needs alsamixer?). Puppy has good sound, a little unstable, but no internet. Yiiii...

Right now i am trying out LuitLinux with preliminary success in both sound and 'net. We'll see....

[EDIT] -- LuitLinux -- nice idea... doesn't look like it's being kept up with...

Subito Piano · #6 Post by **Subito Piano** » Sat 12 Jul 2008, 00:20

Well--that was cool! Puppy remains pretty amazing. I managed to shut down rox-filer and blinky and kill the screensaver, then used XS sound editor for recording (off an old LP). It did a really nice job at 44,100 bit rate -- just right to process with gramofile and then finalize with audacity before burning to a CD. XS runs for about 15 minutes, after that it kinda gets lost in space

-- probably something i could figger out later.

Thanks for the help...this is a pretty friendly place to hang around.

Bruce B · #7 Post by **Bruce B** » Sat 12 Jul 2008, 03:28

If you are serious about making the best use of CPU resources
and RAM, you must do as SirDuncan said, make a Full Install.

The size of your distro won't make much difference.

Find out what's running and kill everything you don't need.

No wallpaper, no ROX, no desktop icons, no applets, no cupsd, on
and on.

If you only have one task you can try not using JWM

xwin myapp

You won't get the JWM decorations and support, but you may still
have the application functionality.

Do all this and you might be able to pull the base memory needed
to run X to around 18 to 20 MB

Subito Piano · #8 Post by **Subito Piano** » Sat 12 Jul 2008, 10:22

Good! I didn't know if i could run it from commandline -- or how to do it.

Thanks again.

Subito Piano · #9 Post by **Subito Piano** » Sat 12 Jul 2008, 20:44

OK - coupla questions
-- if i CNTL+ALT+BKSPACE into commandline, i have killed all apps, right?
-- at that point i can type xwin xs.tcl and the recorder does work for a while (but i think i'll hafta try a HD install again)
however, i COULD use gramofile -- i unzipped that, opened a terminal in the directory, and attempted to compile by issuing the MAKE command as per their instruction -- BUT Puppy does not recognize MAKE. How then do i compile? What is the Puppy version of the MAKE command?

olovram · #10 Post by **olovram** » Sun 13 Jul 2008, 03:40

you have to download the devx_xxx.sfs file ( xxx being your puppy version)

but it is pretty big, not sure how much, but pretty, so I dont think you'll be able to use it

Subito Piano · #11 Post by **Subito Piano** » Sun 13 Jul 2008, 04:44

Size? Well - i have a 5 GB partition for the Windoze/frugal...but a full HD install would be only around 100MB. HOWEVER, i am using 1.09CE -- no devxx available! There's a gramofile.pet for the 4x series and the 1 series won't touch it. I may hafta just keep working on getting the sound input to work in the DSL partition and use that. The laptop is SUCH a low-resource machine -- perhaps that makes it more DSL territory than Puppy. I prefer Puppy (easier to understand), but i think it was WhoDo or Lobster that mentioned DSL is best for <50MB (my laptop) and Puppy best for 50-128.
We'll see - i'm busy with Music Camp this week, i might play around with this some more when i get some free time and post back later in the week.

muggins · #12 Post by **muggins** » Sun 13 Jul 2008, 06:08

Eric has the development file for p1.09(44Mbytes) here.

And md5sum here

muggins · #13 Post by **muggins** » Sun 13 Jul 2008, 06:43

Subito,

are you sure that plinej's gramofile .pet doesn't work with 1.09? I just booted into 1.08, (which I think shares the same kernel as 1.09), converted the gramofile .pet to a .tgz file, extracted it to a temporary location, and it seems to work OK.

Subito Piano · #14 Post by **Subito Piano** » Sun 13 Jul 2008, 11:48

How did you convert it? (Tell me you just changed the extension!

)

muggins · #15 Post by **muggins** » Sun 13 Jul 2008, 12:15

Yes,

just rename the .pet to .tgz, then click to extract. Similarly, if you have problems with any .pup files, rename to .zip.

ARAN · #16 Post by **ARAN** » Sun 13 Jul 2008, 14:37

Also -- how do i keep any "unnecessary" background apps from starting at bootup? Are there some options to optimize my precious little RAM?

A Possibility is also to try to use the smallest availble Puppy Version for your purpose ?

PicoPup (8MB-ISO Console Based)
http://puppylinux.org/wiki/archives/old ... picopupmpd

PicoPupMPD∞ is the result of wanting to have a linux installation that would fit on an 8 MB Compact Flash card (what else do you do with such a tiny CF??) and include Music Player Daemon to play my FLAC and other music files.
I didn't see anything like it after searching a while and decided to use PuppyLinux 1.0.8r1 as a starting point.

Micro Muppy 002 (12 MB-Iso with Xvesa)
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=14918

It is an extremely small Puppy, based on Picopup (that is based on Puppy 108).
I added:
more USB-drivers,
Xvesa,
XFileExplorer,
Adie (Texteditor),
Shutterbug (make screenshots)
wmsetbg (set background via console)
rxvt
xmessage
Puppybasic

Subito Piano · #17 Post by **Subito Piano** » Mon 14 Jul 2008, 00:04

Yeah -- i have MicroMuppy. The thing is i don't know how to work with it, command line unzipping and all that, plus i'd have to get the sound libs and such. Soo.....it depends on how desperate i get! But as much as i enjoy learning this stuff, i have to stop when it gets in the way of family time and other responsibilities. The gramofile idea might end up working...we'll see. THANK YOU!!!!!

Subito Piano · #18 Post by **Subito Piano** » Wed 16 Jul 2008, 17:56

Thanks again to all! I finally was able to convert gramofile as per muggins' suggestion -- it works GREAT! (Did it see that it uses like 19KB of resources?!?!?!) In fact, i shut down rox-filer and Blinky and then was able to run the cd player, mixer, and recorded the cd with gramofile all together and it went for 40 minutes, apparently without a hitch! If i start it from the commandline, of course, i will have even more resources. This even with the frugal install.
SOOO -- thanks to EVERYONE for their help!

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Which apps to kill to reduce load, conserve RAM?

Which apps to kill to reduce load, conserve RAM?

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